Chipping away at the chipping away. The sill is getting close to completion. It employs sliding dovetails, which I might more usually avoid in favor of other connections, as the assembly sequence for the piece is driving a lot of the joint design decisions. I did thoroughly consider a couple of other options, but this one made the most sense given the conditions.
Here you can see one of the sill corners with the nosepiece partly slid into place:
There’s a floating tenon fitted to each of the corners to check that the sill assembly fits well onto the lower frame assembly.
Here’s a view of the sill sitting atop the lower frame as I complete a trial assembly:
Using my Knipex plier wrench with a couple of end grain clamping cauls lets me do a bit of grain compression of the dovetail males to achieve what I feel to be a good fit:
The nose lengths are meant to be asymmetrical, in case you were wondering. It’s a solution to connecting the sill parts together and also giving room for the post tenon to connect and be pegged in a demountable fashion.
The sill assembly is then flipped over and placed so that the floating tenons begin to engage in their corresponding mortises in the lower frame:
It seems to go together without issue:
Another view – at this stage the lower frame has not received any profiling yet, so this is not the intended final appearance by any stretch:
The nose treatments are yet to be chamfered too. Still mulling that over.
Another view, an overview of the lowest framing elements assembled together:
Next step was to process the sliding dovetail mortises for the three battens which engage with both the lower frame and the associated floor panel:
And here are those battens, waiting for their chance to be fitted up:
Three of the mortises are cleaned out, while the opposing three have been dovetailed but not yet cleaned out:
Another couple of days should see these through. A cold snap however will keep me out of the shop for the next couple of days, so I guess i will be working on drawing study on the computer.
All for now- thanks for visiting the Carpentry Way. Post 20 follows in this thread.
Looking good, Chris! Those nose treatments are especially cool.
Brian,
glad you like those nose shapes – and that you can comment again on posts here. The nose treatment is designed to work with the molded profile that the lower frame bottom arris will receive, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that comes out.
Chris,
those dovetails look so crisp and clean !
And l really enjoy the shop photos of two different breeds of horses working together for the common good.
It’s funny, when I look at the photos i feel bad that I’m showing pieces that haven’t been finish planed and have their little glitches. Glad you like it though – and good to have the feedback! Thanks Tom.