Post 19 in a series describing the design and construction of a joined coffee table with a bubinga frame, plate glass top, and a framed shelf with wenge panel.
The next step in the process was to fit the bubinga dovetailed batten to the underside of the wenge shelf. This took some clean up of the excess congealed oil, and a little adjusting of the fit, but the batten went in nice and snug:
With the batten in, I could then assemble the log side rails to the batten’s dovetailed end tenon, simultaneously engaging the tongue along the panel edge:
Here, both long rails are seated in place:
Then I offered up each sub-assembly of joined short rails as i had shown being put together in the previous post:
Here’s a close up of one of the joints going together:
It took a bit of massaging things back and forth – here the other end assembly or three short rails is fitted:
A few more adjustments were required to center the panel to the frame all around:
Then it was time to fit and drive in the shachi-sen, which, the way I do them, are tapered parallelogram pins:
Trimmin’ time:
The completed connection, though I need to smooth out and clean the joint faces somewhat yet:
On the underside of the table, one last step remained which was to make the tapered wedging pins, kusabi-sen, which lock the dovetailed batten and the long rails together. Here, the pins are slipped into position:
Then I used a drift and hammer to drive the pins into place:
The kusabi pin is now fully in:
Next step was another round of flattening the wiping varnish on the shelf’s top surface, which I do with a block and 800 grit wet/dry paper:
Next, a look at the underside of the assembled frame and panel shelf – nice to have all those pieces together and the joinery all went well:
I wiped the underside of the shelf and frame with another bit of oil, and placed it with the table top frame. Soon, probably tomorrow, these parts will be getting together with the legs:
I moved the holly flower carving, which I showed at the close of the previous post, along to the 95% mark today, and worked the four leveler feet a bit further along on the lathe. They’re coming along fairly well and I hope to have them complete tomorrow as well.
All for now – thanks for your visit. Comments always welcome. On to post 20