Shaping, Brackets, Finish

Working on the last major items for the console table. Next up, brackets to mount the tabletop to the stand. I selected 3/16” x 1/2” brass bar stock and rough cut them to length.

After disc sanding each bracket to it’s final length, I bored and countersunk all of the fastener holes. This was followed by mounting each outboard bracket and cutting of the slot that will accommodate seasonal movement of the top.

After countersinking the slotted holes in the brackets, I marked and cut mortises in the base for the brackets and predrilled the screw holes.

The show faces of the screw heads were sanded by mounting each screw in a hand drill and spinning them on sandpaper.

This is how they look from the top.

The center two brackets hold the top in a rigid state and the four outer brackets have slots that allow the tabletop to move with the seasons.

Here is a close-up of the top fastened in place.

With the stand position on the top finalized, I could now disassemble the top and begin shaping the edges. This started by cutting a 65° bevel on the underside of the top using the panel saw, followed by hand planing to the desired size and shape.

I then laid out the wing bevels for the tabletop ends.

A sharp blade set to a hefty cut depth made quick work of it. This was then cleaned up with a freshly sharpened iron on my wooden smoothing plane.

I also added a smaller 45° bevel to the top edge of the tabletop.

I like to hand plane surfaces whenever I can, but I have to confess that with the seemingly random chatoyance of this river birch wood, to avoid tear-out, I moved to sandpaper to finalize many of the finished surfaces.

It was now time to clean up the stand and top and prepare them for finishing. For the final finish I’ve applied Odie’s Oil to all surfaces.

Now we’ll wait a few days for initial curing of the finish before I take some pictures for next week’s edition. We’re almost there!

Hej då!

Craig