Coffee table for my nephew

[derekcohen 541]

I have begun the build, but was planning on a little more work before posting, since is just prep at this stage. 

This is the design chosen by my nephew ..



There shall be a few interesting challenges along the way since I am using solid wood all the way.

The joinery will be rounded corners shaped from through dovetails, mitred at each side. The challenge is to have accurately cut and fitted dovetails in hard Jarrah (no compression) as the outside will be removed in the rounding process. 

The other challenge is the splayed and angled legs which, for added strength, will be fitted to a traditional stretcher design, that is, the legs and rails will be mortice-and-tenon joinery. The legs will splay from the corners.

Lastly, the drawer will extend the full width, and be opened from either end. No handles.

Beginning the prep by resawing some really nice Fiddleback Jarrah, which will be the top and sides. The length of the coffee table is 1000mm ...



I was watching the boards come out of the blade, keeping an eye on the kerf for movement. This even kerf told me that the boards were going to be well-mannered and stable ...



Here's an example of the figure. These boards will be bookmatched to create a width of 500mm ...



The lower side of the coffee table will be made of more "common" narrower Jarrah boards (still extremely nice!). I picked up a length 4m long, and then joined three together to get the width ...





The boards were stickered for a week ..



Some may have liked to have accentuated the centre figure this way when book-matching ...



Too busy for my liking.

I preferred this ...



And this is where I left the boards at the end of last weekend ...



I'll get back to the build this weekend, although Saturday morning I am picking up a new lathe (Nova Saturn DVR). I think that this will do a better job turning the legs than my current Jet mini

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Bankstick 205]

That would be a challenge. Correct me but that looks like what they called Danish Modern back in the 50s. My complements on the series of photos. The wood and grain are outstanding and good job on the match. Not familiar with Jarrah but looks like a good wood. BTW, nice shop. Wish I had that much room.

[wdwerker 7,630]

Something tells me Derek's coffee table is going to be far superior to the one in the example photo !  Thanks for bringing us along for the ride !

[RichardA 3,689]

I love following Derek's work. It's so detailed, and more often than not, I learn a great deal from his work.

[treeslayer 1,983]

I’m in Derek, always a learning experience for me 

[drzaius 1,595]

Here we go again 

[wtnhighlander 5,554]

Derek, those rounded corners interest me. Do I understand correctly, that you will dovetail in a short section, 45 degrees to the top and sides? I assume then, that you must carve away some material to produce a round corner. How much thicker does the short corner section need to be, relative to the top and sides?

[derekcohen 541]

The thickness will remain constant as a fillet (or filler piece) will be glued along the inside corner, and then shaped for the corresponding curve with a hollow plane. 

Regards from Perth

Derek

[pkinneb 1,792]

Derek nice to see you have chosen another simple build LOL...I love following your work not only do I learn a lot but it inspires me to continue to push my abilities. Thanks for sharing!!

[Chestnut 2,734]

Excited to follow along again Derek. I can't imagine what we did to deserve these awesome journals.

[Chet 3,422]

Looking forward to this for sure.

[Bmac 243]

I’m realitively new here, but your work has quickly become something I look forward to seeing. Thanks for posting and I’m looking forward to following!

[Alan G 200]

I really enjoy following along on your journals. Can’t wait to do it again.

[curlyoak 217]

Thank you in advance Derek. Always a pleasure to watch a project unfold. And my guess is with exotic skills. Certainly a very special and well equipped shop. I have not heard of Jarrah but it looks beautiful. Where does it grow naturally? 

[derekcohen 541]

Jarrah is indigenous to South Western Australia ... about 3 or 4 hours drive south of Perth. It has been introduced on the Eastern side of Australia, but it is a slow growing tree. Much of Western Australia is a desert, with a green strip running along the coast. Summer is about 8 months of the year, with temperatures often running 35-40 Centigrade. The wood is hard and interlocked ... some of the hardest in the world. Jarrah is hard, and wears tool steel down far quicker compared to most of what you have in the States. 

So much of the Jarrah has been abused - used for roads and piers, and railways for over a century. I guess it was not until late in the past century that we had the machines to work it into furniture. Now it is almost gone ...

I shall be posting on this build in the coming weeks. I spent this weekend installing a new lathe - Nova Saturn ... gad, that is one heavy beast! Powerful beast .. 2.3 hp. Mmmmm

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Bankstick 205]

Thanks for the information on Jarrah wood. As for the lathe, good turning! Will you be turning Jarrah wood? My grandson made pens for his parents' birthdays last year. He picked arbor vita for his dad's pen. Drilled like tool steel! Turned out nice, though.

[K Cooper 5,552]

The pucker must have been tremendous when resawing that piece. Looks like you and the bs handled it VERY well. Good choice in not glueing it up as it came off the saw, pic #9. 

[JohnG 150]

Looking forward to watching this progress!

[derekcohen 541]

The immediate challenge is to create the curved ends. The plan is to make dovetailed corners, round them on the outside and add a filler/filet to the inside corner, which will be hollowed to compliment the outer radius.

Complicating this is the need to mitre the insides of the dovetailed ends, since this will permit the shape to flow better than butt ends. Interesting ... as I have never made mitred dovetails to date. This is going to be a steep but quick learning curve! 

I spent some time researching mitred dovetails. There is not much around. The only book I could find with directions was Ian Kirby's "The Complete Dovetail". I like Ian's work, but the writing here were not his best. There is a short video by Chris Schwarz (Google for it), which was helpful. There was also an article on the UKWorkshop forum (by Custard), which is a Pins-first method (I tend to saw Tails-first). There were one or two other articles to be found, of less assistance to someone like yours truly, who becomes easily spatially challenged. In the end I worked it out but, reflecting on the method that evolved, it does not look like those who came before. Perhaps it is a different way of doing it? I really do not know. Let me have your thoughts here. Anyway, I plan to show it for the education of those who want to learn a method.

Beginning with a tail board that has been marked and sawn (to speed up the description). Note that there is no shoulder here (which is common on butt ended dovetails). The wood is Merbau, which is hard, hard, hard. 20mm thick, as per the panels on the table ...

The aim is to saw all the tails. Forget about the mitre for now (... this is a departure from the methods I observed). 

To make the removal of waste easiest, undercut the baselines (shallow cuts to avoid losing vertical) ...

Now fretsaw away the waste. Get as close to the baseline as you dare! My cuts are about 1mm ...

This enables the minimum of waste removal. You can place the chisel immediately against the chisel wall and pare/chop down halfway ...

With the waste removed, mark the mitre cuts at the sides - but do not cut them yet (this is another departure) ...

Time now to transfer the marks to the pin board.

First, here is an alternative to the "#140 trick" (the #140 trick involves creating a shallow rebate to securely connect the tail board to the pin board when transferring marks. This was popularised by Rob Cosman and Chris Schwarz, amongst others). My alternative is three layers of blue tape, which is peeled away afterwards. 

Lay three layers of blue tape over the baseline. No need to be careful ...

Now use the cutting gauge (which marked the tails) to slice away the tape, leaving an edge butting against the baseline ...

This is the fence. Here it is seen with the pin board, which has a layer of blue tape on the end ...

 

The "fence" makes it easy to align the boards, while the blue tape on the pin board also acts as a non-slip ..

When you trace the sockets (with a knife), the outlines look like this (great for old eyes!) ...

Drop all the vertical lines, with the exception of the line on the outside at each side ...

Remove the waste in the same way as done on the tail board (undercut the baseline, fretsaw and chisel) ...

Mark out the mitre lines ...

... and drop the verticals on the reverse side...

Now saw the mitre cuts and remove the waste ...

Do this on the tail board as well - the reason it was left until now was that it would be difficult to transfer the outside tail if the mitre was sawn.

Stay about 1mm from the mitre line. Do not saw to the line. This will be more accurately shaped with a chisel.

For chiseling, use a mitre guide. This is just a 45 degree saw cut. I made a double-ended guide - to use on opposing sides ..

Take it slowly, a smidgeon at a time.

Finally ... the moment of truth arrives ... will she .. won't she ??

Looking promising as the top is pressed together with finger pressure. Then I wack it - the wood is uncompromising. The clamp is to prevent any cracking in such circumstances.

Not too shabby.

Mitres are tight ...

Now about the rounded edge ... here is the secret weapon:

After marking out, the waste is removed with a block plane, and then sanded smooth. Just lacking the inner filet ...

Enough practice. Now for the real thing. A bit more of a challenge as the panels are 500mm wide.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[curlyoak 217]

Very impressive! A significant WOW factor.

[Bmac 243]

Very nice and thanks for sharing. Great to see the process.

[pkinneb 1,792]

Thanks for sharing I like your 45 degree chisel guide I'll be stealing that one and also plan on trying the blue tape rather than the slight rebate as Cosman shows.

[K Cooper 5,552]

Very well done and from you, I would expect nothing less! I like the guide as well. From where can it be had? 

[derekcohen 541]

Coop, no one sells this guide. I think that you are pulling my leg 

Cut accurate - precise - 45 degree mitres at the ends of a piece of scrap. Glue a fence to one side. The fence ensures that the mitres remain square at all times. The double end means that the guide can be reversed.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[gee-dub 2,676]

Derek, as always, thanks for taking the time to take us along.  I always enjoy riding along on your builds.  Great approach for the rounded portions; strength and beauty.