Step 3 - Trimming Parts
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 In this step we will be trimming
the parts blanks down to finished dimensions. This
process starts by sending all the blanks through the
thickness planer multiple times, taking a little wood off
each face until each blank is 1/16" thicker than the
finished size.
 Next we use the rip fence on the
table saw to take a little wood off each edge, flipping the
pieces over between each pass. This helps to straighten
any crooking that may have set in while the parts were being
roughed out. Sometimes, cutting a wide board into
thinner ones releases tensions within the wood and the
thinner boards 'spring' a little. This will
remove that and leave the edges nice and smooth and square to
the faces.
 Then we cut the blanks to finished
length. The tool we use for this depends on the pieces
size. Smaller pieces are best done using the miter
fence, which has a lockable stop to precisely set the length.
 Pieces too long for the miter fence
are cut on the chop saw, using a stop block clamped to the
fence to set the length. All pieces that are the same
length are cut together without moving the stop block, that
way they are all precisely the same length.
 Pieces that are too long for the
miter fence and too wide for the chop saw are cut to length
with a cut-off sled. No end stop is available here, so
I have to mark the cuts on the edge of the boards and
carefully line up these marks with the saw blade.
 When this is done I sort the pieces
out by location: end parts on the left, front panel parts in
the middle and back panel parts on the right. Time to
check to be sure all parts are accounted for and look right.
 The final task in this step is to
take the parts and run them through the drum sander to remove
mill marks left by the surface planer and take off that last
1/16" of thickness.
We are now ready to start cutting edge treatments. We
will do that in the next episode.
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