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Nicks Berger Board Part II

The first step of making the Berger Board is to fabricate the two (2) torsion boxes needed for the bent laminated glue up. I made my torsion boxes from plywood and pine.

All torsion boxed up and nowhere to go.

The type of plywood isn’t really important. I bought the 2’ x 4’ ¾” & ½” “sanded” plywood from Lowes. What is important is that the plywood is flat. Take your time and select the flattest sheets they have.

I used clear pine for the ribs. Again, be careful to choose the flattest and truest boards you can.

Its important that the ribs are milled flat and the boxes are assembled on a flat surface.

After milling the boards to 4S I trimmed the plywood to size. Then I assembled to two (2) torsion boxes using my table saw as a flat reference surface.

I then took additional pieces of the pine which I had also milled square and added a fence and riser block to the bottom (larger) torsion box. These will provide a surface to clamp against and create the lift in the tail needed for the proper Berger Board glue up.

Ready for the fence and riser.

The final steps of the Torsion Box construction allowed for an easier glue up. I covered the inside faces with packing tape in order to prevent glue stick. Then I added feet to the bottom torsion box in order to allow the clamps to fit below.

As silly as it may sound, I find building torsion boxes fun, as there is something satisfying about the rigidity of one which is properly constructed.

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Nicks Berger Board Part II

Dougs Bench Part II Milling the Seat Wide Leg

Milling the seat and wide leg on Doug’s Shoe Bench posed an issue as the boards they’re made from are about 14” wide. While I love my jointer, it is only 8”. In order to mill the seat blank, I headed to the big box and bought a 16” melamine shelf. After ripping the shelf to 15” on my table saw, I sat the seat blank on it and added a few shims to eliminate rocking. Then I hot glued the hell out of the edge.

The bench seat is glued on and ready for milling.

I took the melamine/seat blank combination and ran it through the planer until the top of the seat blank was flat enough to not rack. Then I pulled the seat blank off the melamine off and discovered I had probable used too much hot glue. Luckily the damage was to the melamine and not the seat blank. I put the seat blank face down on the planer and ran it through. After a few minutes of milling and a couple of flips, both sides were glass smooth.

I repeated the same process with a shorter piece of melamine for the leg which was cut from the same blank as the seat.

The wide leg was milled the same way.

With the faces milled, the seat and wide leg were ready for joinery. Because their joint would be visible I decided on dovetails for the visual flair. Using my Keller Dovetail jig, it was a quick and easy procedure to mille the dovetails, though I will say that I wish Keller made bigger bits so that thicker boards could be dovetailed. As just over an inch, the seat and wide leg were boarding on too thick to use the Keller Jig on.

The Keller jig makes quick, messy work of the dovetails.

The finished dovetails left me with an issue. Though the leg looked good, just dovetails and now lower stretcher would not be enough to keep the leg on over any period of use.

the first dry fit.

I went back and forth on this and finally decided on a diagonal stretcher which ran from the leg to the underside of the seat. Ideally, I would have been able to make the bench without this stretcher, but as the leg and seat were only about 1” thick, I didn’t think their dovetail connection would be strong enough. In order to minimize the visual distraction of the stretcher, I made it from the same board as the seat and wide leg. I set it off center, towards the back of the bench and left a live edge along the bottom edge.

Once I had milled and dry fit the diagonal stretcher, I milled for dominos in the seat, wide leg and diagonal stretcher. Then I set the wide leg and diagonal stretcher aside and turned my attention back to the seat.

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Dougs Bench Part II Milling the Seat Wide Leg

Lills Quilt Rack Part II The Design Templates

With the inspiration worked out and a concept of the design in my head, I set to work creating the actual design for Lill’s Quilt Rack.

I did this by sketching a full size profile of the side on a piece of MDF. This is the same method I’ve used on earlier quilt racks. I find the full size sketch the best way to work out the curves and how they work in relation to each other. My sketches don’t get as formal as George Walkers ratios. I just keep sketching, erasing and re-sketching until it looks right.

The completed full sized sketch.

I use my Lee Valley Asymmetric Drawing Bow to lay out the basic curves, opening and closing the curve slightly between each leg. This part of the process is very subjective. It’s basically just draw until you’re happy.

Typically the full size sketch becomes the template for routing the legs. This is how Cathy’s and Katie’s quilt racks were made. With Cathy’s I used ¼” hardboard for the template. I found that the ¼” board wasn’t quite thick enough to run a guide bushing along comfortably, so for Katie’s I used ¾” MDF. Out of habit, I used ¾” MDF for Lill’s quilt rack too.

It wasn’t until I was done with the sketch that I realized the intercrossing legs would prevent me from cutting up the template and using it as a guide. I had to use a roll of tracing paper to trace each leg individually. Then I attached the traced legs to individual pieces of ¾” MDF with spray adhesive. About this time I realized that the original full size drawing could have been on ¼” hardboard. The ¾” MDF works. It’s just a wee bit heavy.

Tracing each leg by itself.

With the traced legs on the template stock I cut them out on the bandsaw. I cut near the line by eye. I know you should aim to be as close as possible when cutting the templates. As I was paranoid about cutting into the shape of the legs my cuts ranged from right on to about ¼”+ away from the line.

The tracings, glued to the template stock.

For the final shaping of the leg templates I began with my oscillating spindle sander on the concave face. This did not work. Even with my largest diameter spindle (about 1½” or 2”) I wasn’t able to achieve a flowing curve. The spindle would dig in, leaving a surface with lots of small indents.

After fighting with this for a few minutes I resorted to hand sanding. I used 80 grit paper and two (2) composite shims as a flexible backer. This was a slow process and it did round over the edges a bit. I’ll use it again though, as it resulted in a very smooth and flowing curve along the concave face of all three (3) leg templates.

For the convex face, I swapped out the spindle for the belt in my oscillating sander and used flowing sweeps of the templates over the belt to achieve a flowing convex curve.

For both the concave and convex curves, I let my hands tell me just as much as my eyes. I wanted curves that felt smooth. It was more important it felt and looked good than that it followed the line perfectly.

The templates, laid out on the full sized sketch.

Once the templates were complete it was time to move on to the actual legs.

Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

Lills Quilt Rack Part II The Design Templates