Project Update: Growing the Chop

After I decided to work solely on the deadman parts and pieces, Random Roger Green was kind enough to stop by for a visit. Fortunately, he brought along a nice Bosch plunge router and an attachment designed to help make straight cuts. The first thing we did was set up the attachment so that the first cut was 3/4" in from the bottom front of the bench.

The slot needs to be 1" wide and the router bit diameter was only 3/4", so we had to adjust and go through the process again - taking a little off at a time. Eventually, we completed the slot and it's now ready for primetime.

While telling Random about how I've been working on the deadman parts, he said the deadman can wait until dead last (yeah, I said that). So, we started lining out the leg vise on the leg and the chop - the chop is the part that extends most of the length of the leg and moves out and in when using the handwheel - it's the outside part of the clamp.

Things need to be laid out fairly precisely in order for the crisscross to work and to allow the most space possible between the leg and the chop. I'll continue to work on routing out both the leg and the chop this week. While looking the chop over and thinking about the pegs I'll need for drawboring the stretcher tenons into the leg mortises, Random let me know that I would need to add some girth to the chop and to purchase 1/2" dowels for the drawbore pegs (more on this technique later). It was late, so I headed to Home Depot for the wood.

The red oak board is 8" wide, which is my desired end width (7 1/2", actually), so I went ahead and glued it to the outside face of the piece I had originally intended to use for the chop.

Yeah, I used Titebond I. Yeah, it will work fine for this. Yeah, I got to use the go-bar setup. Finally. Tomorrow, I'll cut the chop down to width and length so I can begin the process of shaping, routing and drilling it for the handwheel, screw and crisscross.

Until next time...