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Design a mission coffee table
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This coffee table combines contemporary design with the classic materials and dimensions of Mission furniture
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By Dave Boulton, photos by Donna Griffith, illustration by Len Churchill
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Bookmatched grain laminations are dramatic and true to Mission tradition. This sawing technique was used to create each of the three back panels.
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When your panels are dry, plane them down to 1/4" thick. Next, joint one edge of each panel. This will be your reference edge. Now is the time to trim the panels to final width and length with a tablesaw. The measurements found in the materials list will create a perfect fit. However, due to seasonal movement of the wood, you'll want to remove a further 1/16" off each edge. This frame-and-panel design enables the panels to float inside the frames without fasteners. By removing the extra amount, the wood in the panels can expand and contract with changes in humidity-a key strategy for preventing panel cracks.
Joint and trim all back rails, back stiles and the kickplate to final length and width. Use a 1/4"-wide dado blade in your tablesaw to cut 3/8"-deep panel grooves in the rails and stiles. The stiles require a groove on both sides. Here's a tip: if you make a pass from each side that adds up to 1/4" in total, all the grooves will be perfectly centred. Complete grooving operations on all back rails and stiles at the same time with the same machine set-up. This ensures consistency, which is key to a flawless assembly later.
In addition to supporting the coffee table, the legs act as stiles with grooves, supporting the side rail tenons. The only thing is, these grooves mustn't extend the entire length of the leg. That's why you need to use a table-mounted router to cut them, not a dado blade.
You'll find that a 1/4"-diameter spiral bit does the nicest job here. Set up a fence with a clamped stop block to limit leg groove length.
Before you start routing your legs, mark which one goes where. The grooving operation creates left- and right-hand legs, so be careful. Take several passes for each groove until you get to the full 3/8" depth. White oak is dense wood and you don't want to overload your equipment.
Mortise-and-Tenon Joints
You have several tenons to cut, and there's more than one way to make them. My favourite approach uses a dado blade in a tablesaw. Adjust the blade to the correct height for the sides of the stiles (the cheeks), then bring your fence into position with a short stop block clamped to the fence. Locate the block so the end of your workpiece moves past it as the mitre gauge slides forward. The stop regulates the location of the tenon cuts, but the wood must slide past it before contacting the blade. This procedure minimizes the risk of blade binding and kickback. Cut a tenon on a piece of scrap to confirm that you have the blade set to the right height.
Your goal is 1/4"-thick tenons that are 1” long. Once you've cut the sides of all rails and the kickplate, raise the blade up to 3/8" above the table and cut the bottom shoulders on all of them. Do the same thing on the top shoulders of the lower rails and kickplates, but leave the tops of the top rails alone for now.
The top rails feature what are called haunched tenons. Haunching extends the full width of the tenon for the first part of the tenon, with a more typical, narrower profile further along. This feature takes more time to build, but it creates extra strength where the mortise nears the top end of the leg. Mark your tenon 3/8" in from the shoulder and 3/8" down from the top. Cut off this waste with a fine-tooth handsaw.
Reset your tablesaw to cut the tenons on the back stiles. Although they're 1/4" thick like all the others, they're only 3/8" long to allow them to sit in the rail grooves alongside the panels.
Next, mark your mortise locations, and cut them according to the size of the mating tenon. The mortises all sit in the panel grooves you cut previously in the legs. All you need to do is deepen the grooves in the correct locations. The plans show more details. The kickplate calls for mortises too.
Grab some of the extra leg stock you milled to use as a test piece for your machine set-up. I removed as much waste as possible within the mortises using a 1/4"-diameter Forstner bit in a drillpress, followed by some chisel work to clean up the holes and square up the ends. Aim for mortises that are 1/16" deeper than your tenon length, providing room for excess glue during assembly.
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