Keith’s Routed Serving Tray – Viewer Project
I’ve made a few serving trays in the past (mostly frame and panel construction), but they just don’t compare to the beauty achieved from hollowing out one single slab of wood. Can you imagine the amount of chips you make during the process of hogging out the bulk?!?! Making a routed tray like this requires a special bowl bit (pictured left). Without it, you would never be able to get that smooth, consistent, rounded look on the inside corners. And if you are looking for this particular bit, here’s a nice one from Eagle America. Keith did a great job on this piece. Let’s check it out:
I thought you might be interested in my latest project. It’s another “router bowl”, created using a collet extension on my Hitachi plunge router. I used a Whiteside bowl/dish bit to hog out all of the material from the small slab of Sapele. The tray measures 20″x12″x2″. I got really lucky with the size, because I neglected to measure the diameter of our dinner plates before I started the milling process. Our plates fit in the bottom, with about 1/4″ to spare.
The Sapele is quarter-sawn, which is what produces the ribboning effect. I love the way the grain pops with some oil. The pictures of course don’t do justice to the shimmering effect in the wood. I inlaid two thin strips of curly maple along the outside length of both sides. I feel like the contrast really adds to the overall beauty of the Sapele. Thanks for taking a look!
Serpentine Bow Front Desk – Viewer Project
This is an amazing piece of work by Denis, “The Teenage Woodworker”. Check it out!
This desk is my pride and joy! It’s a serpentine Bow Front writing desk that I built over the summer out of a giant slab of 10/4 x 13†x 9’ ribboned Sapele. That being said the fact that it is built out of one slab is very crucial to this desk. Since it was all on board all of the color as well as the grain matches all over the desk. Examples of this are the top which is book matched out of two pieces as well as the front apron which is a bent lamination with the drawers cut out of the front to maintain the grain flow through the front. The drawers themselves are constructed with hand-cut dovetails. It was difficult to cut them on the curved surface both because of the curve and trying to handle the front to chop out the pins but I got through. It only took about 10 tries to get the front dovetails to look perfect lol. When it came time for finish it was a simple Sherwin Williams pre-cat lacquer. About 4 full coats in total and then rubbed out with a paper bag to get it super smooth. The lacquer really makes this ribboned Sapele shine but not so much that the figure outweighs the curves of the desk. In the end I had a really great time building this project and it is my favorite so far. Now onto the slant front desk!!
Denis is actually trying to sell this piece so that he can purchase wood for his next project. So if you know anyone who might be interested in purchasing it, send me an email and I can connect you with Denis.
The Fujiwhara Chest – Viewer Project
This week’s project is from my good buddy Tom Iovino of Tom’s Workbench. Let’s hear his description:
It’s called a Fujiwhara Chest. (BTW – the Fujiwhara effect is when two hurricanes start to rotate around each other if they get too close… The swirls in the door veneers reminded me of that). Basically a Krenov-inspired chest on a stand. The legs are made of Sapele my hardwood supplier had in the burn pile, and the aprons and chest parts are made of hard maple. The legs are tapered through their bottom ten inches to give some motion to the bottom of the case. I wanted to get more of a circular flow into the piece, so I decided I should cut the stretchers in arches. That gave me a chance to really tune up the bandsaw to get matching curves. All of the parts are joined with mortise and tenon joints, cut with a plunge router and a dado blade on the table saw.
The chest was made of hard maple. The corners are joined with variably spaced dovetails made with a Keller jig. Yes, you can do it!
The tower in the middle is made of some free walnut that was – again – in the burn pile at my hardwood supplier’s shop. I made stopped dadoes in the piece for the shelves to sit, and the uprights sit in stopped dadoes cut in the top and bottom.
The back is made of three ship-lapped boards set into rabbets on the sides, top and bottom.
The doors are veneered in sapele pomelle, and the doors are made of maple as well. No, I didn’t use knife hinges (kinda thought about that AFTER I put the case together). I matched the curve of the top of the doors to the curve on the apron to echo the shape.
The finish regimen was to sand the piece to 220 grit and scrape the large flats. I sealed the entire piece with 1# cut of Seal Coat, followed by a buffing with #0000 steel wool. Brushed and vacuumed the thing off, then hit it with three coats of Watco natural, sanding between each with 400 grit paper….
Then I rubbed the piece down with a weasel ’till it glowed…
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