Greene and Greene inspired raised dog tray #7: Attaching the breadboard ends and plugging all the pinned mortises/breadboard screws

Took me a while to get back to this project. It’s been a hectic past few months.

All that was remaining was plugging all the pinned mortises, attaching the breadboard ends, and plugging those screws as well.

Plugging the legs
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Plugging the pinned mortises was a real pain in the ass. I wish I had a mortiser as they would have all been identical in size. Instead, I had to custom fit every single plug. I used a 1/2” chisel to square the holes, but most weren’t perfectly square or exactly 1/2”.


So to start I cut some left over scrap hard maple a bit larger to 5/8” for plugging the legs.



Then came the fun task of hand fitting all 16 holes. To make it a bit easier I beveled the sides to insert them.






Another issue I had was that all the dowels weren’t the same size going in, so the depths of these plugs varied and I had to shave them to relatively the same height.



Look at all the shavings :)





Attaching the Breadboard ends
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To attach the breadboard ends, I drilled 3 holes through the ends into the table top. I then took off the ends and extended these holes in the tabletop to 2” deep. I couldn’t get that full depth through the breadboard ends.



Since I was using screws to attach the ends, I elongated the holes in the breadboard ends to allow room for them to adjust as the table expands and contracts. Hopefully you can see in this pic the elongated holes. I just used the drill to expand them.



I drilled a larger hole in the ends and chiseled them square(or close to) with a 3/8” mortise chisel.



I applied only a tiny bit of glue in the center to keep it centered and attached



I used 3” screws to attach the ends, but cut the center screw to 2 1/2” on each side because it would have gone through the bowl cutout otherwise.



Now back to the bandsaw to cut out more plugs. These went a little smoother since most were close to 3/8” square. I cut them just slightly larger but most didn’t take much to fit.



Using the same process as the plugs for the legs I inserted these. Then I beveled all the plugs on the legs and ends.
The only issue was since the heights were all different on the legs, I shaved off too much material on most of the plugs. I wish I left more. They are beveled but its hard to see. The breadboard end plug’s however again went smoother and are noticeable,although probably not in this pic. I also beveled the cloud lifts on the table.





This weekend I had time to do the final sanding, softening all the edges on the table, and start the finishing process. I’m using a polyurethane Arm-R-Seal Top Coat Semi Gloss on the top and a satin on the base. The top will have somewhat of a piano finish because my dog is a messy eater/drinker and I want to make sure it is sealed. I don’t have pics of that process though so you’ll have to wait a couple more days for me to post the final project.


Thanks for looking. The final project will be posted by next weekend! :) Then on to more projects….

-- - Eric Noblesville, IN