TV Side Table

[gee-dub]

LOML has been using a TV tray as a side table in the TV room for way too long. I have a round walnut Maloof style table on my side . I am still percolating on a sideboard design but needed to do something besides build shop fixtures and planter boxes. I offered a side table design that echos the recent floating media cabinet. The only requirement was a drawer for her to charge her headphones and iPhone at the end of the day. She approved.

As always the first thing to do is pick out some material.

I'll need some thicker stock for the legs as they will be tapered.

This is when you are glad you planned for some machines to be mobile.

I break out some leg blanks, choose the show sides,

and final mill them.

They get cut to length.

And well-marked for orientation

Nothing like mortising the wrong face of a nicely matched leg.
Admitting that you can not control post-mill movement I have a habit of letting things rest under pressure.

I found a cool bit of figure that I will probably use as the drawer front.

As a side note, I picked up a single 8' ladder. It is less than half the weight of my A-frame 8-footer and is easily moved about the shop for this and that. It has become my go-to 'make me taller' machine.

Now it is time for some mortising.

I really get detailed on laying out on the legs since I do not want to boo-boo and have to start over.

Did I mention mortises?

Three dominoes per apron to leg joint.

And it looks like so right off the machines.

The taper will begin about 1/2" below the apron. I strike a line here on each face that will be tapered.

I haven't used the taper jig in a while so I make a pine test blank and familiarize myself with the motions.

This let me see that the taper from 1-5/8" to 1" is too severe over only 22".

I go ahead and finalize the tapers to make sure my first bad reaction is on target.

Yep, too much taper for my taste.

I change from a 1" small end to a 1-1/8" small end.

I feel better about this.

The taper jig really lets you dial in starting the cut right at the strike line.

And here's a dry fit with the tapered legs.

I'm stuck working on some irrigation system stuff tomorrow so I'll do more on Wednesday.

 

[treeslayer]

Looking great as usual Drew, carry on

[treeslayer]

Sorry about that @gee-dub, got you mixed up with Drew, not a bad thing you both do great work 

[gee-dub]

On 8/23/2022 at 5:04 AM, treeslayer said:

Sorry about that @gee-dub, got you mixed up with Drew, not a bad thing you both do great work 

I've been called much worse .  No problem.  I've answered to Clem, Lynn, Len, and Hey-You my whole life.

[Chet]

... Just don't call me anything obscene or Late to dinner. 

 Looking forward to watching this.

That nice straight grain in the legs is beautiful.  I wish I could find walnut like that around here.  My hardwood dealer always looks like it is going out of business for the last year.

[gee-dub]

I really enjoy having my shorts-tower. It allows me to quickly pick species and dimension from my scraps. The shorts also stay a lot more usable than when I used to paw through them in a trash can . Here's a reconstruction of the scrap piece that I saw the part I needed in. I didn't think to take a pic before hand .

I hacked out a rough sized piece at the bandsaw and milled it down for my leg stretcher.

I'm at that often discussed phase of the piece that I start taking measurements off the piece as opposed to making parts from the plans.

Marking off the partial assembly I set the width on a non tapered portion of the front legs.

This stretcher will connect with sliding dovetails just because I feel like it. The bottom of the stretcher will be on plane with the bottom of the aprons for visual continuity . . . (ouch! That was too many syllables in a row). I will use my router sled just because I have one. A miter gauge would work as well.

I want the sliding DT to stop 1/8" from the front of each front leg.

Once I have this sled position known I place a stop.

The off-cuts from the leg tapering operation will act as fillers to keep me square.

Here's the sled setup for height and depth of cut along with flip stops for each leg as they are bi-symmetrical.

I managed to completely skip any pictures of the cast iron tenon jig I used to dovetail the ends of the stretcher but, it goes together like this.

The ends of the stretcher need a little work to allow the profile to seat correctly.

Sorry for the bad focal point in this shot but you get the idea.



And I end up here for now.



Time for the table top supports.

 

[oldman_pottering]

I wish you were my neighbour....................I bet your glad you're not 

[gee-dub]

Friends visiting from out of town which is great.  Slows progress though.  I got the top supports mortised in.  All of this is dry fit and right off the machines so far.

[gee-dub]

 

I wanted a sort of domed look to the top of the legs.  This will hardly show but I wanted an excuse to try the process.  I take a piece of thick scrap (a laminated pair of 3/4" plywood pieces in this case) and cut a v-groove down the middle.  The intersecting cut is a dovetail slot for a clamp which I didn't end up using.  A pin in placed between this block and a base at the pivot point required to make the dome radius I want.

The un-tapered section of the leg will lay in the -groove like so.

I clamp the whole rig to the edge sander to do the shaping.  Turned out I needed a bigger piece of scrap for the base just in case you noticed.  The groove in the base means nothing; it just happened to be in the scrap.

Basically the "dome" will begin at the inner corner and sweep to the outer corner.  This will make more sense later when seen.

I tested the operation on a pine blank I had been using and then moved to the actual legs.

BTW, kudos to my "hand model" Dan who is the guy who helped me build the shop in the first place .  So here we go with the first pass of roughed out dome shapes, inner corner to outer corner.

Here it is cleaned up a bit.  The dome is visually subtle but actually drops 1/4" between corners.

Enough of that.  I bevel the top glue up.  I thought due to scale I would go with a steeper bevel under the edge all the way around.

Turned out the same bevel as the hanging wall cab was visually satisfying.

I cut the bevel on the tablesaw and hand plane to final dimension.

This last shot is just the front of the drawer.  I cut about an 1/8" off to use as a veneer.  If things go as planned I will through dovetail the drawer box and laminate the veneer to the front to simulate half-blinds at the front of the drawer.

 

[treeslayer]

Looks great @gee-dub I really like the dome radius on the top of the legs, I’m stealing that, just so you know, subtle but noticeable if you’re paying attention 

[Chet]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:18 AM, gee-dub said:

If things go as planned I will through dovetail the drawer box and laminate the veneer to the front to simulate half-blinds at the front of the drawer.

Thats a cool work around to half blind dovetails.

[gee-dub]

Thanks all.  I drill counter-bores in the top supports.  The ones from underneath are just deep enough to hide the screw head.

The ones on top are as deep as I can while leaving a good 3/8" of meat for the screw to hang onto.  This counter-boring from each side creates a wood movement tolerance mechanism of sorts as the screw can shift somewhat.  If anyone wondered why people spend a little on 'auto-adjust' clamps here's an example.  I drill one hole, loosen the clamp . . .

. . . slide the blank and re-clamp without adjustment and drill the second hole.  The through hole is large enough for the screw to pass through easily.

To center the screw in the oversized hole I use a transfer punch sized to the through hole.

I remove the top, drill the receiver holes and then return the top to the dry assembly to test the screws.  Here's a couple of shots of the 'domed' leg tops in situ.

You can see the straight angular planes with the dome gives some effect to anyone who happens to notice.  I have fun waiting to see who may notice . . . then again I have a sick sense of humor .

And the whole thing looks like so.  Obviously everything is still pretty much straight off the machines at this point.

Time for a drawer.

[gee-dub]

You know you're getting old when a head cold can knock you out for a couple of days .  I realized I kind of brushed past the making of the top supports other than drilling holes in them.  These kinds of forms can be done a few ways.  On the last piece I did with a floating top I used a template and the router table.  For these little guys I'll use a combination of the bandsaw, spindle sander, and hand work.  I do the layout right on the piece and rough them out on the bandsaw.

I cut a notch in the milled face of a piece of scrap that will clear the diameter of the spindle I am using.  I clamp this down like a fence.

The distance is set to engage the rough cut but not to sand deeper than the layout line.  I then sand and adjust until I am right up to the layout line.

Same for the other profile.

This gets me here right off the machines.

For larger work or greater stock removal I use rasps.  For these little guys a bow sander will do fine to fair in the curves.

The spindel sander, although oscillating, can still leave grit marks across the figure in the tight radius.  A shaped backer and a strip of abrasive coarse enough to remove those scratches will do the trick.  I hold the rubber doo-dad and pull the strip of paper through till I have removed the scratches.  I repeat with finer grits till I get what I want.  Those of you familiar with a stroke sander know exactly what's happening here .

This gets me from the look of the rear support in the picture to the result on the front support.

I'll finish the other ends up, blend things overall, and move on.

 

[gee-dub]

To clean up machine marks on tapered legs I use a hand plane.  I use a strike line before I make the taper at the tablesaw or bandsaw.  Then I plane the flat surface and the tapered surface. 

Each gets a few strokes until the strike line disappears.

This give me a well defined direction change when there is no cove, bead, or banding to demarcate the change.  I chamfer the leg tips to avoid snagging.

I cut each edge most of one direction and then come back from the other end to finish the cut.

The prepared leg on the left doesn't look all that different from the machined leg on the right . . . till the finish hits

[gee-dub]

A couple of the legs had some reversing grain on them. My 30 degree smoother was complaining.

I grabbed a small BU smoother I keep a 50 degree bevel iron in. I set the mouth tight and it cut right through like buttah.

There is a lot of hand sanding to get the end grain the way I like. When doing much of this a little sanding music helps. I recommend something like this:

I lay out a grid and watch for removal. The combination of the domed leg top and the grain direction make this a little interesting.

This is 240 grit.

I often go to 600 on the end grain for walnut that will be matching other surfaces with an oil finish.

[Chet]

I have looked at bow sanders off and on.  Yours looks like the smaller one from Lee Valley.  Is that size the only one you have?  When I look at the Lee Valley ones the smaller seems more useful.

[gee-dub]

On 9/4/2022 at 12:17 PM, Chet said:

I have looked at bow sanders off and on.  Yours looks like the smaller one from Lee Valley.  Is that size the only one you have?  When I look at the Lee Valley ones the smaller seems more useful.

That is the only one I have.  My thinking was that when I am doing large shaped forms like a Maloof knock-off I am removing large amounts of material and would use a rasp.  I use rasps for smaller work too but did not see myself using something like the bow sander for things of a large scale.  So far . . . for me . . . that decision has worked out.

Time for glue ups finally.  I always do a dry run.  This let's me know that I would really prefer this clamp over that one for this purpose and so forth before there is glue in the mix.

I position the sub assemblies so that the surface against the table is on a flat plane (avoid the tapered legs, that is).  Once clamped up I remove the square blocks that I used to raise the Bessey K-Body so that the bar was in line with the side board.  This lets the full flat face of the legs rest against the reference surface of the table.

The clamping squares are really just a token effort here.  Things clamped up nicely but I am a belt and suspenders kinda guy.  I'll give the TB-III an hour or so to get a grip and come back.

[gee-dub]

I'll leave this overnight.

[gee-dub]

I settled on side hung for the drawer.  The guides will have to be wide enough to offset the legs.  Sounds like I better make a test drawer.

Yep, those are some wide guides.  I usually use hard maple but happened to have a scrap of straight grained pecan in the bin.

I'll cut a 1/4" deep stopped-groove down each side of the drawer box.  I mark the router table fence for my stopping points.

I will feed the drawer box part way one direction for one side and part way the other direction for the other.  This lets me use the same reference edge to set the groove position.  To assure things don't wander I add a second fence.

Test drawer is a success.

I have decided to go to a separate drawer box and false front style drawer.  Getting in and around the internals got a little more fussy than I wanted to deal with.  A false front drawer removed the challenges of my original design.

Time for the real stuff.

[gee-dub]

My Millers Falls No 9 evens up the top edges.

I pop the frame apart to cut the groove for the bottom panel.

The panel slips in from the back .

[gee-dub]

On 8/23/2022 at 9:25 AM, Chet said:

... Just don't call me anything obscene or Late to dinner. 

 Looking forward to watching this.

That nice straight grain in the legs is beautiful.  I wish I could find walnut like that around here.  My hardwood dealer always looks like it is going out of business for the last year.

I have one like that near me.  I would find the same sappy walnut in the racks week after week.  No one was buying it and they were not refreshing their stock.  Turned out the yard near me was the red-headed-step-child of a much larger yard in Anaheim.  All the flooring stock went to Los Angeles, Anaheim kept the good 'lumber' and the dregs went to my yard.  I haven't been there in many years.  Maybe they got better.

[gee-dub]

While the box glue sets I look to the pull.  LOML never quite forgave me for taking the old media cabinet out to the shop for my own use.  This pull design will echo that piece.  I found a scrap of figured maple.  I just have to remove anything that doesn't look like the shape I want.

The Incra T rules come in handy for this small scale work.

I use a Forstner bit to set the center curves.

I bandsaw out the rest.

And we end up here at about 5/8" thick by 6-1/2" wide.

 

[gee-dub]

Here's a view of the runner.  The two inner holes are oversized and allow a bit of adjustment.  The two outer holes are for fixing the runner in position.

Overview prior to disassembly for finishing.

 

Time for finish.

[Tom King]

Gorgeous!!   Having that shop is really starting to pay off.

[wtnhighlander]

That pull is the perfect compliment! And I am surprised at the drawer extension.