|
 After the glue dries, we remove the clamps, knock off the glue pips with a flush plane and sand the panel with 60 grit paper to remove any little ridges and glue squeeze-out at the joints leaving a nice flat solid wood panel with invisible seams.
 Now we carefully remove the end caps from the casework. Care must be taken not to damage the joinery, so I tap a little on the right side, then a little on the left to bring the assembly off evenly. Once off, I take very careful measurements to get the precise size that the panel needs to be.
 Then we use the crosscut sled to trim the panels to size and square. Getting these panels square to start with is important because the end-caps will conform to the shape of the panels.
 Now we get out a block plane and do the final fitting by hand: test fit, shave a little off here, a little off there, fit again, shave again, test again until it's perfect. Then we sand the panel, rails and stiles with 100 grit paper.
 When the assembly fits together just right and all the parts have been sanded smooth, we apply glue to the mortises and the tenons, but not to the panel or panel grooves, and put it all together one last time. Clamps hold the joints firmly while the glue sets up.
The final act for today is to cut the floor panels to approximate size.
|
