branagan custom

The Aprons

From here the progress just accelerated with the grunt work out of the way. I picked my apron pieces and their orientation, basically putting the worst piece at the back and trying to hide any major defects.

I checked how straight, square and twisted they were and they really weren’t in bad shape so I didn’t even do any planing or correcting before marking out the joinery.

What a welcome change after toiling over the leg glue-ups and joinery prep.

I measured 6” in from the end and marked the first vertical line for the housing. I lay the apron on the floor and placed the specific leg that will join the housing against the marked line and marked it on the opposite side. I purposely undercut it slightly to ensure a tight fit.

As usual I worked on the back apron first and fit them fully before moving on to the front one.

I cut in the sides of the housing with a knife, chiseled a knife wall and sawed across the grain down to my depth. I sawed one relief cut in the centre of the housing to make it easier to clear the waste, and started popping from the sides to split out the waste. 

I have to admit that for these housings, I opted for the router plane to level the floor of the housing instead of sticking solely to the chisel out of pride. This made a huge difference in quality and efficiency though I felt like I was cheating by deviating from Richard’s minimal toolkit. I mean what’s next, might as well just CNC the rest of the components and flatten the top with a router sled right?

Not surprisingly the housings were too narrow to fit the trestles so I planed the overlapping portion on the inner side of the trestle to fit. Eventually they started squeezing in, I worked it enough so light mallet taps would seat it fully. Unfortunately on the first one, when I got it started, I wellied it in with the hard mallet when really it was too tight and made some serious dents on the surface of the apron. They mostly planed out in the end but look a bit rough, fortunately it’s the back side which won’t be seen nor a reference face.

So, I cut the housings on the aprons and got them fitted snugly. Next was the little angled notch at the bottom of the housings. First came the rear apron and not surprisingly this did not go well. 

I used simple measurement and trusted this would match up nicely, and maybe it could have, but I rushed through it carelessly so it ended up being at a way steeper angle than I needed. It was one of those moments where you take a little more, then a little more, all of a sudden it’s way off and too late to go back. These left some sizable gaps on the back apron over the shoulders but hey, plenty of room for movement. 

I learned my lesson for the second one and whipped out the bevel gauge for these. Clearly there is a trend on this build that I try to do things by not using the tools that are specifically designed for that thing even though I have them, I mess it up (or it’s harder than it needs to be) and then decide to actually use the specific tool to do the specific job and my problem is solved.

So I used a square and bevel gauge to capture the exact angle of the shoulder and transfer it to the apron. I also went a lot slower and more purposeful cutting these, worked slowly to my lines and undercut the inside just slightly instead of aiming for exactly square.

I used slightly different depths for the apron housings since the depth of shoulder on the trestles was slightly different on each. Despite trying to calculate this to get them perfectly parallel, the aprons ended up tapering slightly outward by about a quarter inch end to end. I think this is caused by a discrepancy in the thickness of the legs. See post #2. Also, they overhang the legs by about an eighth (by design).

So eventually, the aprons are fitted to the legs.

Before attaching them I decided to add two cross supports and had to chop the housings for these. Assuming the trestle housings are perfectly parallel, I measured from them to the outside of the cross support housing. I used a piece of the 2×4 to mark the opposite side of the housing and proceeded to mark with a knife, chisel down the walls, chop across the centre, come in from the edge chiselling out the waste to a depth of about a quarter inch. The 2x4s fit snugly, and after a full dry assembly it was ready to glue and nail.

I started with the back apron, glued the top half of the housings, used some clamps to pull them tightly together and proceeded with drilling out clearance holes and countersinking before knocking the nails in. When one side was done I did the other, but before adding the cross supports I had to plane down the top of the aprons and make sure it was all in one plane and not twisted.

I found the flattest section of floor where the bench wasn’t rocking and started planing the aprons. I knew I just had to work to the trestles because when I assembled them, I checked the height of every corner to make sure they were all in one plane and planed them to exactly the same height. As long as they weren’t rocking, bringing the aprons to meet the trestles and making sure the aprons were straight along the length meant it should all come into one plane. This went surprisingly fast and when they were close I used some straight 2×4 leftovers and my straight edge to check for twist along the length and straightness in the aprons.

Once satisfied with that step, I glued and nailed the cross supports in. Now I just had to plane them to meet the aprons.

I had planed the slightest inward angle on the aprons so it was a bit tricky to bring the supports into plane because they had to meet the outside (raised) edge and not the inner, slightly angled downward edge of the aprons. I took my time, constantly checked for twist and straightness along the length and across the width, and eventually got to a point of satisfaction with the whole frame.

With that, the whole leg assembly / frame is complete.

It is completely solid. Despite the mistakes in the leg assemblies, once the aprons are well fitted the whole frame is completely rigid and even without the top it’s heavy enough not to easily slide around on the floor. Next is dressing, nailing, and flattening the top.