Midcentury Coffee Table

[Isaac]

Not a full blown journal here, but I did take some in progress shots of this project. This coffee table will be a wedding gift for one of my best friends. We talked a bit about what he liked, and I sketchup'd a design, but ultimately when I got into looking at the specific wood I had available, I just got inspired to do something quite a bit different and settled on a mid-century modern coffee table design I found online. I didn't have any measurements or dimensions, and eyeballed the various components to what I felt looked nice. My buddy has no idea what is coming, but I'm confident he will like it. 

The project is made of cherry, but my friend really wanted a dark walnut look. At this point, walnut is just too expensive for me, and I had a lot of nice cherry on hand.  So I helped the cherry along with some transtint and penetrating stain. The transtint alone was a bit too grey brown, so the penetrating brought in some warmth, which I think was a good choice. 

I started by gluing up the top, which consists of three planks and two upturned edge pieces. I really like the look of the grain here:

I used a long string, pencil and tape to swing arcs to shape each end. 

Ends cut

Next was building the base frame. My approach was to form the base piece joints with rectangles and then shape these into curves after the fact. So the joints consist of mortise and tenons, cut with a combination of my router table and hand chiseling. 

So here is the basic layout, all boxy.

Next step was shaping the legs and frames components. I did this by hand. The key was just to keep a protected zone at the joints. Maybe that is cheating, I don't know, but I'm happy with the result and enjoyed it.

I made lots and lots of these shavings!

Next I drilled the dowels (these are actually Oak, I didn't have cherry dowel material... I'm ok with it, they are underneath, and at least they are hardwood and consistent in appearance). I also shaped the side rails and top fins. In the end, the frame is quite light and most of the weight is in the top. 

After gluing, sanding and dyeing/staining I finished it with quite a few coats of polyurethane. I settled on a bit higher gloss than I usually do. I think it showcases the wood quite nicely, and if necessary, I can always back the gloss back down a bit with some steel wool and wax. 

I took it outside to see it in the sunlight this afternoon:

Thanks for following along!

[wdwerker]

Definitly has a mid century vibe to it. So did you sign and date it ?

[pkinneb]

Nice! I'm sure they will love it.

 

[RichardA]

Well done.

[Mick S]

Very nice, Isaac. You want to be my friend, too?

 

[Chet]

Very nice Isaac. Great looking piece. I think you are okay with it being a little more glossy, I think mid century stuff tended to be glossier in appearance then what we like these days

[mat60]

What a great gift.   Well done and I really like the finish. 

[Isaac]

1 hour ago, wdwerker said:

Definitly has a mid century vibe to it. So did you sign and date it ?

I always forget, but will now. Thanks for the reminder.

1 hour ago, Mick S said:

Very nice, Isaac. You want to be my friend, too?

 

We're all friends here, aren't we Mick? 

Thanks for the support everyone. This was a pretty fast build, as it really doesn't have many parts, but still quite a bit of fun. Kind of refreshing in that regard.