It's like a wedding cake, you build it in layers (JFL Part 3)

Today we begin with the second layer of the base.  This one will have mortises in it to hold the legs firmly in place.  I cut the mortises over at the band saw.  I don't know why everyone always says 'over' at the band saw.  Norm said it on the New Yankee Workshop, Mark says it on The Wood Whisperer and it just felt right to say it here too.  It makes it sound like I have to haul these piece of wood a long distance to go to this special place where the band saw is kept.  In reality it's maybe than 6 feet from my workbench.

Honey if you need me I'll be 'over' at the band saw so don't bother trying to reach me!

Gluing and clamping is done the same way it was for the bottom layer of the base.

My test piece.  I used this to try out different finishes.  I've got Boiled linseed oil on one side and shellac on the other.  From here they look pretty similar.

Everything seems to line up nicely and sit flat in the picture below.

You can see the biscuit that's helping glue the mitered edges together sticks into the mortise just a little.  I cleaned that up with a chisel.

Look at that, I own a handsaw!  I sacrificed my jig for cutting dados to help make the tenons on the legs.  This piece helps keep the legs square as I push them across the tablesaw.

This is how I set up the saw to cut the tenons in into the ends of the legs.  The legs are over 5 feet long at this point.

This is what the tenon looks like coming off of the table saw.

This is a dado plane.  It's a hand tool that's used to smooth out wood to a fixed depth.

The shavings from the dado plane are cut free with a chisel.  This is repeated until the fit for all four legs has been fine tuned.

Here we can see the first leg fitted to the base.

I put it on the floor and that 1" by 1" hole is enough to hold the entire 5 foot leg up.

One down 3 to go.  The circle and numbers on the end of the boards is how I keep track of which one is custom fit to which mortise in the base.

All four legs are in set in the base.

In this picture I've clamped a stop block onto the mitre saw so I can cut all eight side rail pieces to exactly the same length.

Things are flying along at this point!  This project is going great!

-G!