The next stage of the build was to mortise out the top for the legs, route the slot for the sliding deadman assemble everything.

Layout

This process started by having the bench top ‘bottom up’.  I placed each leg assembly onto the bench top, assembled the stretchers, and clamped the base together upside down on the bench top.   After  the base was clamped up I did a buch of adjusting, measuring, adjusting to ge the base in the perfect spot.  Once it was in the spot I wanted, I marked out where the tenons were on the bench top.  I also marked where I wanted the slot for the deadman to go.  Unforutnately I didn’t get any pictures of this process.

Router, and router

Once I laid out the locations for everything, I started with the easy one and that was the slot for the deadman.  I used the actual sliding deadman lamination and marked where the very inboard edge would go and used that as my guide. I can cut/plane the deadman down to fit inside the slot.  Chucked up my 23/32″ router bit and took 4 passes each 1/4″ deeper.

The next router task was to hog out most of the material for the leg mortises.  I stuck with my 23/32 bit and went after it.  I basically used a “drilling” motion with the bit with some slight side to side movement when routing.  Unfortunately the bit plus my plunge depth wasn’t enough to get the 2″ depth I needed.  I could get down to about 1 1/4 all round.  Then I could go about 1/4 deeper in teh very center.  The collet nut would actually protrude below the router base so I couldn’t get to the edges.  I decided to buy a long router bit, but still had some time to work on these.  I routed all four mortise as you see below.

Then I used a  drill and forstner bit to get the depth correct (close).   The rest of the work was with a hammer and chisel.

This worked okay, but it was a bunch of trial and error with the drill and bit.  I did get two mortises done this way and was able to dry fit one of the leg assemblies.   If I could get each sub assembly to fit the chances were good the entire base would fit since I had some flexibility in the long direction.  I only have a lowe stretcher in that direction.

New bit for the router

For the next two mortises my new router bit had arrived.  Its 1/2″ diameter up spiral bit.

I used this bit to finish up the mortise cleanout to save me some time.  It worked great, but was the scariest routing I have ever done.  It would occasionally hit some rough grain and kick up the entire router.  I had to hold on real tight.  The results were much cleaner, but it was much easier to have it “run away” on me.  As you can tell from the ‘oopsies’ in the picture below

Back to the hammer and chisel and another dry fit of the other leg sub assembly.

Assembly Time

So, I wanted to glue the long stretchers and assemble the top at the same time, so if there was any slight misalignment the base would give a bit.

I started by tapering my drawbore dowels and laying everything out I needed.  Applied glue to the mortises and tenons of the long stretchers on one sub assembly.  Drove in teh dowels.  Applied glue to the oher sub assembly and tenons and used some clamps to pull the tenons into the mortises.  Add some glue to the dowels and drove them home with hammer.  Base is all glued up, so I quickly pulled the top on the base and dropped it onto the tenons.  I need to use some clamps at each corner to pull it down.  Pretty snug fit.

I will pull the top off again and fix soem gaps I noticed between the legs and stretchers.  It is still a big milestone to get this togehter for the first time.