A Good workout

When people ask me what kind of sporty activities I have, my answer is: planing boards! This is the best activity in my sense. Planing puts all your body muscles to work, from arms to legs.

Following my last post, I have to plane boards to thickness to make the drawer bottom. These ten boards were resawed by hand, are quite rough and are more or less 5/8" to 3/4" thick. I need to get them flat and 1/2" thick.

Before starting that heavy action session I turned to the drawer rails that I made last time. I needed to glue them to the drawer side. I clamped them in place so the glue has time to set while I am planing the bottom boards.

Gluing the rails to the sides.

It took me around 30 minutes to flatten and size each board... and a lot of sweat!

Half of the bottom board are done.

Two hours later I planed the rail assembly.

Planing the side and rail assembly

Ralph do you recognize that plane?

I got a pair of sides ready to be grooved. 

The drawer sides before rabbeting the rails.

I used my Record 50 here again to make the grooves in the rails where will fit the bottom boards.

Grooving the rails.

I ended up with the finished drawer sides ready for final assembly.

Drawer sides ready for assembly.

Now, as clock is ticking, it is time for me to move on to my "real" project, the TV stand for my sister in law. Thinking about it I changed the design a bit. I also made full size plans.

Top view, pencil mark are not very visible on the picture.

Front view.

I found very useful to make these full size plans. First this allows to get a clear picture of the size and if it will fit. Second it allows to take direct measurements.

I started by working on the table top. It will be made by assembling 2" thick boards. I started to plane the boards to the right thickness. It was a real workout again and gave me a whole bag of nice shavings.

I need to clean that mess!

I then assembled the two first boards.

Two first boards clamped.

When glue was set later in the day I cleaned the assembly.

Cleaning the two first board assembly.

Next will be to add the third and last board then to mark and cut the table top to size.