Dining room table - COMPLETE

[Chet]

Kathy and I found some new hoop or bow back chairs for the dining room that we really liked.  I'm going to build the table to go with them.  I thought I would do a journal if I can remember to shoot some photos during the process and there may be long pauses along the way because of the time of year for me, veggie garden, grand kids track meets and the like. 

Anyway this is the main inspiration for the design with some changes.

But the top will look more like the on on this table but even thicker, about 1 1/2 inches and will have faux breadboard ends that will open for the expansion leaves.

The other day when I brought the lumber home it was pouring outside so I stickered it up and gave it a few days to decide what it wanted to do.  Its all 6/4 and 8/4 red oak.

Yesterday was spent making big little ones out of big ones and getting the stack off the floor so I could move around freely again.

Table legs parts.

Table top parts.

And future parts up on the rack.

 

 

[..Kev]

Looking forward to the build Chet!

[pkinneb]

x2

 

[Alan G]

same here!

[Coop]

I like the sound of this one!

[mat60]

Same here and sounds good. 

[RichardA]

With all the Red Oak I have in the house, you know I'm in on this one, and the Red Oak hater ain't here no mo.

[bushwacked]

yaaaay a Chet build! Cant wait to watch this one

[Chet]

14 minutes ago, RichardA said:

With all the Red Oak I have in the house, you know I'm in on this one, and the Red Oak hater ain't here no mo.

I do like red oak but I am of the philosophy that everybody can build with what ever wood species they chose and I will do the same.    But having said that, the chairs we purchased are red oak so theres that little detail.

[wdwerker]

Sounds like a fun build to watch. While I'm not personally a red oak fan I use it for clients when requested. SWMBO is the highest ranked client isn't she ?

[wnaziri]

This is going to be good.  Looking forward to frequent updates.

[wtnhighlander]

Chet, I bet your red oak table is finished before mine is ... I only started last August.

Looking forward to the build!

[Chet]

1 hour ago, wtnhighlander said:

Chet, I bet your red oak table is finished before mine is

I am hoping it goes quickly but if I end up with it on the bench going into the middle of April, it might not get done until July because of other commitments.

[Ronn W]

Bring it on.

 

[Chet]

I spent some time mocking up some prototypes out of poplar for some of the parts to make sure  I was happy with the dimensions.  I then glued up my leg blanks.

After that I got all of the pieces for  the base of the table mill to almost final size.  4 leg blanks, on top of that is 2 lower stretchers and 2 upper stretchers.  The 2 longer pieces are for the trestles and the pieces at the front of the photo are battens.

Next I laid out my through mortises on the stretchers.  The top stretchers are narrower and have smaller tenons even though the top and bottom trestle are the same thickness.

Then I hogged out most of the waste with a Forstner bit on he drill press.

I made a template and used my router and pattern bit to cut the mortises.  On the first one I had a mishap and wrecked the stretcher and my template.  I did the rest and while doing the second successful mortise I found out what had happened.  I saw out of the corner of my eye the depth stop on my router slowly rising above the turret so I stopped before I wrecked another strecher and noticed that the screw on the plunge release lever had loosened about a half a turn and wasn't holding securely.  So after tightening the screw there were no further incidents...

So anyway I cut the mortises with the router and template and pattern bit.

And then leaving the template in place to give me a flat surface to reference off of, I cleaned up the corners with a chisel.

Today I started off by cutting to a real rough size the pieces I will need to make the slides for the table extensions.  I want them to be about 1 inch by 3 inches so I am cutting them from some 8/4 stock and the off cuts will be used in an upcoming project.  I am expecting them to move on me so I cut, milled and stickered them a head of time.  I went to rip them and the drawer cabinet that  I recently made for the garage was in the way.  fortunately all I had to do was remove a drawer and I was able to get things ripped and re-sawen.

I finished up the day by cutting the tenons of the trestles.

And fitting them up with my shoulder plane.  I really like this Veritas shoulder plane.

I am real pleased with the final fit inside and out.

The upper trestle had an extra notch to it to fit around the batten that will go on top of the legs. 

And the first dry fit of the project.

[Coop]

The removing the drawer pic was amazing. Just thumbing thru, without reading, I thought you had to remove the drawer to access you planer. Perhaps it’s time to go take a shower and go to bed. 

[Chet]

12 hours ago, K Cooper said:

I thought you had to remove the drawer to access you planer

No, it was for the band saw.  The planer is situated where I could use the whole driveway if need be.

[..Kev]

Got busy this week and am just catching up on the journal..  Looking great Chet!  That is one beefy base!

[Chet]

16 minutes ago, ..Kev said:

That is one beefy base!

The legs will be losing some size and a slight curve toward the bottom.  There will be an arch in the bottom stretcher.  Both should lighten the appearance some... I hope.

[pkinneb]

Wow you have been busy! Nice clean work there Chet.

[RichardA]

Nicely done chet, you're moving right along.   Oh, by the way, I have the same drill press fence.

[Chet]

30 minutes ago, RichardA said:

Oh, by the way, I have the same drill press fence.

LOL.  I built this drill press table years back just to get me by until I could build a nice one... still using it.

[RichardA]

37 minutes ago, Chet said:

LOL.  I built this drill press table years back just to get me by until I could build a nice one... still using it.

Me too, I moved it from an old craftsman drill press to my new one, and it still works.

[Chet]

I had about three hours today and was able to get a little more done on the base of the table.  First thing I did was lay out were the dominos would go in the stretchers and legs.  This was my first solo experience with the domino routine, the only other time I did anything with the domino the other person did the layout, I just punched some holes.  One of the things I wanted to make sure of was to miss the area in the lower stretcher where I was going to cut an arc.  I didn't want to cut the arc and see a domino.  

The easy ones were in the top and bottom stretcher. 

For the legs, I milled up a block to set the domino on and raise it up so I could get my cuts in the center of the legs.  I also used a couple of bench dogs to support the leg and give me something to push against while I plunged the domino.

After this I went ahead and drew my arc on the lower stretcher.  I used a drawing bow to do this.  Then I taped both stretchers together with double stick tape and cut them on the band saw.

Then cleaned them up with my osculating spindle sander.

Then I laid out and cut a slight curve in the legs to lighten up the look of the base.  I cut these on the band saw also.

I cleaned up most of the saw marks on the legs with a cabinet scraper.

And then finished them up on the osculating spindle sander the same as the stretchers.

Then another dry fit to finish the day.

Next I will put a small chamfer on most of the edges and then do a fair amount of sanding.  I am thinking about wedging the through tenons on the trestles, something I saw Gary Rogowski us to tighten up the tenon and looked like a nice touch.  I am thinking of using Wenge.  Something new to try.

These are the two drawing bows form Lee Valley that I used for the stretcher and legs.  The orange on gives you a symmetrical curve like on the stretchers and the green one is asymmetrical and this is the one I used on the legs.  Real handy to have.

[Chestnut]

The subtle curves really make the piece work it does lighten the look a lot. This is looking great. I think it's interesting if you look at the pictures back to back the piece with out the curves looks great too. but more mission style. After you hit the curves in there it transforms to a slightly different style and the name is escaping me.

I have the drawing bows from lee valley as well got them for Christmas this last year and I've already used them a bunch. They are really nice to have. I have to say they are a luxury item because i was using a stick with a string and that was working just fine. Having the easy adjust and knowing it's making a perfect curve is a huge plus though.