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[Coop]

The jig. The height setting on the Domino are metric and even after @Chet provided me with a conversion chart that he had made, I still had a problem with it. For simple edge to edge glue ups, I had no problems, just select the setting closest to the center of the boards. Where there is an off set, such as for my legs where I wanted a reveal, I was constantly having to measure and re-measure to figure it out. So I cut a blank to 2” square and cut mortises to all of the settings and labeled them. The ones shown are for 5x30 mm and opposite side are cut for the 8x22 mm tenons. As I cut all of my mortises referenced off of the top surface, I simply measure down  with a steel ruler from the top of the guide and do my math from there. It makes life easier for a simpleton like myself. 

[Coop]

I thought I would be cutting BB ends along with @Bushwacked but that won’t be the case. The walnut for my top is left from some that I cut down years ago. The cabinet length was based on these boards and it was close. After milling the walnut down to 3/4” and cutting the edges to be glue friendly, I realized that I had screwed the pooch! With 3” bb ends, I forgot to allow for the 1.5” tongue loss on each end. Today I went to my wood supplier and purchased 18 bf at $10.25 per. Tomorrow, back to the machines to get it where I won’t need a bb end. I’ll save the original walnut for another day, another project. 
Marc once said, “sometimes your work the wood, other times, the wood works you! “

[Coop]

All did not go well. After spending considerable time and money on new walnut boards, I’m not pleased with the looks after planing them. Way lighter than I like or anticipated.

I will be using bb ends attached with the Domino and homemade tenons. I will make them wider than the store bought which will not only give me added strength but also give me more meat to drill elongated holes in all but the center, for draw bored dowels. I wanted to do an under bevel on the top but given that the bb ends will extend beyond the front and back edges a tad, this is no longer an option. 

[Woodenskye (Bryan)]

Coop, I think it looks good.  I think it appears light because of the 3 & 4 boards from the left.  They appear lighter, plus they draw the eye more.  Not sure how you will finish, and I’m by no means a great finisher, but maybe you could do a very light wash coat with some tinted shellac or something and maybe it will add a little darkness to the color.

[Coop]

Bryan, thanks for the input. Lord knows I have changed directions many times due to opinions of others. The finish process is to be blonde shellac on everything except the top which would get a gloss coat of ARS. Then all will get multiple coats of GF water based satin top coat. Fortunately or unfortunately, I’ve never had the need to alter the color of wood and just the thought scares the bejeebers out of me. FYI, I did wipe some mineral spirits onto the new wood and wasn’t overly impressed. 
Still, giving your idea of a wash coat into consideration, do you or others have a “tone/tint” of shellac in mind? 

[Woodenskye (Bryan)]

Take some time and watch Charles Neil.  He has some great stuff about coloring. Here is an example

 

[Kev]

I think you have most of the makings there for a good looking top!

I would purchase one more straight grained board as wide as possible.  I would then center the matched cathedral boards with the 2 boards (picture) on the left on either side of the cathedrals.  From there, I would take the new wide board and rip it in half to make up the width (placed on each side) needed for the top.  In other words, center the cathedral boards and surround them with the straight grain..

Hope that made sense?  I just got home from driving all night long.

[Coop]

Thanks Kev. I see where you are going with the suggestion. I believe I will just go with the bb end without sinking more bucks into this project. Obviously I didn’t see this coming with the cathedral grain and it being lighter than expected from the pick at the lumber yard. The boards just kind of looked the same in rough form. How do you and others go about selecting the right boards in rough cut at your suppliers? Perhaps a topic in the near future videoed at your source for an upcoming project? 

[Kev]

21 minutes ago, Coop said:

Thanks Kev. I see where you are going with the suggestion. I believe I will just go with the bb end without sinking more bucks into this project. Obviously I didn’t see this coming with the cathedral grain and it being lighter than expected from the pick at the lumber yard. The boards just kind of looked the same in rough form. How do you and others go about selecting the right boards in rough cut at your suppliers? Perhaps a topic in the near future videoed at your source for an upcoming project? 

I went through this a lot with the recent African Mahogany builds..  Sometimes you just have to skip plane them to know exactly what you have.  When you're in the store, you have to read the end grain to get a rough idea of what the surface grain is going to be.  I always try to pick boards that have some 1/4 sawn in them so that I can match them up.

[Coop]

I glued up the original walnut boards for the top and squared the ends using  a circ saw and straight edge. I moved the straight edge over a 1/16” or so and used a hand held router and an up cut straight bit to really clean up the ends. As mentioned, the bb ends will be attached using the domino and draw bore dowels. The hole in the center tenon will be 1/4” and as the others will be elongated to allow for wood movement, I cut homemade tenons to 1.5” wide. The mortises in the top were cut using the Domino in three separate plunges.

I cut the bb ends to size and marked the center lines for the mortises to correspond to the marks on the top. The mortises in the bb ends were cut to extend 1/8” on both sides of those in the top, except for the center ones and they are 1.5” wide. 

The tenons are then glued into the mortises in the top. These will be rigid. While the glue dried, I rounded over the front and back edges with a 1/16” round over bit.

Using the centerline marks on the bb ends, I drilled 1/4” holes, 1/2” from the inside edges. I then slid the bb ends onto the tenons on the top, clamped the ends to the top and using the same 1/4” Fortsner bit, I marked the holes into the tenons. I then extended these marks 1/16” of an inch closer to the edge adjoining the top panel to allow for the draw bore dowel. I then drilled two 1/4” holes in each tenon, thus making the hole 1/2” wide to allow for movement. The holes were cleaned up using a chisel and rat tail file.

After dry fitting the pieces together, I removed the ends and cut 1/4” dowels and tapered one end to help guide it thru the holes in the tenon. I applied glue to the two center tenons and mortises as well as in these holes. The three pieces were then put back into clamps. The two center dowels were tapped into place, extending proud of the top and bottom. The remains dowels were then hammered in and glue was applied to the top ends of the dowel and tapped in further about 1/16” or so to secure it but not so far that the glue would reach the tenon.

With the glue wiped clean, I’ll let this set overnight and trim the dowels off tomorrow.

 

[Kev]

Nice work @Coop!  That's really looking awesome!

[Bushwacked]

great work there! 

In all my video watching ... never did making my own tennons come across my mind! I think that would be a lot easier to do on bigger pieces like ours. I think if I would have thought of this, I would have gone that route instead of what I did.

I guess next time!