Coffee Table

The coffee table is project 13 in the Lethenty Mill furniture making course. The choice of wood is particularly important in this project as the coffee table is a ‘coffee table book’ in its own right and looks good with ‘wany edge’ wood (the edge of the tree). This design is open to reinterpretation.

The coffee table pictured is made of yew. Yew grows in Aberdeenshire, Scotland but tends to grow more like an intertwined bush than with a regular trunk; the pieces that I used for this project came from a yew that was about 700mm in diameter and could be about 400 years old.

The legs are patched and filled; the rails have wany bits and there is a strong colour contrast between the sapwood and the heartwood. The top is thick but because of crevices and cracks, I was unable to cut straight boards, so I cut long curves out of it on the bandsaw and then biscuited the joint and glued it up.

This is a simple (simplistic some might say, I prefer to say naive!) design, which is as easy to make as you choose.

-- Allan Fyfe, Lethenty Mill Furniture, http://www.lethenty-mill.com