When all the parts are ready to assemble, drill two holes near the top of each leg for the round-head screws. Insert all the tenons into their mortises and fasten the legs to the top. A little glue may be used in the mortise and tenon joints and one brad should then be driven from the side or edge of each leg through the tenon. Sink the brad below the surface with nail set.
TABOURETTE NUMBER THREE
See chapter on [mechanical drawing] for laying out hexagon. This form will appear crude unless the legs are modified, and two or three suggestions for this are shown.
The construction consists in fastening to the under side of the top piece a hexagon of 7⁄8-inch pine eight inches in diameter, making sides four inches long. Every alternate side of this under piece should be made with a sloping edge to conform to the slant of the legs, of which there are only three. Drill or bore four holes in each leg, two 7⁄16 inch from the upper edge, and two to hold the hexagonal shelf. The top edge of the legs should be bevelled with a block plane to fit snugly against the under side of the top. Three sides of the shelf—every alternate one—should be bevelled in the same way to fit against the inside of the legs.
When ready to assemble, fasten pine hexagon to the under side of the top with six 11⁄4-inch screws.
Fig. 178. Two styles of tabourettes
Attach the legs to the three sloping edges of this under hexagon lightly with round-head screws. Leave the screw heads projecting about 1⁄4 inch until the shelf has been fastened in position, then drive them home with the screw-driver. This is one of the simplest of tabourettes to make, but it is open to criticism. The sloping legs give it a wide base so that it is less easily upset than the other forms; but the pressure from above tends to spread them and pull the structure apart. This tendency must be counteracted by a tie piece, which in this case is only a shelf held by screws, some of which are in end grain.
Of course any form may be criticised. The most beautiful of all, the Turkish or Moorish, on account of its overhanging top and small base, is the most easily upset, and in designing new forms all these points must be considered.