Living Room Tables

[Chestnut]

So to keep things clear I'm making 4 Living Room tables total. All are going to be the same height which is roughly 23"
#1 is done and is roughly 20"x20"
#2 In Progress 42" x 10"
#3 Selected material 24"x30" it's going to go over the sub woofer in the corner.
#4 This is the one where I'm going to try implement the concept i posted earlier. 8"x 30"

I messed up a leg and put a mortise for a domino in the wrong spot. I didn't want to fix it so I scrapped the leg and made a new one. Then i proceeded to figure out the slats for the sides. I got widths figured out cut some slices at the bandsaw and then ran them through the drum sander to the proper thickness, 8mm.

The center slat is too narrow to use my typical mortise with the domino so i have to create that mortise the old school way. I decided upon a drill bit and chisel. It turns out I don't need to turn in my woodworker card as my test mortise fir perfect the first time.

So i chopped out all 4 mortises i needed. By the 4th mortise i was getting the muscle memory back and managed it pretty quick. Because i wasn't confidant that i could get a perfectly strait mortise i ran a shoulder around all 4 sides of the slat. There is probably only about 1/64" on the front and back but it's enough to do the job.

I created the shoulders for the slats on the table saw and used a chisel to fine tune the fit.

Then i needed to plow the mortises for the bottom shelf. It's getting difficult to find a good spot on my test block so i may have to find a new test block. I use one of these on every project to make sure that the reveal is exactly what i want. I feel something like this is mandatory when working with a domino at least for me. Even using it i still mess things up from time to time. I had 2 mistakes of mortise in the wrong spot on this project luckily only 1 required a redo.

Final step was to get everything glued up. I did both sides in one go and then attached the sides with 2 rails and glued 2 boards together to make the top. The long rails were a bit too tall so i put an arch in them to try and make it feel less bulky and heavy. I like the effect. It might be hard to see with the clamps in the way. I'll post a picture once i get finish on.

 

[treeslayer]

looks great Drew, the proportions are spot on, i'm really liking this build and the arch top rail adds a very nice touch

[Mark J]

Terrific, but also prolific.  What do you do when the house is full?

[Bmac]

Very nice, like the design and the extra features. I'm assuming thats cherry for the base. Will ash be the wood you use for the top?

[Chestnut]

5 hours ago, Mark J said:

Terrific, but also prolific.  What do you do when the house is full?

I have plenty left to keep my busy for a few years. So far anyone that asks me to make something gets turned down unless it's something that intrigues me. I have plenty of hopefuls that I'll float prices too once I have free spots in my schedule.

Also as i hone my style i see project I've made that i want to shuffle out the door and replace with something i like better.

5 hours ago, Bmac said:

Very nice, like the design and the extra features. I'm assuming thats cherry for the base. Will ash be the wood you use for the top?

I only have a limited amount of the ash. For the small tables it's ok but for the larger ones i went with cherry. I was going to do cherry for table #1 but when i spoke to Megan about it she told me just to do it in ash. The ash boards are sequenced and qtr sawn so i want to use them for something better. My plan right now is to make my hand tool cabinet out of the ash.

[wtnhighlander]

I really like your choice of slat sizes. Works perfectly for the table width, much nicer than 3 equal slats would.

[Chestnut]

10 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

I really like your choice of slat sizes. Works perfectly for the table width, much nicer than 3 equal slats would.

I blame Marc. He did uneven slat sizes on the morris chair build and it stuck with me. I give him all the credit i've just been running with it. My only claim is being able to feel out the proportions but that was just trial and error.

[Chestnut]

I'm going to split these into 2 posts. I finished Table #3 as referenced in post #26.

This table is designed to stand over the subwoofer for the sound system. Yeah it's not going to be the best for sound but w/e this isn't a home theater like we're all watching over in the off topic section.

The table legs are made from a lamination of 3 pieces of cherry. I have a bunch of thin stuff that I've been using various places because i got it cheap (<$1). So the legs don't look the greatest up close but the table is going to be stuffed in the corner with the couch pushed up against it so all any one will ever see is the front apron front of the front legs and the top. I dug out some knoty not so good looking pieces for the side and rear apron as those are never going to be seen either. If the room ever gets rearranged this table is getting changed. I'll keep the top but recycle the rest of it. Materials wise i maybe have $10 into it and largest part of that is glue and finish.

I made the top from some unknown wood. Endgrain shot below. This is maybe 1/4" x 1/4" so as you can see the grain is dense. Wood has hardness similar to cherry as i can barley dent it with my fingernail. It's weight is more in line with a hard maple or white oak.

The wood is most defiantly NOT cherry. It does not have the same medulary ray effect on the quarter sawn faces that cherry does.

The top was too wide for the thickness planer so i ran it through the drum sander with plenty of capacity left over. Instead of spending 2 hours sanding from 80 grit to 180 grit. I took 15 min and used a card scraper to take off the 80 grit sanding marks. I used my portable festool light to track my progress. It may be hard to see in the picture but in person it made it REALLY easy to make sure that i didn't miss anything. After i scrapped everything i sanded with 180 grit to even out and marks left behind from the scraper. I don't like finishing a scraped surface it doesn't come out as nice as a smoothing plane.

This is a picture of the finished piece you can see that the color of the unknown wood is similar to that of cherry but not a dead ringer.

And a picture of the table that hides the ugly legs.

 

[wtnhighlander]

Nice work, Drew. Any chance the mystery wood is an exotic?

[Chestnut]

1 minute ago, wtnhighlander said:

Nice work, Drew. Any chance the mystery wood is an exotic?

Highly likely. I got it in a batch of wood i bought when i was looking for good shelving. The guy had a lot of various exotics and this was defiantly one of them. I have a good guess but i want to see if  someone else comes to the same conclusion that I do with out steering them. (I should make a "What wood is this" post but it's not that important)

[Chestnut]

So i still have that idea itching in the back of my mind for the last table. I really want to make it delicate looking and nail the process. So I ran another test and think i got every thing figured out. First the test so you can see what I didn't like but also what I liked.

The center "post" was just WAY to beefy. Further on I went too thin and have since decided the perfect thickness is 3/8". This also showed me that trying to perfectly measure and mark out the kerf width of the band saw blade is an exercise in futility. I determined that it's MUCH easier to make the cuts and measure as i go along. The problem i had with this test is the main bending pieces are not the same thickness and as a result bend slightly different. It's not that noticeable in the picture but the tops toe in towards the center a bit.

Starting out my final test piece is going to mimic the size the real piece will be. I calculated that I'll need a 1_1/2" wide piece, 14_1/2" long, and preferably 1/2" thick. The piece below is 1_3/8" and that leaves the center piece a bit thin to my liking. I'm showing this to illustrate how LITTLE wood this takes. Which is sort of dumbfounding to me.

I marked center and offset the center 1/8". I marked up 1" from each end and and that represents the line to stop cutting. This is important because uneven stopping points will result in a poor look. I was only marking one side of the board. I used the marks to set the fence and then flip the board over to cut the opposite side. This kept things symetrical and worked a bit faster. It's also critical to work from the center out. Working from the out side towards the center means that you have kerf cuts in your board pressing the board against the fence will close the kerf cuts causing a taper and a cut that isn't parallel. I used white lines to illustrate where the 2 cuts will be.

You make the first cut and then flip the board side to side so the same end is getting cut. Or at least for my design i want it this way. Playing with the orientation of the cuts can give different designs and different effects. If you try this  experiment it's kind of fun to try out. Below you can see my first 2 cuts.

Now we will focus on the end closes to us in the picture above. I measured over from the outside edge of the kerf the thickness i want my bent "slats" to be. For this i chose 1/8". I've found thicker than this doesn't bend very nicely and thinner is too fragile (in my very limited testing). The key for the next cut is to make sure to align the OUTSIDE of the band saw blade with your mark. If you center or use the inside of the blade it will remove material from your slat making it too thin. (I guess it doesn't matter what side of the line you choose as long as you always choose the same side of the line from here on out).

 

The white line above is a bit thick but it shows the idea. Here I'm taking the line as the right side of the white line was my keep side (I used a pencil line to set the fence and added the white line latter for illustration). Make the first cut flip side to side so the end you are first cutting stays the same. Stop at your marked stop line.

For the next cuts, which happen to be my final cuts, I measured again from the outside edge of the kerf cut on the opposite end of the board. I measured over 1/8" and extended the line to the end. I then used that line to set my band saw fence. I really should have set my fence to the low position. Next time I'll remember that, well probably not.

As you can see the wood is loosing a lot of it's stability accross the face. This is exactly what we want but also illustrates how important it is to work from the inside out. After the cuts are done you have a small piece that looks like some one really messed up on.

I'm working on the rail design. Right now I'm leaning to cutting a groove in the top of the bottom rail and the bottom of the top rail. I'll set the side in the groove and glue in spaces that will hold the position of the side in the design that i choose. There is a LOT of flexibility with this. Right now I'm going for something symmetrical but will experiment more in the future. With spaces installed. The small spacers are 1" and the larger spacers are 2 of the smaller spacers so 2". When it comes to actually placing the side the top spacers will need to be a hair longer than 1" as the top has 4 kerf cuts and the bottom has 2 so the top will need to make up that additional material lost.

I then had the idea to cut the center piece out because i thought it might look better.

Ignore the rough bottom, If i did this method I'd make it just a thin kerf cut instead of a wide one. I don't think this will be my end product. If i widen the center divider by 1/8" it will help separate the 2 sides and will look like 2 arches. Ideally if i was doing a wider table I'd have 3 arches as i prefer sets of 3 but this table is going to be far to narrow to pull that off. What do you think?

Pointer, if your band saw has a brake stop the blade before pulling the piece out of the incomplete cut. The sides of the band saw blade can cut the wood a little bit leaving a rougher side and a more jagged looking slat. If you don't have a brake this process might take longer as I advise to let the blade stop. So Mel if you read this proof that a band saw brake has value .

I was going to post some pointers for making something like this at the end but I'm tired and forgot what I was going to post. Also my fingers are tired.... this was a lot of typing. Also too long to proofread, I'll probably fill in my pointers tomorrow when i proofread.

[Chestnut]

Whoops images were all broken links. Fixed that.

[Mark J]

It looks better to me with the center piece than without it.

[pkinneb]

8 minutes ago, Mark J said:

It looks better to me with the center piece than without it.

x2 I'm with mark on this  

[JohnG]

3 votes for keeping the center piece. 

[Bmac]

Explain again where this piece fits into the table. Is it taking the place of the slats between the legs? 

I like both designs but can't decide until I can envision what your shooting for in the end.

[Chestnut]

27 minutes ago, Bmac said:

Explain again where this piece fits into the table. Is it taking the place of the slats between the legs? 

I like both designs but can't decide until I can envision what your shooting for in the end.

It will be the side that sits between the 2 legs below the apron and above, what ever that piece is called.

[Bmac]

Well you said you are trying to get a more delicate look and I like where you are going with this. I think I like the one without the middle piece, less cluttered. But still leaving the middle piece would work very well also. Really interested in seeing how this turns out.

One thing that comes to mind with looking at how you did this was how are you planning to sand and finish in the tight spaces where your bandsaw cut is. I was wondering if you thought about getting the same look by cutting strips and gluing up the pieces at the ends (gluing just the area where you didn't cut with the bandsaw). That might give you more control and possibly a few other advantages with sanding and finishing. 

[Chestnut]

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

Well you said you are trying to get a more delicate look and I like where you are going with this. I think I like the one without the middle piece, less cluttered. But still leaving the middle piece would work very well also. Really interested in seeing how this turns out.

Excellent questions! I agree that removing the middle piece would add a bit more of a delicate look. I do like the way that it frames both of the "arches". I'm interested in seeing the end result as well.

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

One thing that comes to mind with looking at how you did this was how are you planning to sand and finish in the tight spaces where your bandsaw cut is. I was wondering if you thought about getting the same look by cutting strips and gluing up the pieces at the ends (gluing just the area where you didn't cut with the bandsaw). That might give you more control and possibly a few other advantages with sanding and finishing. 

This is why I'm taking so long on this. I've been thinking and experimenting with different things to figure out if how I'm doing this is the best way to do it. Sanding isn't going to be as bad as you might think I"m going to cut these with a carbide blade and the cut is quite clean compared to some of the low end blades out there. To sand I'm going to use some of the double sided paper i have and just get it done. I have a trick that I'll show tonight when I give it a shot.

Doing as you suggest does give some advantages on sanding but has some drawbacks. I'd have to deal with the glue squeeze out in the small space. The grain continuity on the ends wouldn't be as visually strong and i realize that no one would notice but I would notice. Doing slats and spacers I'd drum sand the slats which would loose me a lot of material and then have to sand off the drum sanding marks at some point. I feel it'd be the same amount of work, just different.

[Bmac]

36 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

Doing as you suggest does give some advantages on sanding but has some drawbacks. I'd have to deal with the glue squeeze out in the small space. The grain continuity on the ends wouldn't be as visually strong and i realize that no one would notice but I would notice. Doing slats and spacers I'd drum sand the slats which would loose me a lot of material and then have to sand off the drum sanding marks at some point. I feel it'd be the same amount of work, just different.

Yes, I thought about that glue squeeze out also, this could be a problem.

With applying the finishing I was thinking that cutting the strips and then gluing would allow you to prefinish before the glue up. Prefinishing might help with glue cleanup also. 

But if you can manage the sanding and applying finish your way then I'm all for it, your getting a real unique look. 

One last thought, I was also wondering about the look where the strips separate, right where you stop your bandsaw cut. That area/slot has a square look at the end of the cut, and don't get me wrong it doesn't look bad.   But I'm envisioning with a glue up would create a V look with no square slot. It's very minor but it could give a different illusion.

Always fun to talk about approaches to design, it really puts the art into what we do. You have a good eye and I'm sure your approach is going to work well, just wanted to share my thoughts. 

 

[SawDustB]

One thing I wonder if it would be worth trying is drilling a small hole with the same diameter as your bandsaw kerf before making the cuts. This would have the advantage of making it a little bit less likely to split, since the end of the slits would have a little curve instead of squaring off. It would also probably give a cleaner surface there, since sanding that seems like it will be a pain.

[Chestnut]

7 hours ago, Bmac said:

One last thought, I was also wondering about the look where the strips separate, right where you stop your bandsaw cut. That area/slot has a square look at the end of the cut, and don't get me wrong it doesn't look bad.   But I'm envisioning with a glue up would create a V look with no square slot. It's very minor but it could give a different illusion. 

Always fun to talk about approaches to design, it really puts the art into what we do. You have a good eye and I'm sure your approach is going to work well, just wanted to share my thoughts. 

I fully appreciate your thoughts and well as everyone's thoughts and input. I was wondering if you meant to glue it in the manner you stated above. Indeed i did think about that. The trouble with it how do you stop the glue at a specific line and not squeeze further down? I suppose i could use a space or wax paper but then I run into cleaning up glue. I feel like the best answer is to get as thin of kerf blade as possible and just try and eliminate it as much as possible.

I checked the craftsman that i got the idea to see if images of his work would shed any light on this. It appears that his technique is very similar to what I'm doing. He has a small square portion at the bottom of each cut.

4 hours ago, SawDustB said:

One thing I wonder if it would be worth trying is drilling a small hole with the same diameter as your bandsaw kerf before making the cuts. This would have the advantage of making it a little bit less likely to split, since the end of the slits would have a little curve instead of squaring off. It would also probably give a cleaner surface there, since sanding that seems like it will be a pain.

This is also a good idea but as I'm not always entirely sure where the cut is goign to end up until i make it, I'd have to drill each hole as i approach the end of the cut and then finish the cut. It might add a bit of time to each part. Not a big deal.

Splitting hasn't been a problem to this point, I've chosen strait grained material so there is a ton of grain run out in the collection areas. One of the first attempts i made i pulled on to see at what point it broke. It took a surprisingly large amount of effort so I'm pretty sure that unless material is wonky splitting isn't much of an issue.

[Chestnut]

So @Bmac Sanding went easier than i expected. I have some 3M sand paper the no slip backer kind labeled sand blaster.

It's awesome stuff. The backing is sticky when it gets hot.

So my hand sanding is usually done with a 1/4 sheet that is folded in half which i then hit with my heat gun and and then press the adhesive together.

This makes it a bit more rigid and easier to use as well as makes it 2 sided. Conviently i have an object that needs 2 opposite sides sanded.

I just hold it together with one hand and drag the sand paper back and forth inside and it took me 10 min to sand all of the inside like this. I might go and get some 80 grit to see if that makes it any faster.

[treeslayer]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

So @Bmac Sanding went easier than i expected. I have some 3M sand paper the no slip backer kind labeled sand blaster.

It's awesome stuff. The backing is sticky when it gets hot.

So my hand sanding is usually done with a 1/4 sheet that is folded in half which i then hit with my heat gun and and then press the adhesive together.

This makes it a bit more rigid and easier to use as well as makes it 2 sided. Conviently i have an object that needs 2 opposite sides sanded.

I just hold it together with one hand and drag the sand paper back and forth inside and it took me 10 min to sand all of the inside like this. I might go and get some 80 grit to see if that makes it any faster.

I always keep a couple of rolls of PSA paper around for just such a task. 

[Chet]

I use this stuff from Epoch Wood. Two Sided Sandpaper

It works out to about .40 a sheet for a 4.5 X 2.75 inch piece.  But it's pretty durable and works well for getting in to tight spots and corners.  I use the 400 for all my between coat sanding.