Building the Game Table

[jwood314]

8 years ago, or so, I saw a gaming table made by a company called Geek Chic, being a huge gamer myself, I was floored by the idea of that table.  I could never commit myself to purchasing one of their tables, mainly due to the time it takes them to make them.  I am an Air Force officer and move quite often, would hate to put a deposit down on a table, and end up in Guam, where they couldn’t ship it, which is what would have happened if I did.  Fast forward to today.  I still have been lusting after a gaming table, I had been surfing the web looking for a good table to build, on YouTube and Board Game Geek.  Through the looking, I happened to stumble across a web site called the Wood Whisperer, watched some of his videos on line, and decided to take the plunge and spend the $s to get the plans and the video tutorials.  I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the videos, the drawings, and all of the step by step instructions on how to craft this table.  I have a lot of experience in building and designing, from wood to plastic to metal.  I like doing prop reproduction, look at them for a while then sell them.  This is an Enterprise I did, and sold, currently working on the TOS Bridge and 1/72 Falcon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18tcUsKjq3Q

 

The other half of deciding to do this build, my father is in his 70s, and he is also an avid wood worker.  I really wanted a keep sake that I will have for the rest of my life, and this table fits this perfectly and unfortunately there is a time limit on how long we could do this.  My father built my sister an amazing crib, I wanted a table.  So enough back story.

 

I am currently deployed, and will have 7 weeks when I get back to move my family to our new over seas home, so I am able to take 2 weeks off to build this table and accessories.  This timeline though drove me to make some decisions, the main one being I needed all of the material, that can’t be easily procured at a big box home improvement store bought.  I wanted this table made out of dark wood, I love veneer, so going to have veneer as part of the project, I also am going to build multiple card boxes to help pay for this endeavor, so I needed more wood and veneer to build these boxes.  There will be a lot of down time during the build of the table, such as watching glue dry, where I can do the boxes.

 

So, where to purchase the lumber for the table and what type of lumber?  After a few weeks of website surfing, I ended up going with Bell Forest Products, http://www.bellforestproducts.com/.  A couple of reasons, one, their selection was amazing, they had so many woods and burls that I have never even heard of, and a lot of these, you could buy in a small inlay board that isn’t too expensive.  Also, they have a section on hand-picking your board, this was really cool.  A huge concern of mine was spending several thousand dollars on lumber that I had never seen, made me a little nervous.  The handpicked board section, and Eric Poirer’s incredible help really helped me to overcome my trepidation with ordering site unseen for a large chunk of lumber.  If I can figure out how, I will attach some photos below of the order.  I need the lumber in mid-late April, so getting it super-fast wasn’t a concern, and Eric made several suggestions, and also delayed shipping to allow for a new shipment on their end to get the best possible lumber.  Eric was very familiar with the table, due to being a partner/preferred vendor/friend? with The Wood Whisperer, and was able to steer me to a list of wood species that would work well for the table.  I gave me a ROM for the different species, and I ended up going with Wenge instead of a dark Walnut.  I really like the dark look and grain pattern of Wenge.  I can’t wait to work with the wood.  I also picked up numerous inlay boards, accessory boards and box boards, more on all of those later.  Eric’s awesome customer service, both via email and phone calls, the 10% guild discount really made buying through them a no brainer.  I have seen and read about horror stories where if you are not buying 1000 bd ft at a time, you get no service, Bell Forest was just the opposite, I purchased only about 100 bd ft, but I was always treated well, and I can’t recommend these guys enough to go buy lumber.  I know I will buy from them for my next project.

 

I love veneer and I have always wanted to work with it.  Be bopping around the internet looking for a supplier, I ended going with Veneer Supplies http://www.veneersupplies.com/ you might have heard of this as the sales site of Joe Woodworker.  I ended up at Joe Woodworker’s site before I found his online store, but he has put so much effort his articles, I learned so much from them that I almost felt obligated to purchase from his store.  However, looking at his prices, which are competitive, and his selection, which is also outstanding and being able to buy in none massive quantities, it was another no brainer for me to buy from Joe.  Lol, I have no veneering experience, and no tools, so had to buy the tools from Joe and the veneer, I already own a vacuum pump from my resin work I have done, but another chunk of change spent.  This was one of the best ways to get some Macassar Ebony into the table, along with several types of burls.  I can’t wait to get some pics of the veneer he shipped and of the finished product.

 

So, going to talk about the table some.  The current table is about 38” x 72” on the outside, this causes a 30” x 64” gaming surface.  I want a large surface, some of the games I play won’t fit.  So the first order of business is to increase the size of the table.  I am looking at adding 8” in each direction.  The main limiting factor on this though is transportation.  I will have to be able to transport the completed table in a Toyota Sienna.  I currently live at Tyndall AFB, but making the table in McKinney Texas, and driving it back to my home.  I am pretty sure I can get a 4’ x 8’ sheet of whatever in the back, will have to test this before I build the table.  LOLOL, I would hate to build something I can’t get back home, that would suck.  Our current dining table is 30” x 72”, so this will be a tad bit bigger in its out dimensions.  When I get home in a few weeks I will measure the van and see what my max dimensions are.  Additionally, the depth of the play space is an issue for me.  Looking at the drawings, the depth is about 2.25” of depth from the top of the play surface to the bottom of the inserts.  When you add in an acrylic panel and a possible speed cloth insert, you start removing some of this depth.  I am looking at adding in 1.5” of depth.  So, how do I get there?  I will cut the ½” groove that the bottom play surface sits in the side rails a little lower, and I will make up the rest in making the table taller, by about half an inch and making the side rails half to one inch taller, depends on the lumber in the order.  So I can’t set this dimension until I take a look at the Wenge I have on hand.  Looking at the pics of the lumber I can scale off of some known dimensions and I should be ok adding this extra depth into the table.  Having a deeper play space will allow for more types of games to be played and stored in this space.

 

The other major divergence from the base design is the accessory rail.  The current rail looks fantastic, I think the way to get the attachments into the table, and the pattern needed to support that adds a cool look to the table.  However, having used a Geek Chic table, a buddy of mine owns one, I really like how their rail works, also easier to make the accessories.  I can’t directly measure a table over here, but my buddy sent me some dimensions, and I can scale off of a few pics of the rail.  I plan on building this rail system out of pine first, before I transfer it to the Wenge, can’t afford to ruin an 8 foot board with the incorrect or inoperable rail system.  Here is where the Bell Forest hand picked board comes into play.  Having my last name as wood, I happen to really like all sorts of wood.  Bell Forest was able to feed my addiction, and here are the boards I purchased to make my accessories out of.  You can go to that game table website to see what these look like, they will be similar to what they have.

 

Accessories

Bolivian Rosewood - cup holders

Zebra Wood - card/counter holder

Curly Cherry – Wine Glass Holders

Granadillo - tablet holder, maybe book holder, maybe dice holder

Walnut – Bins

 

The inserts will be three different burls on one side, currently Elm, Walnut and Redwood.  I am thinking of not using the Redwood though and going with something else, to keep all three a darker color, I might dye the Redwood to darken it up, not sure.  The other side of the inserts will be a Flat Cut Bolivian Rosewood, and this is absolutely gorgeous, huge shout out to Joe on his selection, and I am thinking of using Zebrawood veneer in there somehow.  Having grown the table, the Rosewood might not be large enough to cover all three panels, and I want the grain to line up perfectly across them.  Still thinking on this, and will need to measure etc when I get to McKinney.

 

The bottom of the play space will not be a cabinet plywood, I plan on veneering over MDF this also.  I got a great deal on an Eucalyptus burl veneer that has a blade marking the sheets.  I also acquired some quartersawn Macassar Ebony, and will use the two to create some sort of pattern on the bottom of the playing surface, I also purchased some inexpensive veneer to back the other side to avoid warping.  Since the bottom piece is going to be longer than 6 foot, I had to purchase the 4’ x ‘8 vacuum bag, oh well.

 

Veneers

Triple Panels Top

AAA Elm Burl Veneer

AAA Redwood Burl Veneer

AAA Walnut Burl Veneer

 

Triple Panels Bottom

AAA Zebrawood Veneer Sheet

AAA Flat Cut Rosewood (Bolivian) Veneer

 

Interior Table Bottom

AAA Quartersawn Ebony (Macassar) Veneer

AAA Eucalyptus Burl Veneer

AAA Okoume Veneer Sheet

 

I plan on doing inlay around the top of the table, on the skirts and on the legs.  I have been looking at inlay designs on line and I have not seen a design that carries the side inlay all the way around the table, so goes from skirt to leg back to skirt.  Most of what I have seen is a box on each skirt and on each face of the leg.  Not sure if I want to do a bunch of boxes, I am stuck on the wrapping the entire side in a continuous run of inlay.  There will be three layers of inlay, the two outer bands will be Holly at either 1/8 or 3/16 not sure on the width, and the center will be 1/4 wide, but will be made up of 1 inch long pieces of wood.  50% will be Birds Eye Maple and the other will be from about 20 different types of wood.  Here is a list of that wood. 

 

Amboyna Burl

Black Palm

Bocote

Bolivian Rose Wood 

B/W Ebony

Brown Mallee Burl

Cocobolo

E. Indian Rose Wood

Gabon Ebony

Holly

Indian Ebony

Jatoba

Katalox

Kingwood

Lace Wood

Leopard Wood

Osage Orange

Padauk

Purple Heart

Red Coolibah Burl

Snakewood

Tamboti

Thuya Burl

Tornillo

Tulip Wood

Zebra Wood

Ziricote

 

Most of the above woods came in the inlay size from Bell Forest.  I can do a mock up of the inlay and see if I like it.  Will take some pics.  I just love all of the variety of woods, I know it might look busy, but most of the table is black and white, the inlay will be the real varying part, and I don’t think it will over power everything else, but will add a cool touch.  Who knows until I try it though?  I also plan on doing some inlay in some of the accessories to spice them up some.

 

For the finish on the inlay section, I plan on doing all of my sanding for the Wenge before I install the inlay.  Install all of the inlay, finish it with a cabinet scrapper then seal it.  I am very concerned about getting dust into the holly and ruining the color of the wood.

 

For the overall finish, I plan on filling the pores on the Wenge with Crystalac or Ebony Timbermate.  I will do some test samples to see what I like.  Here are the various finish schedules I am looking at:

 

Group 1

No Oil

Crystalac (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x3 Polish

Crystalac (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x2 (Arm R Seal Satin – Finish Sand) Steel Wool?

Timbermate (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x3 Polish

Timbermate (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x2 (Arm R Seal Satin – Finish Sand) Steel Wool?

Group 2

Some sort of Oil

Crystalac (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x3 Polish

Crystalac (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x2 (Arm R Seal Satin – Finish Sand) Steel Wool?

Timbermate (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x3 Polish

Timbermate (Shellac – Sand)x3 (Arm R Seal Gloss – Sand)x2 (Arm R Seal Satin – Finish Sand) Steel Wool?

 

So a total of 8 test sample to get finished out.  Will take a couple of days to get to the finish point on these.  This will also get me comfortable using the various finishes.  I am not sure on which oil to use on these guys though.  I also understand that I might not get the table finish work complete in my time in Texas, I have a few weeks back at Tyndall where I can complete the work, and let the finish cure for several days before polishing it, if that is what I decide.

 

I have used a ton of Lacquer on my models, but I don’t have a large scale sprayer, I would laugh trying to finish a table with an air brush.  I would also spend a gagillion dollars trying to buy enough spray cans to spray it on, so some sort of wiping finish is going to be required.  I have neem researching how to finish all of the boxes, more on this in a bit.

 

As a way to offset some of this cost, I plan on making a whole bunch of high end card boxes. 

 

African Mahogany

Peruvian Walnut

Mayan Walnut

Aspen

Wenge

Zebra Wood

Flame Birch

Shedua

Honey Locust    

Butternut

Hard Maple

Holly

Canarywood

Bocote

Red Heart

Gaboon Ebony – this one is mine.

 

I plan on filling pores with crystalac, then shellac then probably Arm R Seal on the outside and Spray can Lacquer on the inside, due to its quick dry time.  I also plan on re-sawing the boards to get a bottom panel and card dividers for inside the box.  Will have to build some jigs, but once I get 1 made, the rest will get knocked out very quickly, the hard part is doing the finish work on these.  There will also be some sort of cloth bottom for the boxes.  For the top of the boxes, they will probably be MDF core, use the hardwood that the box is made out of for a surround on the MDF and then a veneer for the top and bottom. 

 

So, a lot of unknowns on dimensions, a whole lot of work I have never done before, a very strict time limit, 2000+ miles of driving, no problems!  Very excited to build this table, looking forward to posting updates on the progress, and even more important, the completed project.

 

Cheers,

James

 

[wtnhighlander]

Sounds like you're going to end up with quite an heirloom, James!

[Eric.]

Hey that's one hell of a first post there, James.  Please do keep us updated with your progress.

FYI, I'm moving this thread to the "Project Journals" sub-forum.  It could probably fit in either forum but so far this is more journal than Guild-specific.

[Cliff]

You are ambitious and brave. Ziricote is my favorite wood but I'm not allowing myself to touch it until I am much better at this.

[nerdbot]

Can't wait to see it!  Good luck!

[Brendon_t]

7 hours ago, jwood314 said:

Wenge.

I can’t wait to work with the wood.  

 

Cheers,

James

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes you can. 

Invest in two things for that wenge off the bat.

1  tweezman tweezers

2 a swear  jar

2b) ca glue and spray activator. 

[Eric.]

2c) MDF for backing up EVERY. SINGLE. CUT. Or else...

[..Kev]

16 minutes ago, Eric. said:

2c) MDF for backing up EVERY. SINGLE. CUT. Or else...

Awesome advice!  Wenge has a tendency for bad tear out as my current project would show!  Lesson learned!

[Chet]

2 minutes ago, TIODS said:

Wenge has a tendency for bad tear out as my current project would show

Hey Kev you finally home.

[Brendon_t]

1 hour ago, TIODS said:

Awesome advice!  Wenge has a tendency for bad tear out as my current project would show!  Lesson learned!

Before I swore it off completely, I had some blow out's on cross cuts that would put a sawzall to shame.

Backer is a must.

[..Kev]

Yes, Chet, finally home..  

[bradpotts]

I didn't read all of your post because I can only focus for 45 min at a time. Ha ha the part I read... I wouldn't be that worried about getting dust into the pores of holly. It has very small pores and you can use a card scraper of you are worried.

[Marcel.F]

Very ambitious. Here's to smooth sailing . I'd confirm that there will be adequate leg room from the top of your thigh to the under side of the table if your deepening the playing surface by an inch. It's should be ok but definitely worth measuring before hand with the proper chair height.

Proper planing helps preventing any chance of something Bitting you in the ash. Your on the right track.

Marcel---

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jwood314]

Well, most of the material have arrived where the table is going to be built, some cool pics.  I can't wait to actually see the boards in person, a few weeks out though.  I know not very exciting, but I am stoked!

 

wtnhighlander - Hope we end up with an heirloom!

 

Eric - Will keep updating as this gets built.  It will be built in 2 weeks, so a lot of updates come late April.  No problems on the thread move, not sure where I should have stuck it.

 

Cliff - I love Ziricote, beautiful wood. 

 

nerdbot - Thanks!  My Dad and I are going to need it.

 

Brendon - already own a bunch of CA for my other hobbies, splinters build character!

 

Eric Part 2 - My Dad and I have been discussing this issue about Wenge, I would have to fall in love with such a difficult wood. 

 

TIODS - you can see a bit of the tear out on one of the boards.  I have enough extra Wenge to do some practice work on first.  After we figure out the cuts on the lumber, I need to cut 8 or so sample boards to run through the different types of finish I am thinking of doing, hopefully, we can figure out how painful the cutting is going to be.  MDF is cheap compared to the Wenge, so no issue backing all of the cuts.

 

Bradpotts - thanks for the advice, a lot of firsts on here for me, so any and all advice is much appreciated!

 

Marcel.F - Thanks!  Concerning leg room, table height et al, I am modeling these off of our current kitchen table.  We plan on using the benches and chairs that came with table until I am stationed back in the States, then will build new Wenge chairs and benches!

 

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome, sometimes it is hard to break into a new forum.  All of the advice is excellent, and I can't wait to share my experiences.  My posts I have written for my model builds run into 80 pages plus!  I like writing about what I am doing, helps me to think about and plan the next steps in the process. 

 

There won't be much movement on this build until I get to Texas.  I don't think people want to hear that a few router bits came in the mail, or my 50" straight edge arrived, lol!

 

Cheers,

James

[jwood314]

I had ordered several different 1/8" pieces of wood from D&D Woodcrafts, the wood was to be used as dividers in the card boxes that I am going to build.  I was supposed to ship it to Texas, but instead sent it to my house in Florida, which turned out to be great. 

 

I am testing several different finishes schedules on this piece of Wenge, and my wife is here and we can make a decision on which way to finish thee gaming table!  Even though there is some additional cost doing it this way, having wife buy in is worth the extra expense, also knowing how I am going to finish the table will help in construction order.

 

So, the picture attached shows several different panels, and my cluttered kitchen counter top!

 

I am looking at several different finish schedules.

 

BLO only - I just wanted to see how the Wenge would react, and as the research has shown, the Wenge gets REALLY dark, so much so, that the beautiful browns and blacks in the wood sort of meld into the same color.  No desire to do this on the table. 

 

Lacquer only - I put down two coats of satin lacquer on one of the squares, it did a good job of preserving the browns and blacks, just don't feel that  there is enough protection on this high use/abused piece of furniture.

 

I did a panel of just General Finishes Arm R Seal, to see how the unfilled grain looks, both the wife and I don't like the unfilled grain look.  I built 4 layers of gloss, and then finished half of the panel in satin to see the difference, we really like the satin look.  Even with 5 thin coats, it still looks pretty close to the wood for a finish.  I did a light sanding in between the coats.

 

There are six panels where I am trying three different pore fillers, Ebony Timbermate, Dark Brown Walnut and Crystalac Clear pore filler.  All three are water based.  I am trying shellac first on three of the panels, and filler then shellac then varnish on the other three panels.  I want to see if order makes a difference in the final look.

 

Finally, I have tried several different methods of putting down the various material.  Paper towel, cotton fabric, a cheap sponge brush, a cheap paint brush.  I can't tell a difference in the final outcome when applying either thee shellac or Arm R Seal.  I am not sure if the small areas I am applying it to are making the difference, but Arm R Seal and thee shellac are viscous enough to fill in and level out the finish, I have even purposefully leeft air bubbles in the Arm R Seal, and they all eventually pop a level out.  I do like using a pad of cotton fabric the most to apply the finish, and since I own 5 yards of thee material, that is what I will use on the table.

 

BLO looks fantastic on all of the other woods I tried it on, Bocote, Zebrawood, Walnut, and Maple, this will work well for the boxes, but not the table.

 

I am gathering up my tools, and getting ready to head to Texas next week.  I will post an update on the finishes when my pore fillers get here and I will let you know on the final finish schedule that is wife approved.

 

Cheers,

James

[jwood314]

Day 1 of the Build

 

Finally made it to Texas!  We moved all of the wood last night over to my Dad's house, that took a while, also was a little tired after driving 900 miles.  This morning moved all of the veneer stuff over.

 

So, this is the first time I got my eyeballs on the wood and veneer.  All I can say is WOWOWOWOWOW.  I can't recommend enough Bell Forest Products.com and Veneer Supplies.com.  The 90BF or so of 8/4 Wenge is absolutely  stunning.  However, it is very hard and REALLY heavy, the table is going to be heavy.  The table is 8 inches wider and 6 inches longer, that is a lot more MDF and Wenge. 

 

Most of the work we did today was procuring a jointer, planer, bandsaw, new blades, router bits and a bunch of sheet goods.

 

Sort of a breakdown of where and what.

 

We went to Woodcraft first.  Due to all of the negatives I have heard about Wenge and tear out, I went with the Freud ultimate cross cut blade, the few cuts I made today went extremely well.  Zero tear out, and the edges were fantastic.  I chuckle when my 15 year old Rigid miter saw has a blade worth much more than it on it.  Also got a Timber Wolf blade to put on the band saw.  Will set that up tomorrow.

My Dad's Shopsmith is sporting a Forrest combo blade, will try that out tomorrow should be good to go though, recently serviced/sharpened. 

 

We then headed over to Rockler, we got a Bosch plunge router and the edge guide, picked up some Tite Bond III. 

 

Picked up some clamps at Harbor Freight, not nearly as nice as the high end ones, but they have to work 4 times on this, needed to buy blades for the saws instead of the clamps.

 

Headed over to Lowes got the planer, band saw and all of the sheet goods, somehow got it all to fit into my minivan, yeah for mini vans!

 

After transporting all of the material to the house, we got the jointer and router table set up this evening, decided on what wood was going where in the table.  This was sort of predetermined though because I am trying to deepen the gaming area by over an inch, so the widest boards were tagged for the side rails, then we picked the most matching of the remaining three for the top of the table, and the last three for legs. 

 

We tested one of the boards on the jointer,  worked great, no tear out.

 

We will get the legs glued up tomorrow, rest of the tools set up and adjusted, start working the rails, and hopefully get the first jigs built for the inlay work.  Excited to finally be moving on this!

 

Pics tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

James

[jwood314]

Got a lot of work done on the table today.  We got the leg wood choice completed, basically which chunks of wood would make up each leg.  We were able to get 3 of the legs to look really good, and the 4th is just ok, will have to make sure that the bad leg is in the farthest corner in the room.  Took us a while to get the legs glued up.  After that we ate some lunch and headed over to Elliot's Hardware in Plano TX, a ginormous hardware store with lots of hard to find bits and pieces.  We needed to get an adaptor piece to get the vacuum pump I own to plug into the bag from Veneer Supplies.  We are going to get the bag all set up tomorrow, we need to start flattening some of the veneer in preparation for actually veneering something.   We spent the afternoon reverse engineering the channel that the Geek Chic accessories slide into.  No details here on measurements etc, but without an actual cup holder, a buddy of mine owns one of their table, we wouldn't have gotten the channel correct.  Some dimensions don't really matter too much in the great scheme of things, but two are critical if you want your accessory to sit properly in the channel. We spent quite a while practicing in a pine 2x4, and after some confidence built up there, we made transferred to our spare test piece of Wenge.  Hopefully the attached pic shows how well it turned out.  I also got the band saw together, installed the Timber Wolf blade, and started messing around with the saw, trying to get a feel for how it works, and what we are going to need to do to get it to work the way we need it to.  Looks like we will need to build some jigs to cut all of the inlay pieces.  The edges I was getting free handing it were not so good.  The saw didn't come with an edge guide, need to find a cheap one to put on there.

 

We plan on getting the mortises on the table legs done tomorrow, along with all of the channel cuts into the side rails.  We are also going to get the veneer bag set up, in the dining room, lol, Mom isn't too happy, just for a few days, and start to flatten some of the non flat veneer.  I don't think we will get the tennons cut on the side rails, but who knows!  I am debating on changing how far back the rails sit in realtion to the legs, to show off some more of the inlay that will wrap around the side of the table, still thinking on that.  It wouldn't affect much, will need to take a look at it tomorrow.

 

Pic 1 is on our first Wenge cut, all went well, the blade was awesome.

 

Pic 2 is of the table legs set out, and trying to get the best grain match on the pieces, we shifted around a bit for the final product.  Was also able to hide some of the VERY rare defects on this Wood.  Bell Forrest did an outstanding job of wood selection.

 

Pic 3 is of the 4 legs all caulled(sp?) up, glued and clamped together.  We don't own as many clamps as some others.   The really cheap clamps from Harbor Freight, are well, really cheap.  We only have to hold the table together and the table top inserts left on what these needed to be used on.  They are really cheap!

 

Pic 4 is our pine test piece we needed to use to gain some XP on the channel dimensions.

 

Pic 5 is the finalized channel in the Wenge.  Took us a while to sneak up on the last dimension, but we got it, after about 6 little tiny passes, but the final product is super awesome.

 

Looking forward to tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

James

 

 

 

 

[wtnhighlander]

Wise move, wearing gloves around wenge! Looks like you are progressing nicely!

[..Kev]

Nice to see all the reference marks on the parts!  Nice job

[jwood314]

Thanks for the kind words, would be way to easy to get things backwards if we didn't label everything.  Also, I have gotten a few splinters, but mainly from the unfinished side.  Once it has been jointed or sanded, isn't too bad.

Day 3 of the Build

 

Got some good work completed today, we got the legs squared up, and the mortises cut in.  That was really hard to cut those with a router.  I checked the widths of the 8 mortises, and we were able to get all 8 within 0.025 tolerance, with most falling within 0.010 of each other, there were two outliers.  So, pretty happy with the success with the router edge guide.  The biggest take away from this though is the need for a really good work bench, the 2x4 folding table with 2 sheets of 0.75 plywood slapped on top is ok, but a level, flat work surface would make things much easier and much more accurate.  I would have liked to have all the mortises within 0.005" of each other!

 

Started to mock up the inlay, will get that finished tomorrow.

 

We also started to work the rails, and determined, that the little Porter Cable jointer, while mighty for its price, can't get the longer Wenge pieces flat.  It is really hard to keep 7 foot of board hanging off of the end of the jointer flat to the surface, too much weight with too much leverage.  So tomorrow, my Dad and I are headed over to Build's Member Workshop.  You can pay one of the owners on a 15 minute interval to do work in their shop.  This works out great for us.  We are going to get him to joint all of the rail and table top pieces, also the long board of Holly.  I also plan on bringing a board over to see how well he can resaw some wood. 

 

We got the veneer bag and platen set up today.  Also pulled out and looked at all of the veneer, to figure out the order to start flattening what needs to be flattened.  Takes a day or two to do that, so need to start soon to make sure we are not waiting on veneer when we need it.

 

So for tomorrow, plan on getting the boards jointed, finishing the inlay mock up, verifying that I like it, also, should get the rails completed, flatten the veneer needed to finish the bottom MDF board, get the tenns cut and get some of the jigs needed to cut the inlay wood on the jig saw.  Another busy day.

 

Pic 1 is of the mortises cut, they need to be cleaned up with a chisel tomorrow.  That was really hard to get down.

 

Pic 2 is of the veneer, we turned the dinning room into an veneering room!

 

Pic 3 shows the slots that the inlay will be inserted into.  Hopefully it comes out looking good.

 

Pic 4 a ton of effort to basically make some 4" x 4"s, lol. 

 

Cheers,

James

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Coop]

James, the progress is looking awsome! Welcome back to Texas and enjoy your time with your Dad. Thank you for your service to our country!

[jwood314]

K Cooper - Thanks and thanks!

 

Day 4 of the Build

 

Another great day of progress.  The morning was spent trying to figure out how to get the longer boards jointed.  I was able to locate a place called Build Member's Workshop, and they were gracious enough to have someone joint the boards for me.  They usually have a monthly membership fee, and a required safety class, but one of the employees, Thomas, hooked us up.  We went from the 2 foot long Porter Cable mini jointer, to a very large Delta, which made short work of the long boards on the table.  We were able to get all of the remaining lumber jointed, including the Holly, and also made use of their table saw to rip the boards to width.  So the side rails and the table top pieces are all at their correct widths.  We plane'd the side rails down to 1.6 inches, will work the top rails in a few days.  We also mocked up the inlay pattern, very happy with how it is going to look, so went ahead and did all of the routing on the side rails and on the table legs.  I wanted to carry the inlay pattern from the rails around the legs, and back onto the rails.  Ran into the first real issue of tear out though, going to have to do some repair work on the table legs due to tear out.  We also got a lot of prep work completed today for the veneer work.  We need to flatten some of the veneer, so cut all of the cauls for that, and will start that process tomorrow, will take a while to get them flattened. 

 

For tomorrow, we should get the mortises cleaned up, the tenons cut on the side rails, that is all that is left on those pieces, get several pieces of veneer into the press to start the flattening process, get the MDF bottom piece cut, and I will start the veneer design that will go on that piece, maybe start working the top rails, if we have time.

 

Pic 1 is of the inlay mock up, this is with just birds eye maple, and zebrawood.  The final will have many other woods, with maple in between, also sanded down and level, unlike the pic.  Really like the Holly on the outside, can't wait to see a complete rail down.

 

Pic 2 is a picture of the workshop who really helped us out today, they are located in Southlake Texas, check em out!

 

Pic 3 is the tear out on the legs

 

Pic 4 is of the side rails and all of the inlay channels cut.

 

Pic 5 is of the top rails, needs more work, but getting there.

 

Cheers

James 

 

 

 

 

 

[shaneymack]

I love the inlay! Coming along nicely !

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

[..Kev]

Inlays are cool!  Good progress!

[wdwerker]

I love how you just jumped in the deep end and are swimming along nicely !

In your finish testing include some waterbourne top coats. They can be quite durable and don't affect the color of the beautiful woods you are using. You can use your shellac as a barrier coat over anything you decide to oil (just let it cure completely first).