Low table


Bombarde16

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A low table to go at the foot of the bed I made years ago.  Inspired by...well, just wanted to use up some stuff that had been sitting around too long.  The legs are stock cherry carvings that I inherited from a guy who didn't remember why or from where he had gotten them.  The long aprons are black gum and the short aprons are pine.  The top is a wide chunk of red oak leftover from another project.

 

Some skill building in the project:  The top is finished with shellac and rubbed to semi-gloss.  You can definitely make out reflections but it's not a mirror.  The long aprons are shaped and sculpted.  The treatment of the top and aprons is inspired by a romp through the pictures of old pieces in Wallace Nutting's "Furniture Treasury".

 

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   Wow, you just blinded me with that beautiful  piece!   There's no way in this world that I can show that to my wife. It would mean a complete transformation of every piece of furniture I've built for our home.  Or a hell of a sale, in order to buy wood to make beautiful furniture like yours!

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Thanks for all the kind words.  Curves certainly go a long way, don't they?

For those who care to follow the process, here's where the top came from.  I started with a leftover board and that determined the size of the rectangle I had to work within.

 

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The top portion of the legs already has a curved section, so I started by standing them upside down on the board to determine how far back they'd be set from the edges.  Draw circles centered on the legs and tangent to both edges.  Draw a  line at 45 degrees through the center of each circle.

 

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Divide the distance between where said line touches the long side and the center of the long side in two.  NB:  All subsequent operations get copied around all four sides.

 

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Set a line 3/4" in from the edge.

 

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Create a square around that line and draw a line from corner to corner.

 

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Run an arc from that square that touches the outside edge.

 

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You could just as easily use another arc for the next part, but I found something that sort of, kinda looks like a French curve in the Trimble library.  Thanks to username "Mouse", whoever that is.

 

post-211-0-00497300-1405644429_thumb.jpg

 

I edited this component and deleted everything but the part that I want.

 

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Then rotate, scale, stretch, etc. until it touches the two points in the next section.

 

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Lastly, put a little arc on the side.

 

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And then delete everything that's extraneous.  Voila!

 

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Rather simple geometry (notice I didn't say the words "golden section" once) but it makes for a convincing effect once it's done.

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Rob, Great looking piece. Top is beautiful. For those w/ better skills than me I'm sure it's obvious, but how did you make the center of the front apron thicker than the ends?

 

Thanks.  The aprons are profiled in two dimensions.  Not only the bottom edge (which is a simple cut with a jig saw and clean up with a pattern-guided router) but also the show face.  To do this, I sketched the desired curves on the top edge of the board.  (i.e. the part that touches the underside of the table top)  Here's a sketch, grossly distorted to show what I'm doing.

 

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Then set a dado stack in the table saw.  Lay the board face down and hog out everything that doesn't belong.

 

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After that, it's whatever tool you fancy to get things smoothed out.  In my case, I used a cheap cheese grater from Menards.

 

post-211-0-69400100-1405645249_thumb.jpg

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Looks great Rob. All those awesome details I could ask about but I am most intrigued by the finish on the oak. Is the reddish hue just from the shellac or did you add any color along the way?

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Looks great Rob. All those awesome details I could ask about but I am most intrigued by the finish on the oak. Is the reddish hue just from the shellac or did you add any color along the way?

 

Clear, Bullseye shellac straight from the can.  What can I say? It's a pretty board.

Part of it may also be the color temp of the picture, though.  I bounced a flash off the walls, which are painted pink.

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What did you use finish wise for the base?

 

Plain, latex house paint that was starting to go bad.  Started with a primer coat of latex Kilz.  I had some odds and sods of whites and off-whites, so I mixed a creamy bone color, laid that as a base coat.  Then I dry sponged two layers of a very slightly lighter shade to give it some depth.  Burnish with a brown paper bag and you're done.

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Clear, Bullseye shellac straight from the can.  What can I say? It's a pretty board.

Part of it may also be the color temp of the picture, though.  I bounced a flash off the walls, which are painted pink.

 

Thanks Rob.  If I didn't see some ray fleck in the edge grain I would swear that top is cherry :)  Looks great. 

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