No Apron Today.....

Early this morning, I went into the workroom and started looking for my Russian file folder.....It was at the bottom of a pile on the floor....No...Don't ask how the workroom looks now.

I knew that, if I wanted to do anything besides make zebra skin aprons, this morning I was going to have to start early.

I found what I was looking for. I remembered a photo of a trestle table on one of the pages. We needed a small table for the main part of the cottage.

I made it smaller and made it a bit more rustic. The one in the photo was much fancier than a cottage table.

Here's the pattern for it if you wish to try it. It is drawn on quarter inch graph paper. If you can get it to that size on your computer, you can just use the pattern as is.

The wood that I used was 3/32" thick bass. You need a 3" by 3 1/2" piece for the top, the two fancy end pieces, two stretcher bars that are 2 1/2" long and one for the mortise and tenon that is 2 1/2" plus a 1/4" to 1/2" tab on both ends. The strips were5/16" X3/32".


In order to get the ends to match, I took some double stick tape and stuck the two pieces together before cutting. That way the two pieces will be exactly the same and I only have to cut once.

The only other fussy cutting I had to do was whittling down the ends of the boards for the mortise and tenon join.

Speaking of that, to get the rectangular hole in the end pieces, I used my pin vise drill and drilled a hole in each end of the opening. Then I took an Exacto knife and cut out the rest.

The next step was to stain all of the pieces. This photo was after a golden pecan coat. I didn't like the color so I went over it with Early American Minwax....OK, so I couldn't find Early Russian. I don't think that Minwax makes that shade.

I stuck all of the pieces together with Fast Grab Aleene's glue. I put in the middle stretcher bar first, making sure that the end tabs were seated into the holes with a bit of glue. The bottom bar lays flat at the center bottom edge and the top one goes vertically at the top edge. I clamped them all together and let them dry.

The last step was to flip the top over on its face and center the leg assembly onto that with glue.

I was just sitting here watching the glue dry when Tessie zapped herself in, grabbed the table and zapped herself out again.

I have to go now to see where she hid the table. I still have to work on the finish.... As she left, I heard her growl...."No apron, NO TABLE!!!!"

See you tomorrow.