A pair of bedside tables or nightstands

[TerryMcK]

Here we go again. It's Terry's latest project journal time.

Bedside tables (nightstands) - Part 1 - Design

 

Here is a design for a pair of bedside tables or nightstands made from sapele.

My wife and I had seen some bedside tables in Malta earlier in the year that were the right scale and I took a few measurements related to the height of the table surface above the mattress as they just seemed to work.

When we got home I transferred the measurement I had taken to our existing bed side tables and came up with the size of table that would work in our home. First of all in Sketchup I drew a solid cube with dimensions to suit what I had worked out. Then came the specification.

 

The pair of tables needed the following:

• Design to match a future chest of drawers.
• A wide top surface table to place a lamp, a clock and a beverage. It had to look clean and clutter free.
• A single drawer underneath the top surface with drawer front flush with any aprons.
• A gap to a shelf below the drawer that could be used to place an iPad (or similar tablet), a book or magazine. The ability to get into this space from 3 sides is necessary. This particular requirement was a specific request.
• Another shelf around 5" up from the floor that could be used for a multitude of purposes.
• The backedge of each shelf to have an upstand to prevent items falling off to the rear.
• Tapering legs to add the illusion of lightness to the piece. 
• Tables to be made from a single species. Internal wood for the drawer etc could be a contrasting species but would not be seen when closed.
• Extensive use of roundovers and beading.
• Semi gloss natural or amber tinted finish using waterborne polyurethane.
• Wooden drawer pulls of a design yet to be envisioned but will be agreed with the customer.

Another consideration to be taken into account was the shelves needed to be removable to allow access to the fixings of the table top. They could be screwed from underneath with fixings running in slots to account for any seasonal expansion.

 

Then I went away with Sketchup and came up with this design.

 

 

Beaded nightstand - I use Sketchup a lot nowadays.

 

I worked with my customer (my wife) on this to come up with the design before any wood was cut. Cardboard cut full size works well to help a client visualize the scale of the pieces.

 

I am well into the build of the tables and will post an update periodically.

[wtnhighlander]

Very nice design, Terry. I look forward to the build.

[..Kev]

Looking forward to watching you pull off some of the inlay details!  Love the tapered bottoms of the legs and the drawer handle really fits the piece well!  Curious on the upper shelf as it doesn't look like enough room to fit much but, if that's what the boss wants that's all that counts..

 

I too will enjoy watching this build!

[TerryMcK]

Yes the space is actually 3-1/4" high and even I can get my hands in. The intention is to store the latest novel, magazine, Kindle or iPad out of sight but still accessible so as not to clutter the top of the table.

We tried a mock up and it passed muster.

[RichardA]

You never fail to impress, and we all learn from your efforts!  Thank you!

[Coop]

Terry, If your wife liked your sanding block as much as you say, she's going to go bonkers over these. As usual, I'm looking forward to following this build. A new journal is way over due from you!

[TerryMcK]

Bedside tables (nightstands) - Part 2 - The legs

I had a piece of 16/4 (4" or 100mm square) sapele that I had seen in a home centre a few years ago. It originally was a finished newel post for a staircase and had been left on a rack alone in the home centre. I thought I could make a few guitar necks from it and as it was much cheaper than raw material bought it.

The timber was very well seasoned and was very stable and true. I used the bandsaw to resaw it in half and then run it through the table saw to get 8 pieces.

Then the usual milling process of jointer and planer/thicknesser was done to get the finished sizes of 38mm (1-1/2") square. The legs were then squared off and cut to length on the table saw crosscut table.

I then choose the best arrangement for each leg to match up the grain structures.

 

 

 

8 legs in raw form

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of mortises on each leg and the front legs differed from the back legs. I made up a story stick and marked off all the salient points for the mortises.

 

I had designed the tables to have 8mm (5/16") wide mortise and tenon joints and was all set to cut them using my dedicated mortiser. When it came down to doing the job I found that I had a 1/4" bit then a 3/8" bit and others going up to 5/8". But no 5/16" mortising bit!! I sent off for one and a 5/16" Narex mortise chisel from Amazon but it wasn't likely to arrive for a few days so I resorted to the old standby - the router.

 

Then using the router table I routed as many of the mortises as I could. I also decided to use my new Narex 5/16" mortise chisel, it arrived the next day due to the excellent Amazon Prime ,  to cut all the stretcher mortises and enjoyed the process. I found that mortising by hand produces far more accurate sides to the mortises than the ones produced by the router table. I think only doing 1/4" at a time with the router inevitably produces steps all the way down the slot. However that said the router is supreme at producing deep short slots which can't be done with the Narex mortise chisel due to its geometry.

 

Typical front leg

 

 

Typical rear leg

 

 

 

Some of the mortises cut. The clarity is not very good on this picture.

[TerryMcK]

Bedside tables (nightstands) - Part 3 - The aprons

When making any piece of furniture it is best to make as many sub-assemblies as you can to avoid the inevitable "glue up rush". This is when you are trying to glue as many components in as you can in the shortest time possible knowing that the glue is setting up and causing you to PANIC. This can sometimes result in you gluing items upside down, back to front or even inside out.

 

First thing to do was cut all the parts out of the sapele rough sawn boards. I use a hard point panel saw to separate the parts. I used to use a jigsaw when I saw Marc Spagnuolo doing it on a few of his TWW Guild builds. I found that the blade would not stay true and square so went back to the manual method I've been using for 20+ years.

 

So this table is designed like many other to have the sides glued up first. The sides comprise a deep apron at the top and two shelf support stretchers, one under the apron the other close to the bottom.

 

Again these were milled from sapele boards, cut to length, jointed, planed and tenons cut. I like to make the mortises first (as seen in the previous post) and then cut the tenons to suit. It's far easier taking wood off with a shoulder plane or rabbeting plane rather than trying to put it back on. The shoulders are cut on the table saw and the faces of the tenons are cut using a tenoning attachment again on the table saw.

 

 

Cutting shoulders using the table saw.

The riving knife can just be seen peeking above the surface of the table. The sliding table makes for accurate work as the miter gauge is clamped in place by tee nuts in the tee slot.

 

 

Cutting the tenon cheeks using a tenoning jig on the table saw. NOTE the pile of crap in the back of this photo piled up on my router table. We all have them don't we?

 

 

The tenons seen from the rear of the blade.

My table saw has a riving knife that is just below the level of the top dead centre tooth of the blade so is always fitted.

 

The tenons are cut to length and adjusted to fit the mortise width. Then a shoulder plane or rabbeting plane is used to give a nice slip fit to the cheeks to make the tenons fit nicely. The shoulder plane was also used to finesse the shoulders where necessary.

The shelf supports than had rabbets cut out to ultimately support the 3/4" thick shelves. They are difficult to hold in a vise and use a rabbeting plane due to the planes fence so I just cut them out with the tablesaw.

 

The final process was to round over some edges and run the pieces against a beading bit in the router table. We ended up with a pile of parts ready for sanding and final glue up once the tapers on the legs are cut.

 

 

Shelf support stretchers all labelled up with blue tape and a sharpy.

 

 

Side aprons with more blue tape. I don't yet have shares in 3M or Scotch.

[bushwacked]

Oh this is awesome! I've wanted to use saplele for awhile but just have not got around to it.

[TerryMcK]

Bedside tables (nightstands) - Part 4 - Completing the legs - a tablesaw tapering jig

The lower 120mm (4-3/4") inside sections of each of the legs were intended to be tapered to give the illusion of lightness to the whole piece. To do this I used my trusty old tablesaw leg tapering jig to clamp each leg in place whilst slightly angled relative to the blade.

 

 

^Front View^

 

 

^Side view^

 

Tablesaw leg tapering jig

Mine is made from 1/2" plywood with a mahogany runner on the underside to engage the tee slot. As my tablesaw also has a sliding table and these legs are not too long I use some tee nuts and hand nuts to fix the jig to the sliding table. The leg is marked with a line at the angle it needs to be cut. Then the intersection of the line is placed onto the edge of the plywood nearest the blade. This had been previously cut flush with the blade many moons ago.

 

 

^Jig mounted onto the sliding table on the table saw^

 

The piece of stock shown in the jig is not sapele but something of similar section to show the principle.

 

 

 

 

^View at the registration block end^

A scrap of the same thickness as the workpiece is shown at the bottom of the picture underneath the bridging clamp.

The underside of the bridging clamp has some self adhesive sandpaper on it.

 

The registration block, essentially a square scrap with a square corner cut out, is placed at the lower end of the leg. It is then screwed to the plywood base.

Another location block is placed into position against the back face of the leg and it too screwed to the base. This creates an ideal 3 point contact that makes allowances for discrepancies in the length of the leg but always holds it in the same position relative to the base of the leg. 

 

 

^Location block with clamp^

 

A regular clamp holds the leg in place against the top stop and a bridging clamp holds the bottom end of the leg tight to the face of the table.

 

The cut is then made on the table saw, the saw stopped, clamps released, leg turned through 90 degrees (the previously cut taper faces upwards), the clamps re-tightened and the second taper cut.

The results are perfectly cut tapers that probably only need a little cleaning up with a handplane to remove the saw marks and bring to the taper to the 120mm alignment line.

 

I did this on all 8 legs to achieve consistency throughout each leg and batched them out.

 

This type of jig will work on tables saws with 2 slots and can be made in a short time.

 

Round over using a router table 

The next job was to run the outer most corner of each leg through a  bearing guided 1/4" radius round-over bit to create a nice round-over. This is best done in a couple of passes, even though the radius is relatively small, on the router table as it is quite easy to tear out at this stage. There would be nothing worse than putting so much work into the legs only for one of them to severely tear out! Also this particular piece of wood was quite difficult to work.

After that was completed the remaining corners of each leg were run over a 1/16" round-over bit to break the corners. The bottom of each of the legs were chamfered with a block plane to minimize tear out when the tables are dragged across a floor in later life. 

Finally sanding the legs to 240 grit to prepare for the subsequent sub assembly glue up.

 

 

Finished legs and aprons ready for glue-up

[..Kev]

Awesome work as usual Terry..

 

Oh this is awesome! I've wanted to use sapele for awhile but just have not got around to it.

 

  I enjoy working with Sapele, I find it works just like walnut.

[shaneymack]

This is the first time ive seen this....looking awesome as usual Terry! Thanks for sharing. I love the idea of the shelf for a tablet or book and not having everything pile up on the top (like most bedside tables) Nice idea.

[bushwacked]

Awesome work as usual Terry..

 

 

  I enjoy working with Sapele, I find it works just like walnut.

 

 

oh really? I guess I should find me a project it would go with and get to using it then ... 

[wtnhighlander]

Moving along nicely, Terry! Nice to hear sapele works so well.

[TerryMcK]

I did notice that the legs were an unusual grain structure and it changes direction quite often - this was only apparent when using a smother. Still immensely strong though. All the other components came from flat rough sawn boards and were much easier to work.

 

Bedside tables (nightstands) - Part 5 - Side subassembly glueup

Each one of the components comprising the side assembly were sanded to 220 grit as it would be impossible to do properly after a glue up. I found that planing the legs, even with a high bevel angle smoother, was difficult due to the grain changing direction often. Scraping and sanding was the better option.

 

After an initial dry clamping to ensure all components fitted properly and a sanity check the four side assemblies were glued up.

I used Titebond 2 Dark for this as sapele is similar to mahogany when finished and the dark glue line left by TB2 Dark is not that noticeable.

 

After being left overnight they emerged from the clamps and were flat and stable.

 

 

One of the side sub-assemblies after glue-up

 

Then any dried squeeze out was removed with a chisel and chisel plane.

[..Kev]

That's going to really pop with finish!  Beautiful!

[TerryMcK]

I hope so Kev

 

Bedside tables (nightstands) - Part 6a - Cross stretchers - changing a design on the fly

There are a lot of these. Originally I designed the tables so that the shelves would hold the side assembly in should there be any movement causing splaying of the legs. I also designed in enough clearance so that the shelves were clear to expand and contract due to seasonal humidity variations.

 

 

Original design without cross stretchers

 

I decided half way through the build to add stretchers in front of each shelf, still giving a slender appearance to the shelves. I also incorporated M&T joints for the lower rear cross member. Previously both rear upstands had just been glued to the shelf - the lower one was now part of the structure. This required me to hand cut mortises to suit these after the sides had been glued up.

 

 

New design with cross stretchers.

 

The assemblies would not fit on a mortiser, a router table and a router had nothing to register against as all measurements had to come from the now glued up inside faces. I think even a Domino would struggle once the side assemblies had been glued up.

 

So I hand cut the mortises. The process of hand cutting mortises is very simple and comprises the following:

 

• Mark out the position of each mortise preferably with a marking knife to sever the wood fibres and a mortise gauge.
• Under cut a knife line with a regular bench chisel
• Use the mortise chisel to chop out an initial shallow trench (about 1/8" deep) but stay shy of the cross-cut knife lines either end by about 3/32". The reason for this as it's so easy when driving the wedge shaped blade into the wood and go beyond your knife lines
• Remove the chopped out waste
• Register the mortise chisel in the shallow trench and chop out in 1/8" deep (or deeper) passes until you achieve the desired depth.
• When the full depth has been reached go back to the cross-cut knife lines and finish the mortise to the knife lines.

If anybody wants a demonstration using photos (I don't do video yet) just let me know.

 

This is very simple to do and results in very accurate mortises. I encourage everybody to at least try this process once as it is very satisfying.

 

The same process that was used to produce the side aprons and shelf supports was used to produce the cross stretchers, table saw to establish the shoulders, tenoning jig to cut the tenon cheeks to width, cut to the tenons to width and shape.

 

 

The rear lower stretcher also functions as an up-stand to prevent items falling off the rear of the lower shelf in the finished article. This needed some extra work doing as I designed haunched tenons for this particular item. Again the mortises were cut with the mortising chisel and the deeper part of the mortise was cut in exactly the same way.

 

The rear aprons were made and these components have two tenons per side. I designed it this way to miss the tenons in the side aprons.

 

 

Rear apron with two tenons. Side tenon with 1 tenon

 

 

Leg in position (Shown in Xray mode on Sketchup)

 

 

Again all the stretchers had a bead routed on the lower face and the other edges had a shallow round over routed in. The exception to the round over were the bottom cross-member forming the drawer slot. This was just chamfered with a block plane.

 

 

Finished cross-stretchers and lower rear aprons

[..Kev]

Great change on the fly!  Nice job Terry!

[wtnhighlander]

Looking great, Terry! I really like the level of detail your journal contains. Keep up the good work!

[moonjam]

Really impressive work!

[TerryMcK]

Guess what I'm doing today

 

Drawer sides - English oak

[shaneymack]

Guess what I'm doing today

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tCLMyzPIZoI/VbzV_oa8gwI/AAAAAAAAFfg/Mvd-sITetGw/s1600/IMG_0227.JPG

Sharpening chisels?

[TerryMcK]

Good one

[shaneymack]

Good one

Messin with you Terry. Please take alot of pics while cutting those dovetails! You do a great job.

[TerryMcK]

I have been sharpening chisels too today so you guessed right