Build a Tiled Table Part 2: Frame the Tile

The leg and rail assembly for a table project is lookin' great except it's missin' a top. So that's gonna be the next step is to start working on fabricating the top. I'm gonna end up mitering four pieces to completely surround the tile that goes into the top. So first step was, make sure you're mitering correctly, make sure the angle is correctly set on your saw. Then the next step, I'm gonna just make one cut on one end of each piece. The pieces that I'm workin' with are 2 1/2 inches wide, the same as the rails that are used to make up the apron of the leg and rail assembly. Now, one of the things we can do is figure out how big these pieces need to be in order to surround our tile. So here's the deal. If the tile is 18 X 18, which this one is, and I'm using 2 1/2-inch frame pieces, we've got an 18-inch tile plus 2 1/2 inches goin' that way, another 2 1/2 goin' that way, so that's five, 18 plus five. These frame pieces are gonna be 23 inches long or so on the outside corner here. So when you're rough cutting your pieces, you wanna add an inch or more to that. What I'm gonna do to get final size is I'm gonna mark right off of a tile. Rather than try to measure and transfer the measurement, what I'm gonna do is lay one piece here on the tile. And I'm gonna allow the short point of my mitered end to go past the tile about a 16th of an inch. Then I'm gonna come to the other end here, and I'm gonna mark that right off the tile, providing that little layout line. Then usin' my square, I'll transfer that up to the top. Now, one of the things it's a good idea is to double-check the tile to make sure that's gonna work all the way around 'cause sometimes these tiles can be a little inconsistent. So I'm just gonna do the same thing. Let the short point run past a little bit. Line works good on that side. Make that same check on all four sides 'cause right now, we could sure change the dimensions on our wood, makin' the frame and then finding out the tile won't fit into the frame, you're not gonna be able to change the dimensions on that tile. So what I want in order for the frame to work is four pieces that are identical. The easiest way to make that happen is to make a frame piece sammich and stack 'em all up so that the ends are perfectly even with each other, the end that I've already mitered. And we'll cut all four in a stack. Now for my last little bit of alignment, it's easier to do it on the saw 'cause I can get that edge against the fence. Start workin' on my alignment under the blade. Check my alignment on this end. Make all that stuff happen at the same time. An alternative to cuttin' in a stack, of course, would be to use a stop block on the saw. I'm just checkin' my laser location against my pencil line there. And the stop block would also give you the accuracy that you needed to get all four of these cut exactly the same. There we go, that end looks good. Now, if you wanna buy a little insurance to make sure stuff doesn't move on ya, once you've got that end aligned, you could put a clamp on there to keep those pieces perfectly positioned. That takes care of our work at the miter saw to create the frame, next thing we need is a rabbet, that's gotta happen over at the table saw. Dust, what do you know? Here's the deal at the table saw. I've set up a dado head so that I can do a 1/2-inch wide rabbet. Now, the depth of my dado head is such that the material I'm leaving behind here is equal to the thickness of my tile. So the way I did that was I made test cuts. And then I tested the piece up against the tile. Another test cut, another check, until what I'm leaving behind here in the wood is just a little bit thicker than the tile. So what that means is when the tile goes into our finished project, the top of the tile will be slightly below the surface of my material. So what'll happen is that we'll put this whole frame together. Put a piece of material into that rabbet. And then when the frame assembly is done, the tile drops in from the top. So on that depth, I, again, I'm shootin' for the top of the tile, just a smidgen below the top of the surrounding wood. That takes care of the step here at the table saw to cut that rabbet. Next thing I'm gonna do is cut biscuit slots. And once the biscuits are in there, we'll be ready to glue our miters together. Miters are cut. Biscuit slots are cut. Gettin' a little gravy on my biscuits in the form of our yellow glue. The biscuits do a great job in combination with the glue of reinforcing these miters. Remember that miters just traditionally don't have a lot of strength to 'em 'cause it's an end grain to end grain joint. So we're really doin' a lot to help hold that joint together by addin' the biscuits. Now, in the world of dry assembly, prior to this, what you wanna do is use the band clamp, put the whole frame together, and make sure that the tile fits okay in there. If the frame's a little bit too big still, of course, you can take a little material off. If it's too small, sorry, but you might have to start over. Lookin' good, drawin' those miters closed. It's gonna be nice and solid when we're done. So again, the program here is that when this glue is dry, we're gonna put a board into that rabbet. That's gonna create a base, kind of a substrate. Once that's in place, then the tile will come in from the top, like this, sit on top of that. We're gonna talk about the correct adhesive to hold those together. The tile won't go in until all the finishing is done 'cause you don't wanna take a chance of gettin' finish on the tile. So that's where we're at right now. We just gotta wait for that glue to dry. And that takes care of the assembly of this frame to frame our tile.