Yes...had a big time glue up this past week: clamping across the length of the desk. Means in total, ten 4' long clamps for six stretchers and a desk top in one fantastical and stressful event.
I had considered taking a video of it, to really give the full experience, the drama and anxiety, but I realized that either 1.) it would go together without a hitch and would thus be boring or 2.) would go together poorly and video taping it would only cause further anxiety and pass doubt on my super awesome woodworking skills. So I scratched the idea and kept it simple with still images.
Here's a shot pre-glue up, desk on it's side. I just liked this picture...the wishbone implied with the stretchers. Also shows the amount of surface I (we) had to cover in glue...Max and Noah included.
For this one, we went with a humming Isaac Hayes: Precious, Precious. Also great blog reading music.
So everything looks okay...but was it a number 1 or number 2? Well...in both contexts, it was a 2. It did not go particularly well. Running through the travails however, isn't high on my blog writing list, especially when the final results were unaffected. An oddity about glue ups gone bad...while they may be stressful, unless it's truly catastrophic...broken joints or a tenon that's deeper than a mortise, the sweat and stress of the event won't show in the final product. This was one of those glue ups.
Four hours later I pulled off all the clamps and got to work on one of the last bits of woodworking on the desk itself: making a rabbet in the desk top. I don't think I've made mention of any rabbets yet, and I definitely haven't made mention of their intended function...and I'm going to continue that coyness for awhile longer.
But for half disclosure, here's the rabbet in the back stretcher. And for the mirroring rabbet in the desk top, I've run a handheld router on the straight edge of the white board until it's to the right depth.
Here's the groove nearly completed.
This is not a great picture...when I took it, my intent was not to get the routered edge, but to shoot my somewhat knolled desk. However, wanting to get this post finished and seeing that I'm in Sunnyvale visiting:
I don't really have an opportunity to get a better shot. I do however, have another nice trio of pics: removing the leftovers from the router.
Sanding and finishing is next. We're getting close.