I’ve been stalled the past couple of days on the Chevalet. The blueprints are missing the level of detail that I tend to put into plans. It’s all stuff you can figure out, but I like to have a specific plan before I start marking out and cutting.
I have all of the “beams” glued up and trued for the saw support arm, and I was going to start with this joint here. In the Chevys at school this was, I believe, a “triple tenon” joint, although that’s not called out in the plans. Since my parts are different sizes as a result of working with the wood I have available, I needed to make some adjustments in the joinery here.
I thought this joint was my next step…
Because my horizontal arm is slightly thinner and wider than the plans, there isn’t enough meat to cut a through mortise and two half mortises on the faces, so I’m going to do a bridal joint. But that got me thinking about the length of this vertical riser…
The horizontal piece I have is a little different in size than the plans too. Crud. Which means that the vertical adjusters on the ends need to be sized differently. In short, I needed to re-design and build from the opposite end of this assembly.
I sat down at the computer yesterday and drew of the horizontal arm that supports the saw adjusters, and then drew those up too. I tried to include the critical dimensions from the plans, I need to have the saw itself end up in the same position relative to the vise jaws when I’m done jiggering around with everything. Once this assembly is done I can make the vertical member to ensure this is at the right height for the upright. I’m going to make one more check of the measurements before I lay out and cut the two vertical adjusters and the horizontal piece.
My CAD mockup of the saw support arm, based on the wood I have and the hardware kit.
Instead of a bridle joint how about a dovetail one?
I was thinking along the same lines as Ralph. Dovetail joint. You could also add length so that the vertical piece extends below the horizontal arm. Then you could use a wedged thru mortise and tenon. It’s always a challenge to modify plans on the fly.
Greg
I could see a giant dovetail joint working too. The Sketchup drawing is maybe a little misleading, the joint will actually be set back an inch from the end of the arm, but if I put it right at the end then the dovetail joint would resist racking along the length of the horizontal arm getter than a bridal joint.