A 3D-Printer-Assisted Desk Restore – FineWoodworking

A few weeks in the past I wandered right into a little-used room in my guardian’s home. There I discovered the damaged bits of a desk I had made a couple of years in the past. Clearly, somebody had tripped over the desk and one of many three legs had damaged proper on the dovetail joint. A close-by clamp informed me the remainder of the story, which I assume went like this:

Don’t inform Ben. We’ll repair the desk he made as a result of he’s such an exquisite individual. Oh, we really feel so unhealthy as a result of absolutely he’s our favourite son! We must always make him his favourite meal and hope he by no means finds out.

Proper?!?

Properly, I noticed the damaged leg and knew that wooden glue and a clamp weren’t going to repair it. The leg was hooked up with a sliding dovetail and broke alongside the long-grain. It wasn’t a clear break, so the remnants of the dovetail would want to come back out and the leg would should be reattached by some means.

Clear out the dovetail and make it complete

I dutifully introduced the desk to my store, texted my mother that I’d repair it, and began chiseling out the carnage. Sooner or later I noticed the writing on the wall—this wasn’t a simple restore— and determined to doc the method. Sadly for you, the reader, this was after I had chiseled out the dovetail within the base and planed off the damaged bits on the leg. So we decide up this program that’s already in progress.

Chiseling out the damaged dovetail was a reasonably easy affair. In hindsight, although, I ought to have drilled out a lot of the materials so as to make chiseling simpler. One key device all through this complete restore was my carvers vise. As you possibly can see within the pictures, mine is mounted on a guitar restore stand that’s mounted to my ground. Any bench-mounted vise would have finished the job of holding the work within the air, thus defending the still-attached legs, however the tender, rotating jaws made this job (and the truth that I simply mounted the vise there the week prior) all of the extra gratifying.

As soon as the receiving finish of the dovetail was cleaned out, I took a scrap of cherry and routed a dovetail on all sides of it. Properly, I routed it on one aspect, went too far, and located myself utilizing the opposite aspect of the scrap to get a tighter match.

Utilizing a mallet, I hammered the dovetail in.

After the glue dried, I sawed off the surplus inventory and planed it flush with the column. I ought to have given myself a excessive 5 for leaving the bottom of the column a hexagon and never turning it spherical. What I believed was a design determination was in actual fact simply making my life loads simpler a couple of years down the highway.

Make a mortise the place there was as soon as a dovetail

Now that damaged bits had been eliminated and crammed, I may begin on the joinery. I’d have liked to take care of a sliding dovetail on this leg-to-column joint, however I’d have wanted to remake your entire leg so I may have an integral dovetail.

The one repair that appeared believable was to create a floating mortise-and-tenon joint by routing a mortise within the column and within the leg.

Initially, I believed I’d mortise the column on the router desk, however the remaining legs hit the fence. I hooked up a decrease fence on the router desk, however I discovered I used to be left with simply the sting of the hexagon referencing off the fence. After a dry run or two, I decided that the maneuver didn’t appear to be a secure operation, and I made a decision I wanted one other plan.

I wanted a method to maintain a router in a exact place and be guided alongside a exact path. Sadly, I had zero reference edges and barely sufficient inventory to run a trim router on. I may have screwed a slotted board to the column so as to run the router guided by a router bushing. As an alternative, I made a decision to show to one among my favourite woodworking instruments: my 3D printer.

Utilizing Fusion 360, my CAD program of selection, I created a chunk that might simply straddle the hexagonal column.

I exported the file to my slicing program and printed it. The primary jig I printed was just a little free on the column, so I up to date the mannequin and printed it once more. Within the following pictures you possibly can see the loose-fitting jig within the background.

I can hear lots of you screaming, “Why would you undergo all this bother?” Properly, modeling the jig took actually 5 minutes. Then my robotic printed it whereas I used to be doing one thing else. Updating the mannequin so it was good took one minute. Robotic go brrrr … jig finished.

I adhered the jig to the column with some double-sided tape.

Whereas I belief my double-sided tape, I wished to be completely sure the jig was not going to maneuver, so I clamped the jig all the way down to exert extra stress on the pressure-sensitive adhesive. (With PSA tape, the more durable you squeeze it down, the higher it sticks.)

Subsequent, I chucked up a 1/4-in. bit in my trim router, outfitted it with a router bushing and routed out the mortise 3/16 in. at a time.

Once I was finished, I eliminated the jig and was left with an ideal mortise precisely the place I wished it to be. Higher but, I wasn’t nervous in any respect about placement of the mortise, due to the 3D-printed jig!

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