Afzelia (Doussie) Lamp Table – Viewer Project
This is an absolutely beautiful Asian-inspired table submitted by Bob:
The inspiration for this project came from two sources; my wife who loves Asian style furniture, artifacts and art, and a picture of a similar but taller plant stand done by Yeung Chan whom I met at a woodworking show. I had no plans, so, a la David Marks I built about 5 or 6 prototypes out of MDF until I got the proportions right. Believe it or not the hardest part was cutting the moulding around the top on my router table. I probably violated every safety rule in the book! The afzelia wanted to bow so the legs are all laminations of the solid wood. The top is plywood with radial veneer out of the afzelia which I said I cut under the tutelage of David. The legs are joined to the top with Domino loose tenons. The bottom stretchers are a tri lap which I had to teach myself how to do by reading Chan’s book over and over and then execute from poplar with my dado blade over and over until I got it right. They are joined to the legs with Dominoes also. Needless to say, I made a lot of jigs to get the Domino mortises in exactly the right places in the top and legs. The finish is good old Deft from a bunch of spray cans after sanding to 320 grit. I neglected to mention that the moulding miters are held tight by mini splines at the bottom.
Jim’s End Tables – Viewer Project
This Viewer Project was sent in by Jim. He writes:
This is my most ambitious furniture project to date and one I am verrry happy to be finished with. Needless to say, my wife is happy also. She wanted two new end tables to replace the nice, but 30 year old ones we had in our living room. I began working on design ideas over a year ago passing ideas by the “customer” and after getting approval of preliminary design concepts, began some serious layout and prototyping. I constructed a full-scale prototype of the base with a piece of plywood for the top, for the purpose of determining suitable scale, proportions and some style ideas, like the coves on the aprons. The basic lines of the frame are very close to a couple of hall tables I built for my wife and for my daughter-in-law. Jane wanted it to be dark but not too reddish, and I wanted to see nice grain pattern so I chose walnut.
But rapid completion was not to be. Other high priority projects took precedent and extended the completion to the point of ridiculousness. And working intermittently kinda hurts my head trying to get back into it. Ever have that feeling? Then there are the cold winters in Virginia that make it tough to work in the garage. A few shop/tool improvements over the last 6 months of ‘08 helped make things go much better. Specifically, I bought a used Grizzly 6″ jointer, a new Steel City table saw, a new Triton router with above table height adjustments, built a router table and fence, and a band saw fence.
Pictures 1 through 3 are different perspectives of one of the tables showing the tapered legs, and the coves. Everything but the shelf platforms are solid walnut. The shelf was an “oh, yeah, we need a shelf” idea which wasn’t part of the original design plan. Since I had already built the bases, the shelves turned out to be quite a challenge to come up with a way to mount them. The shelf fits in a dado in the shelf support aprons. I mounted the aprons, both for the tops and for the shelves, with pocket screws.
My wife found the baskets at Michael’s on sale for $10 each. I made a simple walnut plywood lid with finger holes that sit snugly in the top of the basket to hide the junk. The final touch, shown in picture 4, is the ebony inlay. I thought it would add a lot to the top but had never done anything like it before. With much trepidation, but bolstered by Marc’s advice on more than one occasion, it actually worked out pretty decent.
The finish was as follows:
* Wiped on TransTint Dark Walnut in distilled water, applied twice, then very lightly knocked down the grain with 400 grit.
* Wiped on SealCoat (dewaxed shellac) to seal the water-based dye.
* Brushed on 3 coats of General Finishes Water-Based Polyacrylic Semi-Gloss.
* Sprayed on 2 coats GF WB Poly Satin.
The WB Poly was something else I had never tried before but once again Marc’s advice got me going. I owe a big thanks to Marc for his advice, and my wife for her patience and design ideas.
Not Your Average Pine End Table – Viewer Project
This Viewer Project come from Ken in Ottawa. Let’s check it out:
I am sending you some photos of one of my latest projects for the project of the week. It is inspired by your End Table project but with a twist. First a little background. The wood working club I belong to. The Ottawa Woodworking Association (OWA) last year had our first 2X4 competition. The basic idea is to take one standard construction grade pine 2X4X8’ long and let your imagination go wild to see what you can make with it. There can be no other wood added to the project. It is challenging and lots of fun. This year one of our local wood suppliers wanted to be involved so The Wood Source donated one 1”X12”X6’ long clear pine board to those who wanted to participate. When all projects are done they will then be given to The Wood Source where they will be displayed in there shop and auctioned off. The money is then given to a charity. Again there can be no other wood added. Once I received my pine board, it was then time to start thinking. I am new to your pod cast and have been going through your past episodes. As I was watching the End Table series I thought this would be great for the 1X12 competition.
I decided originally to do a four legged table but after cutting out all the legs and leaving enough wood for the top I changed the design and decided to make it three legged for no other reason than something different. So I now have an extra leg,for what? I don’t know. As I don’t have a band saw all the curves for the legs, stretchers and the table top had to be cut out using my scroll saw (photo # 3 & 4). Once all legs and stretchers where cut out the sliding dove tales made, glued up and attached to the hub, again using sliding dove tales I then used chisels and sanding to further shape and refine the legs and hub (photo #5 & 6). Once everything was sanded down to 220 girt I then did the finishing. I am very happy with the end result (photo #7 & 8). When it was all done and I stood back looking at it and trying to think of what I would name it. I came up with “Guitar Pick table” as the top reminds me of a guitar pick.
A few challenges came up. The first is using pine. Being a soft wood and only having it be one inch thick and not having enough wood to make the legs thicker they are a bit on the fragile side, yes I knocked one on the floor while sanding it and had to glue it back together. Also I had to be extremely careful when doing the sliding dove tales, again for the same reason of the pine being soft and not very thick. The other challenge with pine is getting a good solid colour. Most of the work I do I don’t stain the wood. I like to let the natural beauty of the wood speak for itself. In this case I decided to use Varathane Light Cherry Stain. Unfortunately, as a pre stain I used Shellac, but did not realise it was not dewaxed, so off it all came and on went Minwax Pre Stain Wood Conditioner I had in the shop. Then several coats of the cherry stain. As a top coat I put on three to four coats of Varathane Clear Finish.
This kind of project is a good design exercise with the limitations of quantity and type of wood that can be used. I am very happy with the way it turned out and even though I knew all along that I would not be able to keep it, it will be hard to let it go. Some changes I will make when I do one for our house is, using different woods and making the legs stretchers and hub a little thicker.
Keep up the great web site and pod casts.
P.S. The OWA had our December meeting last night where the projects where on display and the members voted on the top three. I am very happy to say that this table gathered the most votes. Thank you to all the OWA members.
Coffee Table – Viewer Project
This viewer project is submitted by Robby in Belgium. Let’s check it out:
“My brother and I made a coffee table and a side table out of Oak for his wife’s birthday.
It’s our first project in Oak, before we only used MDF. We’re really proud of it and its thanks to your show that we could do it. We’re definitely going to do some more “real” woodworking :o) Well my sister-in-law loves these tables. Many thanks and we love the show!!!”
Check it Out!
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