Oval coffee table

oh how unique.
Now I’m guessing that the oval shape was really difficult to achieve (as probably were the legs)

Well done!

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Thank you. The legs were built out of straight stock. The table top frame was made using eight straight pieces and using a combination of 45 and 22.5 degree angles. Splines were used to join the eight pieces together. Total build time was about 25 hours and an additional 10 hours to finish it.

-- Jeremy

really nice looking table. Is it oak. Yes i see in your tag its oak. very nice job. jockmike

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

Great Table, I really like the curved legs.

OK here goes the math geek, but I hope someone can use this trick to laying out an oval. An ellipse is the set of all points whose distance to point A PLUS the distance to point B is a constant. (When point A and point B are the same you get a circle.) What this means is that you can establish 2 points A and B using a nail or push pin or similar and tie one end of a string to point A and the other end to point B and stick a pencil inside the string and pull out with the pencil until the string is tight. The string should look like a “V” with the pins at the top and the pencil at the bottom. Trace the pencil around keeping the string tight and you have your ellipse.

-- Che.

Really interesting design. Great job!

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Nice piece….

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

very nice looking!

-- miles125, Alabama.."Architecture is frozen music""

I like that piece. How about some construction details? Does it have finish on it?

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Nice jointery and overall design. What type of finish did you use.

-- Jesus is Lord!

very nice table…i love the interesting legs!!!! CHE—-your killing me…i am only a history teacher…my wife is the math teacher—-i will have to get her to decipher…

-- Matt, Napa, CA...SING WITH ME: "Sum...sum...sum...summ...summ...summ...summertime..."

nice design, and a complicated little project to build.

I studied as an engineer, but whenever I want an ellipse, I just tie a string together and drive two nails where I want them, and use the string to direct my pencil around the nails to make an ellipse. If I want it smaller, I tie the string shorter, or move a nail, etc. I know there are math formulas for it all, but those books are in a plastic tub up in my old barn!!

-- Mark DeCou - Kansas Flinthill's Artisan

Thanks,
It real is not as hard as it looks. True the layout is critical, but this is where mdf is our best friend. All I did was lay a quarter of the oval out on a piece of mdf to make a pattern to use with my router. Then I had to figure out how many straight pieces I had to use to make the oval, and the angles necessary to give me enough wood to cut the oval out. I used auto-cad for this part. But if you don’t have a cad program you can lay it out on a piece of cardboard with the string method that Mark and CHE talked about. I also made an mdf pattern for the legs. The only thing that you have to worry about when it comes to the legs is making sure that they don’t stick out beyond the edge of the top. For mine I made it where they were even with the edge of the top. This meant that they were at about a 40 – 42 degree angle from the center of the long length of the oval. The other thing that you have to watch for is choosing stock and cutting the angles on the straight pieces that made up the frame of the oval. I cut all my pieces from one board, and used my chop saw to cut the angles. As I went around the oval cutting my angles I made sure that cut them in such a way that I canceled out the error (that is the hard part) with my saw. I also cut them so that the face of one board was up then the face of the adjacent board was down (this is how they would be when they were put together).

It is finished, and I used General finishes Expresso stain with a semi-gloss top coat.

-- Jeremy

A nice design Jeremy. I may have missed it, but is the center attached to the edges, or floating like a raised panel? How thick is the center part of the table?

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

It is sitting in rabbits cut into the frame. The center panel is 1/2” and the frame is 3/4”.

-- Jeremy

nice job very nice work

-- Phil, Chattanooga,TN