Decided to spoil myself and free my snack table of those lumps of stone. Managed to find an attractive granite off cut the right colour. Price was right until I was asked if I would like the edges finished, which I answered with a casual “yes”. Seems that doubled the price.
Well need some legs; lots of poplar lying around so after rough cutting and a good workout have some legs and stretchers.
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My plan was simple; top stretchers support the granite, bottom stretchers finish the structure.
After struggling with the 100lbs of granite I rested the top on the legs:
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Granite is supposed to be somewhat flat, so for fun I thought I would find out. Taking my good level out of it’s case I looked for light under the level. Sure enough there was light. My Lee Valley feeler gauges detected 10 thousands of an inch gap in the middle of the long dimension and oddly 12 thousands under the short dimension.
Well it was either not flat or drooping under it’s own weight, or both. Lugged it onto the bench and repeated the exercise, both droops were 2 thou less. As I wanted a flat table this meant regular stretchers would not stop the droop. They would sag over time and restore the droop. This meant I was going to have to use the Kruksfeld/Matagomi joint!
Before you rush to google, I made that up! Instead a 5th leg! Strong end grain to prop up a sagging middle.
Challenges:
Getting 5 legs sitting flush on the concrete floor.
Making the middle leg ‘adjustable’.
Pulling the edges down to the other 4 legs to achieve ‘flat’. Flat being a curve I could not detect.
My planned drawer now has a leg in the way.
Well another small workout and a fifth leg appears:
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Let the fun begin:
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To be continued......