Bracket Mortises
As you may recall from an earlier post for this "Child of the Hunter" coffee table project, I've dedicated a fair amount of time and effort to the brackets that will be holding the top down onto the stand. Of particular importance is the way the center top slats will be attached. I chose to make them removable so that any required maintenance on the top can be done without the imposition of destructive force!
Above, I'm using a knife to scribe the perimeter of one of the sliding brackets in preparation for cutting its mortise. Below, I've just finished scribing around the center slat brackets. The pins serve to hold the brackets in position while scribing. The scribe marks can be difficult to see while routing the mortise, so I've made additional marks with a black pen to use as a visual guide.
Now it's time for routing the mortises to the correct depth.
I leave just a bit of material that will be taken off later by hand using a chisel.
One at a time I rout the mortises.
Thirty mortises is a lot of mortises.
Fast forward through all the chiseling of the mortise sides. Below, I've superimposed the #4 bracket in the #4 mortise.
After all the brackets have been fitted, I then bore the screw holes for fastening the brackets to the stand.
Below is a sampling of how it looks at this point.
I then softened the edges in the area where the cross beams will be exposed between the top slats.
Next, I made sure that I optimized the match of the grain on all the slats and struck an alignment line.
Using that alignment line, I rotated two stacked slats, keeping them in alignment with the top plank.
I could then transfer the location of the pins to the bottom of the slats.
Below is what the stand looks like with all the brackets in place.
The two large planks are now in position on their respective locating pins.
Then, I took time to finish the layout of the pin hole locations on the underside of the top slats and bore the holes to receive the pins. Below, the slats are finally in their home positions.
Next, the top will be cut to length, followed by surface preparation and finishing.
Hej då!
Craig
