First Coffee Table

That looks fantastic. I also am new to woodworking and hope to one day be able to craft something as nice as this.

-- An oak tree is just a nut that stood it's ground.

I really like your wood arrangement on the top – the colors make an appealing design.

-- socrbent Ohio

That is a real splendour!

http://www.sawblade.com

You did it very well! Perfect.

www.bandsawblog.com

-- "someone has to be wounded for others to be saved, someone has to sacrifice for others to feel happiness, someone has to die so others could live"

OK, you’re not new anymore.
This is a very nice table with accents that promote you out of the “new guy” class.

Well done and keep learning, you have a talent for this.

-- Paul M ..............If God wanted us to have fiberglass boats he would have given us fiberglass trees. http://prmdesigns.com/

Very nice job!!!

-- Rick.... Fort Worth, Texas

Beautiful table great job.

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/

Yes I take my coffee on it, great looking table and execution…BC

You’ve done a great job on the coffee table. I like the way have arranged the boards for the top, the banding and the finish.

-- Peter, Woodbridge, Ontario

This thing is gorgeous. Great work. I’m considering a similar approach for a kitchen island top. The one question I’ve asked myself….....will wood movement of the center portion be an issue with the trim?

-- Vic Rice

Thanks everybody for your encouragement. VRICE I used floating tenons on the top and bottoms and extra deep mortises on the sides. I used playing cards for spacers and left a 3/32nd of an inch gap on both sides and covered the gap with the inlay. I also let the wood climatize itself to my area for 8 months before I used it. We will see if there is a problem in the future but I feel comfortable that it will hold up.

Let me know If my thinking is wrong on this. Thanks

Beautiful table, great build

-- Mother Nature created it, I just assemble it. - It's not ability that we often lack, but the patience to use our ability

This is one of the things I love about wood working. Yes, it’s a beautiful table. Looking at it, you see the interesting wood choices, the style, the composition. All this is great. Really, I mean that. But then, as with most creations, the story of thought behind the piece is SOOO much more than just the style choices and labor. I reference the exchange above between synker and vrice, regarding the wood movement issues. While perhaps, for some, these issues would be viewed as a burden, making such projects ‘too complicated,’ or ‘too bothersome,’ to mess with, for the woodworker, I think, it seems to be a part of the savor—- to know all the material issues and complexities, to have accounted for them, and to know that ‘all that’ is in the beauty of the finished product. I really don’t know what all the metaphysical ramifications are, or whether, with years gone by if these satisfactions decrease, but now, still new to the craft, it seems to me a powerful drug—to not only see work as beautiful, but to really know just how beautiful it is.

-- I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them ** Thomas Jefferson

Great explanation Synker. Thanks much.

-- Vic Rice