WEIkly Newsletter
This was a productive week for the Wood Enterprise Institute team as we begin to dry fit the different parts of the table. Looking into one particular aspect of the table that has been constructed in the last week are the dowel pegs which will be used to connect the bottom apron and the leg. The apron is a piece that allows for seamless mortis and tenon joint connection to the top slab of the table. Then dowels will be hammered in and give the option of disassembling the table for easier transportation if need be. This task did not come without its challenges with several attempts at constructing a circular piece of wood being unsuccessful before a solution was found.
The first attempt involved using a tenon cutter attached to a hand held drill that would take the rotating blades to shave off the corners of the wood and create a cylinder. This tool also gave the luxury of having each dowel drilled come out with the same diameter. But the issues were observed quickly when the sycamore being used for the pegs proved to be too strong to keep the drill steady, and therefore uneven pegs were the result. With this discovered the next plan of action was to attach the dowel cutter drill bit onto the drill press with the thought that it would steady the blades further. And again an obstacle arose as we could not secure the pieces of wood enough so they began to move.
Finally after some consultations a solution was reached on how to create the uniform diameter dowel pegs. The solution being to manipulate the router table in a way that would round over a corner of a perfectly square piece of wood when pushed through the blades. To be more specific, the fence and the blade height were the two factors that could alter how much or how little material the machine took off on each pass. So the ultimate goal was to adjust both of these factors enough that there would be no rifts or bumps on the final dowel, and most importantly that they were circular. This proved to be the most efficient process because once the time was taken to make the right changes to the machine, all it takes is 4 passes with a piece of sycamore to create the final product. As of now the dowel pegs are set to be dry tested once the holes have been drilled out of the legs.
Looking around at the rest of the Wood Enterprise Institute laboratory, several other interesting but beneficial processes are go on as well. For example some of the table tops have cracks and splits in them so a team member is working on bowties to connect these imperfections while reducing the risk of further damages. The bowtie is a piece of wood shaped like a bowtie that spreads across the crack and sealed down. Another project in progress is the final chiseling of holes on the table top or the leg pieces to allow everything to fit together seamlessly with little effort. And finally some of the team members are beginning to cut and work on parts for the next table so we can attempt to meet our deadline of two weeks per table.
