TV Stand

As Christmas is approaching fast, I need to tackle my TV stand gift for my sister in law.
I already jointed the boards needed to make the top. After having cleaned the glue a bit I traced the form that will be cut.

Top form marked with pencil.

It matches perfectly the full size plan I made before.

The plan match perfectly the trace.

I will need to cut the top as close to the line as possible so not to spend too much time cleaning the cut, but also not too close so not to risk any mess up. This will be an interesting moment!

But for now I will take care of the face frame assembly with front legs and shelf. I first need to cut two front legs, one apron, two muntins and two rails to the correct length.

Two legs...

...apron and bottom rail.

...and central muntins and rail.

The front frame will all be assembled using mortise and tenon joinery, so next step is to cut all tenons. After having marked and sawed the tenons I am using a router plane to bring them back to exact size.

Using the router plane to finalize tenon shaping.

After each pass with the router I am checking the depth of the cut using a combination square set to the correct depth.

Not quite yet...

If the depth is not correct I then increase the router depth by half a turn on the depth adjustment wheel.

Here we are.

Tenon sized to the right thickness (1/4 of an inch)

After a while the tenons are done. The router plane really makes the tenon cleaning an easy thing.

A bunch of clean tenons.

At the end the central part of the face frame will be assembled like this.

How the central pieces will be assembled.

Now that the tenons are done, I need to carve as many mortises as needed. Considering the small size of the mortise, I did them directly by hand using chisels, I did not bore the waste first.

Mortise in the leg top.

This is quite easy in soft wood like pine, just need the chisels to be sharp enough (and not more).
After all mortises were done on each piece time has come for a dry fit of the face frame.

Face frame dry fit, looks good to me.

Next step is to tackle the central box and shelf, stay tuned.