A Barnsley hayrake table 2, completing the frame

Just because I haven't blogged lately doesn't mean that I haven't made any progress on the table. Actually on the contrary.

I really dislike sitting at a computer while at home, so I decided to take a new approach and instead just take some pictures of the project as it went along, and then I could blog about it while out at sea.

After completing the mortises and tenons in the center stretcher and the four diagonal pieces, I lined it all up, and marked the positions of the joints for the end cross pieces.

The mortises on the end cross pieces were made using the chain mortising machine but the angled mortises were made using a chisel after having drilled out a large part of the waste using a spade bit.

Once all the joints were ready, they were all tested, including the joints for the legs. I figured that it might be a smart thing to do because it would be easier to tune the fit now compared to when the stretcher was completely glued up.

The surface of all parts were cleaned up with a smooth plane, since it would be difficult to get access to all parts after assembly.

I drilled some holes for the drawbore pegs, dry assembled the construction, and marked out for the tenon part of the drawbore hole. After disassembling the stretcher and drilling the remaining holes, I made some pegs using my dowel plates. The pegs were made out of ash. I tried to split them at first, but in the end I had more success with sawing them on the table saw following the grain. I made sure to make a couple of extras just in case I would break any of them during installation.

I also sawed out some small wedges of ash for the tenons. 

Finally I sawed a couple of thin kerfs in the ends of the tenons and I was ready for the glue up.

Making a Barnsley Hayrake table is fairly straight forward work except for the glue up part of the frame. That part ranges as a complicated glue up in my world. It is very difficult to attach a clamp to help negotiate a joint in place, so all parts have to fit from the start. 

A good preparation with wedges and pegs ready helps, but I still find it a stressful part of the build.

Once the hayrake stretcher was glued up, I stopped for the day to let the glue dry.

The next day I slid on the legs to be able to determine the exact size of the upper cross stretcher.

When I had made those complete with mortises, I marked out the position of them directly on top of the legs. The legs were then removed and the joints were made. 

I then chamfered the hayrake stretcher and did something unusual: I marked the piece with Roman numerals despite the project not being complete! My reason for this was that I guessed that it was a lot easier to do this when I could turn the parts as I wanted them and keep it on the bench. But it still felt like a criminal act to do it prior to completion..

Next I glued on the legs. I had decided to use elm for the wedges instead of ash, to get a bit more contrast on the wedging part. But apart from that it was straight forward. I again chose to saw a thin kerf to have a starting point for the wedges.

Once the glue had dried, the upper cross stretchers were sawed to length, chamfered and glued in place too.

Finally all the remaining protruding parts of tenons, wedges and pegs were sawed off flush to the surface and cleaned up with a plane.

Gluing up the hayrake stretcher.

The legs temporarily mounted.

Legs ready to be glued onto the stretcher assembly

Making pegs using a dowel plate.