Friday, my fellow students and I got into a very sticky
situation. That hide glue that Phil Lowe had us start cooking on Monday
finally came into play. But first, we were directed to glue up our
tabletops with a spring joint. I was elated – I actually knew how to do
this (the first thing about which I felt truly confident all week). But
after the glue set, Phil told us to flatten the top. With a smooth
plane. My kingdom for a No. 5.
He then proceeded to use an 1-1/4” chisel to very quickly cut a deep
chamfer on the underside of his top, then cleaned it up with a
spokeshave in just a few minutes. Very impressive. My top isn’t ready
for a chamfer. It isn’t yet flat (but it sure is thinner). I’ll have to
go in before class on Saturday to finish planing and scraping, before I
can band saw the edge, clean it up and cut the chamfer. Our final task
before packing up will be to attach the top with buttons, and I want to
get that accomplished – in large part so the top of my wonky bridle
joints are covered up, and the guys won’t have an immediate and obvious
target for mirth.
So I set my top aside as we moved onto veneer. This was a lot of fun –
and a hot sticky mess. After cutting the veneer pieces a little
oversized, I opened the glue pot and swatted at the dozens of flies
that immediately converged on my bench, glue pot, arms and substrate.
Then I painted a layer of glue onto the bricked poplar substrate, laid
down the veneer strip, added another layer of glue, then squeegeed it
off the top and out from the bottom with a veneer hammer (a heavy hunk
of metal with a 3” - 4” rolled edge and a handle – it has nothing to do
with hammering). The glue tacks very quickly – to everything. While
squeegee-ing in the demo, Phil scooped and scraped the excess neatly
into his palm and calmly and cleanly returned it to the glue pot.
While we were all squeegee-ing, we scooped and scraped the excess into
and onto everything around us (my marking knife was at one point firmly
attached to my forearm). But hide glue is easy to clean up – just a
little hot water and my tools (and my forearm) were clean.
On Saturday, we’ll add the banding, and hopefully get through assembly.
I’ll post of picture of my finished project on Monday – or at least a
picture of however finished it may be. But I guarantee those bridle
joints won’t be visible.
– Megan Fitzpatrick
Read Part 1 of this series here. And Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here.