Church Altar and tabernacle stand – day 22
I have a bit of a head cold starting and I wasn’t feeling all that energetic last night. I decided to stay away from the bigger power tools if my head wasn’t in the right place. I decided to finish up some small stuff instead.
Marking the column locations
I finished straightening up and centering the columns on the tabernacle stand. I traced around the bottom caps, on the base, then removed the columns. If the bases were still square, finding the centers would be a simple matter of drawing a line between opposite corners. Since I cut chamfers on all of these, I decided to simply grab a few of the caps for the altar columns and center them between the lines instead. They are exactly the same size with a hole located exactly at the center.
Locating the center
Holding the plates in place, I drilled a hole, about an inch deep, to accept the locating pin. With the plate still in place, I pressed a 3/4″ dowel into the hole, as far as it would go, and marked the top.
Marking the dowel
Tapering the dowel
Just like the locator pins for the top, I tapered the ends, and glued them in place.
Glueing and setting the dowels
Erasing my lines
With the pins located, I erased my lines with my sanding block.
Drilling and setting the dowels in the altar base
I moved back to the altar base to repeat the process. After I glued in the pins for the columns, I assembled the column caps for the altar columns.
Assembling the altar column caps
I took care to make sure the grooves in the plates lined up perfectly with the grooves in the columns. If they are slightly off, assembling the raised panels will be very difficult.
Altar columns finished and located
Caps installed, and columns located. I checked to make sure the grooves lined up. The next step will be to move the base to the floor, then locate the top to mark the location of a matching groove in the bottom of the top. I will also need to start on the raised panels.
Grooves lined up for panel locations
Midnight Woodworking 
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