Failed attempt #1 at joinery

While building my assembly table I was tempted to try out some joinery. The table I've selected as my victim is an old living room table made out of oak. I need to raise it up to a good working height and also attach some wheels with breaks at the bottom. Finally I'll add a foldable extension area on both sides and some shelfs or cabinets to make full use of the space I have been assigned.

I figured I might as well practice some joinery while at it and see where (not if) I fail and learn something from it.

The goal was something like this:

I decided to only use hand tools in the process and chisel it all out. Sadly I forgot to measure that the top was perpendicular and ended up having to cut one of the pieces of to get it straight. This resulted in an avalanche of other problems so I figured I would use the bad joint as practice target for trying to fix a bad joint with inserts of other pieces of wood.

This is what I manage to accomplish with my current set of skills and tools.

How did I do it? Continue reading! But first a word from my sponsor... Hmm, there is no sponsor... Just read then...

First attempt at fixing a bad joint as practice

So I started out with something like the picture below. I'm not too sad about the result below since it gives me a perfect opportunity to see what can be roughly fixed and what cannot be fixed. The end result means nothing really. It's all about what you learn on the way there.

The mistakes I made in non-ordered lists of WTFs:

• Bad markings - I scratch my saw marks too deep, future me should use a pencil instead of damaging any wood
  
  
• Bad alignment - I didn't check that the flat surface of the legs was perpendicular to the leg itself, I just assumed it was. Always triple check all angles before starting.
  
  
• Unsharp tools - My freshly bought chisels weren't close to as sharp as they should have been, had to learn how to sharpen them.
  
  
• Bad lighting - I really need to invest in new lights for my tiny space.
  
  
• Different hardness of wood - Oak was a lot harder than my pine. I knew that, but have never really experienced working with them in the same piece. I wonder if this will pose a sanding problem where the pine will be hollowed out more than the oak? (if hand sanding)

I levelled it out as good as possible, still only using hand tools (a chisel basically) and cut some wedges to correct sizes. Glued them in and applied a bit of pressure to avoid the glue from taking up any space. (Which it did anyway).

After letting the glue dry I sawed of any extra wood with a Japanese saw.

The images are from different sides, but you get the idea. The clamp is there to provide some pressure whilst glueing.

Went over it again with a freshly sharpened chisel (don't own an hand planer yet) and sanded it roughly with 120 grit sand paper. I kinda see some light in the end of the tunnel here. This might just be good enough for a wood shop work bench table leg! Of course it needs sanding and love.

I continues the whole way around, one side at a time since. No rush here.

Getting bolder

Cutting the square pieces that goes into the large holes are getting quite straight forward now. It takes a while to get that perfect wedge shape that expands kinda equally over all sides. So I needed to ruin something else and my eyes turned to the join between the pine and the oak at the red square in the image below.

I chiseled out a slightly larger groove and continued on the other side up to the notchy thing.

 

Clamping it all up, note to self, get smaller clamps or at least more of them. I currently own 4 clamps...

After the glue dried I trimmed of the excess wood using my handy Japanese saw. Note that it has two different set of teeth on either side. One is for cutting across the fibers and the other is for cutting along the fibers.

After a quick cut, it looked something like this. I wasn't to meticulous while doing this since it will be planed and sanded soon.

Still not owning a hand planer, so I grabbed my sharpest chisel and kind of poor-man planed the edges over the entire joint.

Then I couldn't hold myself and ended up hand sanding the joint on this side. First with 60 grit, then cleaning, 120 grit, then cleaning and finally a gentle rubbing with 240 grit... Then cleaning. Those were the three size papers I had lying around, so I used those grits for this test.

Starting to look smooth. But the inlays are of course not pretty. The look just smashed in there so next time I'll take more time on getting the edges and wedges super straight.

And then I grabbed a random bottle of wood oil and rubbed it in. This one made the oak a little bit too dark for my taste. It looks so 80s... I'll be sanding it away again anyhow and try a different oil or a simple clear coating.

Not too shabby for the first attempt (of fixing a failed joint). Good enough for the garage.

The Result

There is a difference I would say at least and I learned a lot as usual from doing this.

What's next?

Machine sanding it, starting with 80 grit, then 120 grit and finally xxx grit. Cleaning the wood with paint cleaner.

And oiled the whole thing with wood oil. Not too picky about what oil to use. It's going to be a garage furniture in the end anyhow.

Reattached the legs to the table.

Awesomeness!

And after that?

The next step is to sand and perhaps plane the table surface as well.