Mufflers

Things went very well this weekend in the 'shop, so that by COP last night I'd managed to get the first coat of finish on one of the frames, so there's light as they say, at the end of the tunnel. Gluing the four frames was straight forward as it usually always is with a bridled joint...it's just arranging the cramps so that you can get one directly over the faces of the joint to get a good fit that sometimes requires a bit of juggling. I use Titebond III for the first time on the teak (remembering to de-grease with some meths) and I found it really very good...I like the viscosity of it as it allows you to spread it thinly and it has a slightly longer open time which is always a 'good thing' at glue up time.

The technique of picking up angles directly from the drawing worked well for both of the crosses, which were made without too much bother. The only slightly tricky moment was when I had to mark out the the halving joint on the lower cross, as the whole table had to be assembled and the two pieces lined up with a variety of squares but once that was done it was easy to route out each section, chop the shoulders and then glue.

Teak is strange stuff...some boards are dead true and easy to plane, other bits can be rowed and interlocked. Just by the merest chance, some parts of the frames have this interlocked figuring which defy a plane blade and need to be scraped to a decent finish. Not only that, a couple of bits are 'pippy' which means its really difficult to finish...unless the plane blade is razor sharp (which lasts about 10 seconds on teak) it just tends to slide across the surface without cutting. However despite the cussedness of the material, all frames were planed and scraped to a reasonable finish, after which I sanded them using my Abranet abrasives and pad connected to the 'shop vac. These are a bit of a revelation as all the dust is sucked up through the open coat paper so that it appears as if the surface isn't being sanded...there's absolutely no dust left on the surface of the timber, which is very odd. The only disadvantage is the high pitched whine from the small bore hose connected to the 'vac, but I suppose it's the lesser of two evils...at least you can cut down the noise with ear muffs!