There're a number of methods you can use to join two pieces of wood: simple gluing, butt, dowel, plate, pocket, spline, rule, and miter to name a few. For this project I will be using the plate joint method using a biscuit joiner.
A biscuit joiner is hand held tool with a small retractable spinning blade that cut a groove in the face or edge of two wood pieces and then allow for a small biscuit to be glued into that groove to help align and secure the joint. A biscuit joiner produces a very strong, secure and accurate joint, plus it's quick and easy to use.
Here is the Biscuit Joiner I will be using for this project:
Since our boards are only 6" wide and we need two biscuits per joint, I'll be using the [0] setting on the biscuit joiner, which is the smaller biscuit of the group.
These are small enough to allow for [2] to fit next to each other within the 6 inch width.
So we have our biscuit joiner and we first need to mark off each piece of wood with the following details:
TOP
INSIDE
OUTSIDE
Make sure you pencil these three words on each of the four pieces of wood. You can't imagine how frustrating it is when you cut one of your pieces and find out you ended up cutting the wrong side and ruined that piece of wood! This will help you keep track of each piece of wood and what side you will be working on. Later on you can sand off these pencil marks during the final stages of the project!
CRITICAL: Before you make a single cut with the biscuit joiner make sure you have each side of all four wood pieces marked with UP, INSIDE, and OUTSIDE!
Now that we have all the boards marked and ready to cut which of the four boards do we start with and which side do we cut first? Good question and very important because if you don't get the correct side facing up when you make your cut or you start with the wrong edge, your corner could be completely out of alignment or will overhang each other!
Very bad!!!
The way our main table border is configured you have two long pieces that are joined to the inside of the two shorter pieces as shown below in this top-down view.
You will be making cuts on the edge of the LONG BOARD and face of the SHORT BOARD.
Since each board is 6 inches wide we will be making our biscuit joint cuts 2 inches from each board edge to allow for two biscuits.
Let's start with the LONG SIDE BOARD and place that board with the OUTSIDE facing down on a flat surface.
CRITICAL: You should be able to read the word INSIDE on the side facing you!
Make sure you have a good 5 or 6 inches of space near the edge of the board to place the biscuit joiner. Make your [2] pencil marks 2 inches from each side as follows:
Once you have your 2 inch marks locked down, the board placed on a flat surface and the Biscuit Joiner against the edge of the board, you are ready to make your cuts!
With the joiner laying flat on the table and flush against the edge, cut your two grooves and make sure your cuts are deep and smooth. A biscuit joiner can tend to jump in your hand when it starts to cut the wood, make sure you have a strong hold on the joiner and push it slowly into the wood till it stops!
Below is how your grooves should look after the initial cuts:
When you finish this edge, rotate the board 180 degrees "making sure you DO NOT flip the board over" and cut two new groove with the same process.
NOTE: When you finish this board go ahead and do the same process for the other edges of the second LONG SIDE BOARD using the same steps!
Let's move onto the SHORT SIDE BOARD, which will be using a different cutting process. For the Short side boards you will following the same 2 inch measurement process taken from the sides of the board.
Make these marks long because you will need to see them past the plate of the biscuit joiner.
Next, lock down the Short Side board with the word INSIDE facing up! Then place a stop block against the edge of the board and lock it in place flush with the Short Side board as shown below!
With the biscuit joiner in place "as shown above", line up the biscuit joiner so it is centered on one of the 2 inch line markings. Push the joiner flush against the stop block and make sure you have a strong grip on it. Make your two grooves on the face side of the Short side board. Your board should look as follows after the initial cuts:
Go ahead and rotate the Short side board 180 degrees "DO NOT FLIP THE BOARD OVER" and setup the same process as explained above to make your same two cuts.
When you finish this board go to the second Short Side board and follow the same steps to make your cuts in that board. When finished your corner grooves should look like this on each of the four boards:
When you insert the biscuits it will look like this:
By using the biscuit joiner you will have a nice, strong joint at the corner that when glued will hold it's shape and last longer.
The corner will look like this when put together "pre-glued":
Beautiful huh? Now that wasn't so hard was it? If you have a table big enough you can put the table together and see how the corners join together BUT DO NOT GLUE IT AT THIS TIME! You just want to put it together and get an idea of how it will look when glued!
Here is the table with all four SIDE pieces connected "BUT NOT GLUED!!!":
CRITICAL: DO NOT GLUE THESE BOARDS because you still need to route the grooves in them for the plywood and the hang-able components!
In the photo at the top you can see the PIPE CLAMPS I talked about in the beginning. You will need these when you go to glue everything together. Without these it will be pretty hard to get a nice strong gluing!
Pipe clamps are pretty cool because once you have the clamp ends all you have to do is buy different length 3/4" pipe to use them! This gives you unlimited clamping lengths!
We are now ready to move on to ROUTING THE GROOVES for the plywood base groove. This step will be in the next blog, see you soon!
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