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29K views 104 replies 55 participants last post by  Blake 
#1 ·
Sketchup Design

A friend of mine has been telling me for a while that he had shown his parents my website and that they love my work and wanted me to make them something.

Well they eventually contacted me and commissioned me to make a table for them.

They bought a lamp from an artist named Brian Giambastiani, which looks like a Jellyfish. The head, which illuminates, is made of blown glass, and the tentacles are copper wire. It is about 40" tall.



So my challenge was to build a table that would compliment the lamp. Now keep in mind, my client's home is very eclectic in style, with lots of different colors, curves, shapes, and textures. She loves things that are other than ordinary, and practically every piece of furniture in the house is an individual art piece.

So this is the design I came up with, and she loved it…





I plan to use blue aniline die on the figured maple top to make the grain "pop" like an electric guitar. It will finish something like this: (random guitar photo from the internet)







This is what it will look like in my client's home with a simulated Jellyfish lamp sitting on it. It is going to sit in a little alcove by the front entranceway…



Feel free to post comments. I will blog the whole building process.
 
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#3 ·
Looking forward to seeing this one take shape Blake, cool design, did you consider doing something with the profile of the apron (similar to the edge of the top)? Might be too busy but something to chew on.
 
#12 ·
Good looking design Blake!

Are you planning to make the tentacles all uniform in position and shape, or are you going unique with them?

There was a similar multi-legged table with unique legs on the back cover of FWW at some point this year. I can't for the life of me remember when though.
 
#15 ·
Getting Started... I found my Lumber!

I went to a place called "Global Wood Source" in San Jose, which is the most amazing place I've ever been for lumber. The owner travels around the world in search of only the best and most amazingly figured woods. He's got stuff you can't find anywhere else. Check out their website and if you are anywhere near San Jose you have to stop by.

Anyway, I found the perfect lumber for my table top. Three slabs of figured maple over 2" thick. I also bought the maple for the legs, and the mahogany for the apron. And while I was at it I stocked up on mahogany 3×3 "table leg stock" for future projects, as well as a few more impulse buys. Once you get on a roll like that "Russ" starts giving you great deals on stuff. I think I was probably their best customer that day… or week? It was the best lumber shopping spree I've ever had… and it happened to be my birthday, so it was a good day :)

This is what my truck looked like when I came home:



THE TABLE TOP

Luckily I have a friend in Santa Cruz who has a large woodshop. I had to use his 19" bandsaw, 12" tablesaw, and 15" planer to get my table-top slabs milled down to a manageable size.

Here are the three rough slabs in my friend's shop. We arranged them in a way that showed off the best figure.





Here they are back in my shop now that they've been planed and jointed. They are staggered in a way that makes the figure look the most continuous. I will chop them to length last.



One of my favorite tools to use:



Yum, Biscuits!



I glued it up in two stages. ONE…



TWO…



Now, as you can tell from my original Sketchup, I had originally planned to have a natural edge in the front of the table.



But nothing was available that fit all my criteria. So I found that piece with the long curved void through the middle and thought I would put that in the front of the table instead.

But as I was clamping that piece on the uneven tension broke the front of that void. I didn't even flinch. I knew instantly that it was a good thing, and I knew just what to do. It had been bugging me the whole time anyway.

So I put the giant glued-up table top on my bandsaw and turned that void into a "semi-natural edge."





Now that I actually have sharp hand tools (thanks to my best friend the WorkSharp) I am starting to reap the benefits. I got to enjoy the quiet, therapeutic sattisfaction of smoothing the top with my good old Stanley No. 5.



THE LEGS

I took some measurements right out of sketchup to draw the leg curves on to MDF to make the lamination forms.





I am making two forms, so I will glue up the 8 legs in four stages. Each form is 1 1/2" thick (two layers of 3/4" MDF) to accommodate the 1"x1" legs. So I attached all four layers and cut them together on the bandsaw:



Here are the two forms, each glued and screwed to their bases. In the background are the free-moving "mates." The maple strips will be clamped between the two halves and pressed flat against the base. The reason they are outside is that they have received two cans of spray-on shellac to keep the lamination glue from sticking to the forms.



One of the forms back inside on my bench, ready for glue up (standing on edge while the shellac dries)



Here is the maple for the legs:



Here is a shot of the set-up for ripping the strips. This is a very tedious job, because each of the eight legs needs ten 1/10" strips to end up 1" thick. So 80 four-foot long strips. Its probably time to sharpen my ripping blade, too.



I had to stop after making 20 strips, enough for my first two legs. But I won't change the tablesaw set-up until all the strips are cut. I didn't have time to start mixing the glue so I will probably get to that tomorrow.

Total building time so far: About 9 hours.
 
#29 ·
Legs and Base

LAMINATING THE LEGS

When I left off I had cut most of the strips. That was a very tedious job and I broke it up over several days (over 80 total).

I finally got to the point where I could start bending my laminations. Here is the "dry" trial run:



Here are the strips laid out to apply the glue. I had to mix the special glue made for laminations:



And here is the first glued up leg in the form:



After about three days I had all eight legs. Some of them are still wrapped in the plastic that keeps them from sticking to the form:



My gluing form doubled as a jig for positioning the legs on my Radial Arm Saw bench to trim the ends. This ensures that each leg is exactly the same height and the feet are flat on the floor.





I ran them through the planer to clean up the faces:





Then I used my spindle sander to clean up the sides:



THE OCTAGON

The "Octagon" is the structure underneath the tabletop that the legs attach to.



I set my saw to the magic number 22.5 deg to cut the eight sides. It came out perfectly the first time, I guess I got lucky.



Then I set up my "tenon sled" on the tablesaw with a single dado blade and cut the slots for the keys:





I planed some maple stock to make the keys:





And cut them to length:



Here is the Octagon all glued up:



This thickness sander is new to my shop and this is the first time I had a chance to really use it. It worked great for cleaning up glue and truing the top and bottom of the Octagon.



My first sneak peak at the base of the table!







The joint between the legs and the Octagon needs to be very strong, since they are only connected in one place. So I plan on cutting a curved slot on each side of the Octagon to accept each leg.

I made a pattern/jig for my router to rout out the channels. This allowed each channel to be in exactly the same location and same angle so I don't have a wobbly table:



Here is the leg set into the channel:



The finished Octagon with leg channels:



The legs glued and clamped to the Octagon… I plan on adding either dowels or screws to each joint for extra reinforcement later:



I couldn't resist…



Now All I need to do is make the bent-lamination Oval-shaped apron, and dye/finish the table top.

About 19.5 more hours. Total building time so far: 28.5 hours
 
#49 ·
Making The Oval

THE OVAL

The apron for this table is going to be a bent-laminated oval:



I found a great tutorial on how to draw a simple oval on a website called In the Woodshop with Howard Ruttan. Here are some of the simple drawings on his page:





And here is mine:



MAKING THE FORM

So I cut it out with the jigsaw:



Then I used the first oval as a router template to cut its clone:



(I broke my favorite spiral router bit in the process)





The two MDF form halves were already stuck together with carpet tape. So I cleaned up the edges on the Oscillating belt sander:



The reason I have two MDF ovals is that I will need my form to be 3" tall. So here is the spacer I made out of a scrap of 2×4:



The clamps align the two ovals while I screw them to the 2×4 spacers:



3" Tall:



A sewing tape is a very handy measuring tool to have in a woodshop for measuring around ovals. Believe it or not the circumference of this oval is about 7 feet around.



PREPARING THE STOCK

So here is the 2"x5" x 9 ft piece of Mahogany that will become the oval. First I cut it to approximate length:



Then I jointed it (I love my full-sized jointer)...



Ripped it to a little more than 3" wide:



Re-sawed it into strips (I rolled my bandsaw outside to save the shop from a little dust)...



Planed them down to 1/8"...



And sanded them down to about 1/16"...



THE GLUE-UP

Here is my completed form, screwed to an MDF base which was first covered in plastic painter's tarp. Then the sides of the oval were wrapped with plastic packing tape.



I didn't take any photos during the actual glue-up for obvious reasons. It was a very stressful process, and didn't go quite as planned, but came out fine in the end. I enlisted the help of my wife for an extra set of hands to help hold stuff and hand me clamps, etc. (Thanks Sweetheart!)

I originally thought I would use three "Pony" strap clamps to pull the strips in tight to the oval form. But it didn't work quite as well as I had hoped so I ended up drilling holes in the top of the form and using bar clamps over the strap clamps. If I did it again I would just use the bar clamps.

This was the result:



In the end It came out fine. I knocked it loose from the form:



Ran the edges through my thickness sander, and cleaned the glue off the inside/outside surfaces with my Oscillating spindle sander (not pictured)...



ONE SOLID MAHOGANY OVAL…







...just a peak at all the components put together…





Total Project Time So Far: 40 Hours
 
#50 ·
Blake: The table looks great. The oval came out great nice job on the jig and the laminations.

I found a piece of wood in my shop last night and I thought of you and this table. I'll have to get a picture to show you. It's a natural edge circle maple burl. about 3' in diam.
 
#68 ·
Dying the top BLUE and spraying the lacquer

A friend of mine has a cabinet shop with a spray booth and was nice enough to let me play in it. These photos were all taken in his shop.

Here is one of the samples we tried on a test piece. This is aniline die dissolved in alcohol.





WOW, I really like the color!



We used his Festool sander for the final sanding.



I had to stir the dye for over an hour.



On goes the die:













Sanding in between coats of sanding sealer and lacquer:



Erich sprayed the final coats of lacquer for me:



And this is the result!









This took about three hours, and I spent another four hours in my shop sanding all the components of the table to get them ready for assembly. So Total Project Time So Far: 48 Hours.
 
#100 ·
Assembly

So I got the table top back from the spray booth (after it cured for a day) and it looked amazing!



Here are the three pieces back in my shop ready for assembly:



As with all my furniture I made little wood "buttons" to hold the components together to allow for seasonal wood movement as well as the ability to take it apart.



Here it is with the buttons in place:







And I finally get to see it completed!!!





Total Project Time: 50 hours

You can see the finished project HERE.



I will try to get some photos of the table with the lamp on it after I deliver it tonight.
 
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