Mortising the Top

With the base assembled, I set it on the top to lay out the locations for the mortises. Like the mortises in the legs,I drilled out most of the waste, then cleaned up the sides with a chisel. I used my router plane to finish the bottoms, which made quick work of it.

After the mortises were fitted, I cut the groove for the sliding deadman.  I don't have a plunge router, so I had to cut it by hand. I was afraid of getting too eager with the chisel with such a thin (5/8") wall, so I used my rip cut carcase saw to define the sides, then removed the waste with my router plane. Since there was nowhere for the sawdust to go from the cut, I could only cut about 1/8" deep with the saw. And to avoid splintering, I could only take about 3/32" with the router plane. It took a bit of time to cut 1 inch deep, but worked pretty well.

141 Days | 158 Hours

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