Harvest Table Legs Are Now Fully Assembled

This past weekend was spent exclusively in the garage where I easily spent 12 or more hours a day working on getting the dining room table legs to their final assembly.

Above is the first of the pair of the legs. The vertical legs have been mortise and tenoned for the joint to maintain a strong bond from top to bottom. Next came the 45 degree braces which were a big and time consuming pain to glue up and mount. Why were they a pain?

This is why... Clamps... Clamps everywhere! I had to use six clamps just to position the one 45 degree brace properly. I ran out of clamps and have nearly two dozen of them in various lengths. 22 clamps + 8 45 degree braces... You do the math on that one. I used every single one this weekend and still needed more, so I had to wait for at least 4 hours for the glue to cure before removing them to proceed to the next brace. However the end result was very worth it!

I had two spare pieces of under cut wood that very loosely fit into the slot where the runners will lay, so I decided to fit the legs together to see how it will look. Keep in mind this is a very shortened length of the actual table itself. I clamped the test runners into the slots and wiggled it a bit... Rock solid. I then used all of my body weight on each leg and then both runners at the same time. There was not so much as a budge from the legs.

Now the runners need to be milled and cut to size. Along with some additional bracing for the center of the table, then the fun part starts.... Beginning the layout of the top!