Rabbeted Lego -Dry Fit of Kitchen Island Stage 2:

 

A pretty exciting day today.  After cutting hundreds of pieces and assembling them together with cutting,  laminating,  rabbeting and planning,  the beams of the table overhang,  flush with the island top are starting to come together.    I decided early on in the design process that we wanted to have half of our island as an overhang off the end of the cabinets.  But this overhang was to be 54"  so the four of us could use it as a breakfast bar for casual meals.   The beams are now starting to come together and we were able to do a dryfit today.

Not only is Sanded Fir Plywood Stronger than hardwood,  Its also more stable, less expensive and very structural.    So laminating beams out of plywood is the preferred method for rigidity when you want to suspend a nice piece of Granite on top of them.  

Here all of the clamps are holding the carpenters glue tight during a 12 hour drying period.  The trick is to take it off the bench at 1.5 hours and wipe the tacky glue off the oak workbence,  Otherwise you now have  a riser platform glued to the top of the workbench.  I just use some water and paper towels.  The benefit of assembling on top of a level workbench like I have built is that the beam is then completely flat after lamination.

 Here is how we glue it together.  after placing the boards on top of each other,  slide them from end to end to distribute the glue evenly.

The glue runoff is taken off at 6 to 8 hours by a chisel and then a hand plane, any longer than that, and the glue becomes to hard to peel off.

 Here you can see the glue being peeled off the bottom side at the 6 hour point.

 And then a handplane takes care of the roughness,  when set at 1/32".   We are not looking to remove a lot of material,  just the rough highspots of the edge of plywood all standing up.

Next we have to cut the supporting rabbets in the end of the beams to lay on top of each other.   Using a knife to mark the measurements allows for precision, as pencil cuts are too fat and actually can be 1/16 " long.  That does not make for a level and square fit.

The first part of the rabbet comes off on the table saw with the dado blades (2 edges,  4 chippers) installed. 

Then I like to finish up the Rabbets on the Router Table , as my dado blades don't go as high as 1.5" - the height of my Rabbet.   I complete it with an Upturned 1/4" double Flute with bottom guided bearings.  This part is extremely dangerous, as there are no guards,  so I need to keep my hands well away from that bit.  I can only do this as a finishing step in the Rabbet, and ease into the cuts 1/4" at a time so that the bit does not become buried in the wood and start to throw it.   You also have to know which way the bit turns (counterclockwise) when upside down, and move from right to left so that the wood is not thrown through the air.  Fortunately the bulk of the wood is already removed by the table saw,  so I have minimized the risk of the high router bit.

 The end result is a nice sharp Rabbet.

 Now comes the fun part,  the dry fit.   Last night I precut the receiving legs to accept the beams for good posture.  the fit was tricky and done with a handsaw,   then cleaned up the bottoms with the router along a guide fence,  followed by chiseling out the remaining small pieces in the corners.   Fortunately I got a tight fit that accepts the laminated beams.

 Here you can see the first beam dry fit into the post. 

 And then the overlapping beam layed on top of it. 

 When both posts have the end trestle and the length beams layed into them,  I can then setup the centre beams which were slightly shorter to sit in the end trestle with precut receiving pockets.   The centre beams here are shown outside of the pockets ready to be inserted.

 Once set inside the pockets this table structure is strong enough to stand on. Very important when you have two boys in the family!

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Now I can begin to see the structure is working.  The next step is to prepare the 6" shaker doors to wrap the posts in.   The posts at this point are only 4.5" wide, and will look much beefier when wrapped in the paint finished doors with a proud footkick at the bottom.  That's coming up next!