Simple Plant Stand

Instructions

This is a fun project I have been wanting to do for some time. It is rather quick, and I think shows off a whole new side of Origin, classic furniture using slot based mortise and tenons without the use of a computer to design it. See a little Instagram video here Material Prep Get your material together. It really doesn't matter thickness and width, just make it all consistent. I think mine was 1.45 inches thick, and .79 inches wide. I cut the lengths to the height I wanted for this specific plant. Setup Ontool CAD design Slot Tenons Create a grid on your tenon stock. Make grid spacing the lowest common denominator of both the width and height of material. (so you can place it at center of stock in next step) Use the rectangle tool to setup a tenon that is ~60% smaller than your piece, and place it at the center of the tenon. (There is a part of the Instagram story above that shows how to create the design file) Change cut type to outside cut. Cut Tenons #PROTIP: if you are experiencing tear out, double stick tape a thin piece of wood to the front face of the tenon, and it will help eliminate this. Cut your tenons first. I find it's much easier to cut the tennons to 0 offset, then cut the mortises to a negative offset for the right fit. (allows for fit checking without removing the mortised piece) I cut in depth increments of the bit, starting with an offset that makes the bit clear the outside of the corners of your tenon. Cut all the way to final depth then 1/2 the distance of the offset for each pass after that taking full depth passes, down to a small .01 inch offset finish pass. Design and Cut Tenon Dados: Now we need to make the dado to join the bases (seen in image 3 above) (Also feel free to use table saw here, or whatever else. I don't have one, so Origin to the rescue) I used rectangle tool and over extended the front and the back to cut half of the depth on each base piece. Hammer it together (maybe some glue) Setup the Ontool CAD Slot Mortises: Create a jig so that you can replace each of the legs without having to regrid (I clamped some wood on the front of the vertical workstation, so that I could setup the design and then replace the stock 3 more times) [video above has some shots of how I set this up] Using same values for rectangle tool in the tenon, place at center of the stock where you want the base to connect to the legs Cut Mortises: Cut like you always do. Offset of 0 is unlikely to fit, so you will need to finish the offset with a negative number. Depending on how much glue you want to use I prefer .005 inches. (it was a little tight for glue so would suggest a bit more. Glue and Sand: Do you really need instructions on this? And you are done! I hope you enjoyed, I look forward to seeing a few in the wild! Slot based Mortises rock so does ontool CAD! Questions, Comments? Have you made one?!?! Leave them here