And all through the house not a creature was stirring expect for our brand new router table. Amen for ear plugs. Especially when combined with shop vac plugged into the back and sucking away most of the debris. As maiden voyages go, this one was a dream. My only complaint is with the fence assembly; it's basically an entry model so it's a bit chunky and doesn't respond very well to small adjustments.
But I can't blame the fence for this mess. Plan was to take the scrap from yesterday's milling and make a maquette of the cabinets in order to get a feel for the router table and the joinery. All our cuts were good except for bottom edge blind rabbet that didn't come out so blind because in our zeal we just pushed the front and back panels straight through the router. Covered for our mistake by putting a matching cut on side panels. Voila: negative leg (or something like that).
Other lessons learned:
- Use assembly squares to ensure right angles. In other words, furniture clamps aren't enough to true a parallelogram.
- Take multiple short passes instead of one honking big pass. Knew this from cabinetry book but had to give it a try for that experiential validation. Sure enough, trying to do a 3/4" wide x 3/8" deep rabbet in one cut resulted in a whiff of smoke, more sawdust than wood chip, and uneven resistance through length of cut.
- Press a piece of scrap on back edge to prevent rip out.
As for finished product? Can't go empty-handed to that last-minute, holiday party can we?
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