Let us now proceed with the work in hand. One of the legs of the table, before being worked into shape, is shown in Fig. 25; the dotted lines show how it will be eventually sloped off below the mortices which carry the top frame. These mortices must not now go through the legs, and therefore you will have to be very careful to hold the chisel upright, so as to insure the squareness of the frame when put together. The mortices being in adjacent sides, will of course meet, but it will be advantageous to cut those which are intended to receive the two longest strips, viz., the front and back, rather deeper than the other two. First set off an inch from the top of the leg at the line A B. If less than this intervenes between the top of the mortice and the end of the leg, you will probably break the piece out and spoil your work. As the side boards are 4 inches wide, and must come flush with the top of the legs, you will have to cut them like C, and there will be 3 inches left for the tenon, all of which may be left, as the wider this is the more hold it will have on the legs into which it is to be glued. It is plain, therefore, that the mortice will be 3 inches long and half an inch wide; and when you have marked it to this size, take care to cut it accurately, because if it is too small, you will break out the piece between the mortices when you try to force in the frame pieces, and if too large, you will scarcely get the whole to remain secure. Work therefore exactly to gauge. It is usual to keep these side and end pieces more to the outside of the legs than the inside, as F, where you are supposed to be looking at the inside corner; and if you look at D (which shows the top or cross section of a leg, as if after the pieces were fitted you had sawn off the leg close down to the mortices, exposing them to view), you will see that by thus keeping near the outside edges you get both mortices deeper than if you cut them, like E, in the middle of the sides of the leg. Of course, the deeper these tenons are let into the legs, the stronger their hold will be. There will now only remain to warm all the pieces and glue them into their respective places, with the precautions before stated as to the thinness of the glue and speed of the operation. See that all stands square and true; if not, a tap here and there as required will set it straight, and then let all stand till dry.
I have told you to cut the side and end pieces 18 inches and 2 feet 9 respectively, so that if the mortices are 1½ inches or so deep, your frame will be about 1 foot 6 inches wide, and 2 feet 6 inches long. The top, which is to overlap as usual, will be now prepared as follows. It will not be possible to make this of a single width of board; and nothing will more fully test the young workman’s skill, than planing the edges of two pieces so that they shall fit accurately together. It must, nevertheless, be attempted.
Cut two pieces of three-quarter-inch board, and plane the sides as accurately as possible. Then set them up edgewise, either singly or together, and plane the edges with steady, long strokes of the longest plane you have, set fine—that is, with the cutting edge projecting but slightly. Try each singly with the square from end to end, and then lay them on any perfectly flat surface, as on your bench, or on a table, and see whether the edges lie close all along. Remember, too, that they may do so when one surface is upwards, and not when turned over, as will occur when the edges are not square to the sides. In cutting out the pieces, therefore,—which, when finished, are to be together 1 foot 8 inches,—you should make them 1 foot 9, so as to allow you a whole inch to waste in planing and fitting. When both are as true as you can get them, lay them down near together, and brush the edges with boiling hot glue. Then immediately put them together, and rub them a few seconds one against the other, till they seem to stick slightly. Then leave them in their exact position, and drive a couple of nails into the bench against the outside edges, so as to keep them together, or in any other way wedge them tightly in position until they are quite dry. When the glue is hard which has been squeezed out along the joint, you may run a plane all over the united boards, and you ought hardly to see the joint, which will be nearly as strong as any other part.
This top has now to be attached to the frame, as follows. Cut some pieces like K in Fig. 25, and glue them here and there along the inside edges of the frame, so that one side of them shall come quite flush with the upper edge. To these the top has to be glued. Lay it, therefore, with its under side upwards, upon the floor (I suppose the short pieces glued and dry on the frame), and having also glued the sides of the short pieces which will touch the under side of the table top, turn the whole upside down, with its legs in the air, adjusting it quickly. Its own weight will keep it in position until dry; or, if not, it is easy to lay an odd board or two across, and put some weights upon them. When dry, turn over your table, and plane round the edges where necessary; and, if it does not stand very well, trim the bottoms of the legs. Clean off glue, and rub any rough places with sandpaper or glasscloth, filling up any accidental holes with putty, after which it will be fit for receiving paint or stain, if it is not considered desirable to leave it white. The corners and edges of the top may be rounded off, to give a finished appearance.
I showed by dotted lines the usual shape of the squared legs. They are planed off, tapering from below the frame, and this should be done after the mortices are cut, and before fitting the parts together. The best way to insure equal taper of all the legs, is to prick off at the bottom of each equal widths from the corners or edges, and to run a pencil line from the point where the taper is to begin to these marks. Then plane exactly to the lines thus made.
Fig. 26.
Let us now consider what errors of construction are most likely to occur in working out these directions. First, it is possible that the framework may be out of square. This may proceed from two causes. In the first place, the side or end pieces may not be of equal length between the legs, owing to some one or two being driven further into their mortices than the others. To avoid this, which is not uncommon in many works of a similar nature, it is well always to mark the length that each is to be, irrespective of the part within the mortices, as Fig. 26, A and B. If the space on each between the dotted lines (carefully marked by means of a square) is equal, it is no matter whether C and D are also equal. We have only to take care to let them into the mortices to a greater or less depth, until the line comes exactly even with the inside edge of the legs. Again, it is possible that when the table is placed upon its legs, these may not rest truly on the floor. Probably one or two of the frame pieces run up like E, instead of standing at right angles to the legs. This results from the mortice not being cut correctly; and as you cannot, in this case, mark both sides and cut from both, as you did in making the towel-horse, this is not unlikely to happen. It will not, therefore, signify much if you purposely cut your mortices a little too long, and then, when you have placed the table on its legs, after gluing up the frame, and before it is dry, you can force it to stand truly, and then wedge up with glued wedges where necessary. You cannot, however, do this with the sides of your mortices, because you require these to fit exactly; you must therefore use extra care in keeping these as true as possible. In many cases you can wedge the ends of tenons to correct a bad fit, but never the sides. These are the probable, or I will say possible, faults against which to be on your guard.
