In this video, I use a homemade jig to cut the joinery on the pedestal to attach the three legs. I have a router guide, but apparently by bits are too short to use in this instance, so I’ll show you how I overcame that. Then, on to the dovetails, cut 120-degrees from each other. This was tricky, but my method worked just fine for me. Take a look, and I hope there’s something in this video that might help the average Joe (or Mike).
Cutting these dovetails accurately was not fun. Just getting the pedestal installed into the jig in the correct orientation, level, and square was actually a bit challenging. But, as they say, measure twice, cut once. Before ever turning the router on, I had checked the alignment a couple of different ways, tweaked the position a bit, tightened a few screws, and crossed my fingers.
And after all of that, I still had a bit of an issue because of a little too much play in the jig that allowed the router too much side-to-side movement. What I ended up with was a dovetail that “fanned out” at the far end. No bueno. But, I tweaked on the joint a bit until I was mostly happy with it. If I ever make another of these, I will know what to look for. If you’re afraid to make a mistake, you will never learn from them. So sometimes, you just gotta go for it!
Michael Crowl - Author 