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TRESTLE BASE

I started with construction of the trestle base – that way I would have a place to support the top once I started working on that. I had some hard maple on hand, but quickly discovered that I would need more. This just shows the glue-up for the trestle feet and leg blanks.

In typical fashion, the FWW article does not actually specify all the dimensions to complete the project. I started playing around with some design ideas, and at first I thought there was a typo in the article: I drew the radius of the arc on the feet at 3-1/8″, not 2-1/8″ as stated in the article. This turned out to be a mistake – it should be 2-1/8″. This allows an extra two inches between the legs when the base is assembled, which may not sound like much but I wanted to maximize that space to (eventually) support a tool cabinet box. You can see the difference in the second picture.

To make the mortises in the feet, I initially made a guide block and drilled/chopped it out by hand, using the guide blocks to mark the holes and keep the chisel face square….

…but that got old quick. I ended up using a hollow chisel mortiser to do the other foot.

The tenons were all cut with the table saw to make the shoulders, then with the band saw to cut the cheeks.

I used a 1″ forstner bit on the two feet clamped together to make the ½” radius under each foot. The rest of that bottom cutout was accomplished on the bandsaw. The notch on the thumbnail profile was cut on the table saw, and then the radius was cut on the bandsaw and cleaned up with the belt/disc sander.

So, now I was finally able to put the pieces together for a dry fit.

I glued up the two end assemblies, using draw-bored dowels to pin the M&T joints for the top and feet. The dowels are 3/8″ cherry.

For the stretchers, I went with Schleining’s technique of wedged through-tenons. I like the look of it, although it would have been much easier just to pin them with dowels like I did before. I used the band saw to cut two 5° notches on each tenon, with a ¼” hole in the end to prevent splitting. I made a bunch of 5° wedges out of cherry to fit the notches.

The glueup of the stretchers had to be done in two stages. The left end was dry-fitted to keep everything square while the glue set on the right end, then the left end was glued up. I had a couple of pipe clamps holding the two ends tight until I drove the wedges in. This base is heavy, and the M&T joinery is substantial and dead-blow mallet tight. I’m pretty convinced that this base ain’t gonna move!!!

Once I got it all finished with several coats of Seal-A-Cell, I just covered it up with plastic for protection while I used this nice flat surface to glue up the top.

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