The last layer is the top layer (JFL Part 4)

I've been working my way from the bottom up on this project and now we've reached the top.  Much like the bottom the top is a square made of four pieces of jatoba mitred and biscuited together.

Here we have the top half cut out.

Using a square and a knife for marking I marked the next cut as precisely as possible.  This is the same procedure I followed on both pieces that make up the base of the lamp.

Once one piece is done I use it to measure the rest of the pieces.

Darn.  Out of the three squares I had to make it would be the top one that has a gap!

I used the hand plan to modify the angle on a couple of the sides to make everything join up tightly.

Next I ganged up the boards to sand the inner and outer edges.

Here I have everything laided out ready to begin the glue up.

Here's the glue up.  I put everything in the clamps then after twenty minutes I remove one clamp at a time, remove any glue squeeze out and put the clamp back on.

The next day after taking the clamps off I do a sanity check by balancing the top on the four legs.

Now I want to trim the legs to length so I tape them and clamp them together and cut all four at once.  It's nice to have a 12" mitre saw instead of a 10", it allows me to cut all four legs at once, insuring they are exactly the same length.

Here I've marked the center of each leg.

Now I've bored holes into the center of each leg.  Matching holes are drilled into the lamp's top.  Then dowels are used to join the two together.  The dowels will not be glued into the legs, that way the top can be removed so if there's ever a need the paper screens can be tightened or replaced.

Test fit.  It took the Ikea assembly tool to get the top seated.

Not bad!

Ok...maybe the holes in the legs are a little too tight.  I had to redrill the holes to get the broken dowels out.  I used sand paper on the replacement dowel to make them a little thinner.

Here's one of the holes in the top piece.  I've marked both sides of the join up with pencil so when I'm sanding I can tell I've got the join sanded down on both sides.  Next step is sanding the bottom since I'm not going to want to do it with dowels sticking out.

To fill those small holes with glue and get proper coverage I use a highly specialized and hard to come by tool.  It's a tooth pick.

Here the dowels have been seated in the holes.  There's a lot of glue squeeze out here.

I use an offset knife to clean up the glue.

Here's the top in place.  I've friction fit a few of the side rails in for effect.

That top took forever to make compared to how fast this project had been going.  The results are worth it.

-G!