The coffee table
Traditional joinery inspired by the work of Roy Underhill and Paul Sellers. My first “real” project. Hand cut mortise and tenon. Narex motise chisels and Veritas carcass saws used.
Refinish a Table Top #3: Completed Refinishing this Coffee Table Top
I completed spraying the polyurethane finish on this table. I had a few spots that I scuffed sanded on the lower portion of the table. I applied some of my dye mix to those areas. I made sure the remainder of the table was clean and then sprayed a light coat of finish to the lower portion of this table. I will give this table tonight and most of the morning tomorrow to dry. Once it checks okay I will apply a thin coat of dark brown Briwax and buff that thoroughly. I have already told...
White oak legs +4"×4"
Previously made a TV Stand. The bottom shelf and top is kiln dried red oak,(50”wide X 16”deep X 2.5”thick). A friend randomly asked if I wanted to use reclaimed white oak for the legs… I used them,(about 4.5”wide X 3.75”deep X 18”height). Looks awesome! So I decided to make a coffee table with mostly similar characteristics… I have the red oak for the shelf and top. Now my problem is I don’t have anymore reclaimed white oak… So I cut...
Parsons Coffee Table #2: Joinery
Snuck in some time during working on the coffee table. Trimmed down the table top and cut the legs and apron rails to length. Since I was on a roll, I kept going and fitted out the mortise and tenon joinery. Not bad for my first time cutting mortise and tenons on a furniture project. Router with a double-edge guide setup (for stability) for the mortises Ironically I picked up this tip from Bosch Fitting the tenons into the mortises My new toy is peeking out from the corner
Parsons Coffee Table #1: Milling and Laminations
My first woodworking project was a pine coffee table with lumber from Lowes. The entire project was screwed together long before I even knew what a pocket hole was. Thankfully, that coffee table end up being commandeered by my daughter to be her craft table, and is filling it’s role well as a beater table. The vacuum of space in front of my couch needed an appropriate successor piece of furniture. I decided that I decided the next coffee table would be a piece of furniture built with pr...
Building the Hexagonal Cocktail Table #4: Final Steps: Top Trim, Shelf, and Finish
Top Trim The top assembly “sandwich” is trimmed by 1/8” thick poplar slats that rest on the outer edges of the leg tenons. This trim and the legs form what is a metal frame on the original table. I cut the trim from the same board I used for the legs. I attached it much like a trim carpenter installs base or crown moulding. I temporarily placed the top backer/triangles subassembly on the base, used a miter saw to cut the first piece (nibbling away until it was exactly ...
Building the Hexagonal Cocktail Table #3: Legs
The table’s legs are tall and thin, with a diamond shaped cross section. The outward-facing edges are beveled to 120 degrees to match the angles of the top hexagon’s vertex angles. After puzzling over how to cut those angles, I found a simple solution: make each leg from two triangular prisms, each with a right-triangular cross section. Then I could cut each leg half with a single 30 degree rip on the table saw. I was able to cut all of the leg parts from a 3.5” wide x 0....
Building the Hexagonal Cocktail Table #2: The Top Assembly
The top assembly is a three-layer sandwich approximately 1 1/8” thick. The bottom layer is 1/2” thick MDF hexagon. I had never cut a hexagon before, so I searched the web and found the excellent article Cutting Hexagons on a Table Saw by Don Snyder (a fellow LumberJock who goes by StLouisWoodworker) to use as a starting point. The large size of my hexagon (23 3/4” across the flats) made it difficult to follow the article to the letter, but I did the best I could. The ...
Building the Hexagonal Cocktail Table #1: Introduction
This series of blog posts outlines some of the construction details of my Hexagonal Cocktail Table project. As I mentioned in the project description, this table is a reproduction of a commercially available table. The original has a metal frame and legs. My table is all wood and MDF, and attaching the slender legs to the relatively thin table top proved to be quite a challenge. I’ll cover that more in a later post. Earlier this year, I retired from my position as a software engin...
Slab Coffee Table #3: Table is DONE and so are the videos!
View Video on YouTube A few months ago I made a slab coffee table. It was quite an undertaking! I have 3 other blog entries on LJ about this. The first one is on how I Flattened the Slab with a Router Jig The next one is on how I constructed the base The other one is on how and WHY I inlaid the stars in the top. I also have a blog article on my website about how I did the Carving and Texturing on the Tree Trunk Base The video in This entry is an overview of the ENTIRE ...
