I used my router jig to cut the lower mortises on all of the legs. This operation doesn’t require anything fancy; I used a 1/2″ straight bit and a 5/8″ bushing on my plunge router. It’s important that you center your bit in the bushing, or you will introduce error into your cuts. I center my router bit in 7 easy steps:
- Set the router upside down on your bench or work table.
- Plunge the router to maximum depth.
- Loosen the three screws that hold the baseplate to the router base
- Chuck a centering cone in the router, ensuring that it extends fully through the bushing.
- Release the plunge mechanism on the router. The base will pop upward, and the bushing will follow the conical portion of the centering cone, eventually bottoming out. This will shift the loosened baseplate to the proper position.
- Tighten the screws on the baseplate.
- Remove the centering cone from the router and get to work.
I position a workpiece in the jig with the outside face of the leg against the jig’s fence and clamp it securely. I use one of the other legs to provide stable support for the router.
Time to cut the mortises. One thing I like to do (which I am not showing in this picture, unfortunately) is to keep the router oriented the same way for all my cuts. I was careful to always kept the flat edge of my router base aligned with the jig’s fence. This is just a little added insurance in case the router bit is not perfectly centered in the bushing. It ensures that you introduce the exact same error into all your cuts, thereby negating their effect. It’s kind of like using the dark side of the force to defeat a Sith Lord, only not as exciting or impressive to innocent bystanders.
A few words of warning: always triple check that you set the plunge depth on your router correctly. And make a test cut to quadruple check it. And then check it one more time. I set the depth incorrectly and cut my first mortise too deep. Oops. This mortise should only be an inch deep, but I cut it 1 1/4″ inches deep instead. After some careful calculations, I determined that this mistake will not interfere with the compound curves that I plan to cut into the legs, so no harm done. I reset my router and continued on.
Here you can see the mortises cut into a leg.
The front and back legs of the nightstands have different joinery requirements, so all of that joinery layout paid off. A back leg (on the left) has a dado and a large mortise cut onto it’s two inside faces while a front leg (on the right) has a dado and a large mortise on one inside face, and three mortises on the other inside face.
And here’s the finished product…
To view the entire Nightstand Project series, please visit my project page.
