Look at this beauty :) She is done and headed to her new home! I am pretty pleased with the final result, and I am so happy I could help my friends out! I also need to be honest in that without this, i think i would still be just thinking about projects I want to build. This little push is what I needed to get back into the game and rediscover how much I love woodworking!
So we left off with a half assembled, stained brew bar. So I started by attaching the top. I didnt want to leave any marks on the top or legs since they were going to be more visible than the sides where i nailed it. So I decided on glue and dowels. I measured (twice), and drilled some holes in the legs and the underside of the top.
Once everything was ready, I made sure things would fit together ok. I dropped some glue in each hole and pushed the dowel in. Then i dropped some glue into the the other hole and pushed it all together. Part of the reason I wanted to use this method, was to get the legs in the right spot on the top (the top has a 1/2 inch overhang on each side) without screws. This worked like a charm. I dont yet have clamps big enough for a project this big, so I improvised.
I finally filled some gaps with my homemade filler. The filler is just sawdust and wood glue and a drop of the stain I used on the wood. It works really well to match the color of the wood.
Once everything was dry, I gave things a light sand and another coat of stain. I am aware that this is slightly out of order. Usually you don't stain until after filling and fulling assembling, or at least that was what I was taught in shop class. However, I was pretty concerned about the difference in wood color I was going for, so I wanted to get everything a little darker before using the glue in places I would have a hard time sanding. This is not my usual method, but I felt it fit for this project. Lastly I gave it 2 thin coats of satin polyurethane to protect it from any spilled coffee! I really hope they like how it turned out, I know I had a lot of fun working on it.