Jonathan McCully

Getting tired of sharpening with my scary sharp sandpaper method, which works well, but frustrates me every time I have to change out the paper. Strongly considering a change to diamond stones. My current tools requiring sharpening are chisels, plane blades, spokeshave, and card scraper. Based on my understanding of stones, diamond stones should work well for these tools, particularly the card scraper because it won’t wear a groove in the stone (unlike water stones). Seems that DMT is a good quality brand in diamond stones and I’m looking at purchasing 3 DiaSharp Bench stones, 600, 1200, 2200. Will those grits be adequate for what I’m wanting to use? Would you add a strop to this for polishing? The stones I’m looking at are 8x3 in size, which seems like it would be adequate, but do you all prefer bigger than that? Anything else I should be considering? I really appreciate your wisdom in helping me with this.

Beautiful piece. Sculptures furniture has intimidated me since I started woodworking, but you made it look simple. May have to remember this journal for a future project.

First thing I thought of too!

Agree with all of these comments as well. I’ve got a Bosch router that included both a fixed and plunge base and it’s been so helpful to have both. Based on what you’ve mentioned that you want to do, sounds like you need both.

Love this idea! And guarantee that my wife would love to have something like this as well. May have to steal this idea for a future gift. Thanks for the journal.

Incredible work Ronn and thank you for walking us through your process. Your attention to detail with grain matching is superb. As a novice at this craft, I see things like this and aspire to them one day, but don’t feel like I’ll ever quite get there. And I think a table like this will leave a far better legacy for your family than any novel that might be written.

That’s actually really helpful. Didn’t know that.

Got the four boards finished yesterday, just in time for leaving to head home for the holidays. Ran a 1/4” roundover around all the edges and put a recess on either end for hand holds. Finished them off with a mineral oil-beeswax mixture. Pretty happy with the result of the project and expect that my family will be too.

Beautifully done. I'm a huge coffee nut. Will have to put this on my list of future projects and possibly gifts. Love the mitered drawer, hides it nicely in the bottom. Great idea.

What size dominos did you use on yours and were your stretchers that large? i definitely have some hefty mortises to cut and do plan to use a spiral upcut bit, but also have a domino. Didn’t expect the dominos to be enough for this though and was expecting to cut these out Your description makes sense by the way. I wasn’t thinking entirely clearly last evening and was somehow picturing a 3” x3” stretcher with a 3” tenon as well. Not sure why my mind jumped there but it did. Thanks for the help

This may sound like a silly question, but would that essentially mean that the mortise would be open on the top and bottom right? Kinda like a large dado (except it’s not running with the grain)? Again, I know it’s a strange question, but I’ve only ever done a traditional M&T and this seems a bit different.

Is this kinda what you were suggesting Ronn? I appreciate all of the suggestions you both have been giving me btw. Really helpful as I think through this.

Sorry, misunderstood you. And I know what you mean about hitting your legs. I’m always stretching my legs out (I’m 6’3”), but I think the width should be enough to keep people from hitting knees.

Here are a couple more of my drawings which may help visualization of what I’m describing. My current plan is to do the entire build without hardware, so my thought is to attach the top to the base with through dowels on the top support and anchor blocks attached to the bottom of the table top. That’s what the larger circles theough the top support are for.

I understand that I didn’t include all of my drawings. I have a single stretcher planned between the two legs about halfway up that will M&T into the open section of the leg between where the knees are joined (if that makes any sense). I’m not sure that this stretcher will provide much structural help, much like what Nut was saying. i actually have two stretchers across the top planned and was questioning if a third might be beneficial for such a wide tabletop. Ill definitely keep a thinner top in mind. I’m not sure all of my wood is exactly 8/4 anyway and will lose some thickness with milling.