Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: Watco Danish Oil

Wood Species: Walnut and Silver Maple

Project Description:
The idea for my project started when someone I know asked me to make a side table for along side her bed. I had some thoughts of one, so off I went to the wood supplier. My original idea was to make the legs free standing then have the drawer supported by just the table top. But as I soon found out, the legs would not of been sturdy enough. I wound up using a couple pieces of Walnut to make a support to hold everything together. I did mortise and tenons on the cross supports and dowel the rest into place.

This is the finished piece, it’s a turnable English library (don’t know if the name is correct), it has hidden wheels on the bottom so it can be easily moved or turned. The finish is stain, french polished shellac and bees wax. Hope you like it!

I started out with rough Walnut that I picked up over the course of about six months. One board was 8/4 and three boards were 5/4. The boards were about 6 ft long and 5 in. wide. I dimensioned it with my Jet 6″ deluxe jointer, DeWalt 13″ planer and my SawStop. Legs ended up 2″ x 2 1/8″ x 23 1/4″, rails 4″ x 14″ (including tenon length) x 9/16″ and the top 18 1/2″ x 18 1/2″ x 3/4″. After cutting the pieces to size, I used my Powermatic hollow-chisel mortiser to cut mortises into the legs. The legs were not exact squares so I paired them up (e.g. Mortise for back left leg connects with mortise for back right leg, mortise for back right leg connects with front right leg, …) so the relative distance from the outside surface of the leg to the rail was the same on each leg. I decided to use the 3/8″ hollow chisel.

I planned for a 1/2″ shoulder on the top and bottom of the tenons which started the mortise 1/2″ from the top. After cutting the mortises, I laid out the legs with the rails to decide which board looked best with between certain legs and to mark my cuts. I ended up cutting a 1″ tenon on each end of the rails. I made a cut-off sled so I could be as accurate as possible when cutting the tenons. I cut the shoulder on all four sides up against a stop block clamped to the sled. I just nibbled away the material checking the fit until I liked it.

Since I had the mortise pretty well centered on the legs I cut the end of each tenon to 45 degrees so the two tenons coming into a leg would not hit each other. I glued up two legs with a rail and then the other two legs with another rail. After these were clamped I added the other two rails and used enough clamps to ensure adequate pressure to close up each joint. Checking that all four legs were level and all joints were nice and tight, I left it to cook. The top is a glue up of 4 pieces of walnut that looked “right” together. I didn’t use biscuits or dowels in this glue up since the top is pretty small. I used yellow glue for all gluing processes.

The 4 pieces of walnut were jointed and planed on the top and bottom surface before glue up. The inside edges didn’t touch the jointer or planer. I ripped the boards on my SawStop and the pieces matched up exactly. I scraped the partially cooked glue to minimize the work after the clamps came off. I knocked off the hard edges from the legs and rails with a little oval sanding pad. One pad has something like 60 micron/30 micron and the other has 15 micron/5 micron. I worked down from 60 to 5 and it is really nice to the touch. I sanded and scraped after the base and top came out of the clamps. I used a block plane to put a small chamfer on the bottom of each leg (all four sides).

After this I was ready to start finishing. I love Tung Oil as it seems to bring out the wood. I gave both the base and the top 2 coats of tung oil with a bit of touch up hand sanding. Just enough to remove the nibs. I attached the top to the base with figure eight fasteners. After it was together, I applied some good furniture paste wax and buffed it out. This is what you see in the pictures of the final table. Go have fun making saw dust.

“I have been a hobbyist woodworker for the last 5 or so years but mostly around the house stuff – paint grade built-ins, crown moulding, etc. After years of watching David Marks I decided it was time to see how hard it was to build a quality piece of furniture. I called up my dad (who taught me everything about woodworking that David and Norm didnt) and told him it was time to get serious. We went and got ourselves a planer and a bandsaw to complete my small shop and decided David’s Chippendale Side Table was as good a place to start as any. I had seen this episode of Woodworks years ago and vaguely remembered it. Luckily, I found a link from David’s site that walked me through enough of the steps to get this project finished.”

“Some details of the piece: it is made from 2 pieces of rough lumber- 8/4 Honduran Mahogany for the legs and 4/4 for the aprons and the frame & panel top. The panel is resawn and bookmatched – I got really lucky with the figure of this particular piece of mahogany. The aprons are attached to the legs with integral tenons and the top is simply glued to the base. Wenge accents (courtesy of my Dad’s meticulous work on his scroll saw) were glued in place and the whole thing was treated with General Finishes red mahogany stain and Arm-R-Seal.”

And now let’s hear what Jorge had to say:
“Like you, I am a big fan of WoodWorks and I have been fortunate to have taken two classes with the Great David Marks. The design for these tables is from one of the first Woodworks but I did change the table top. I used redwood burl veneer. For the first time ever I used the vacuum press (which I purchased more than a year ago). I think they look good and my wife and children like them. I have been woodworking for just a few years and truly I am not that good yet. Honestly, these pictures significantly over represent my abilities. The pictures were taken on my table saw covered with a white blanket.”

In Kevin’s own words:

I was approached by a friend to build a tall kitchen side table to act as a work surface, and to accommodate the occasional use of bar stools. The base was to be painted white with tapered legs. I chose poplar construction for the legs and aprons because it takes paint beautifully. The table top was to be red oak to match the existing cabinetry, but I wanted something special in the design. I went through some books and found a frame and panel design I liked. I changed it a bit to suit my needs and it came out great! The top was finished with a color-matched stain and 4 coats of durable polyurethane. Project payment included the best apple pie I’ve had yet made on the newly completed table.

Personally I have never tried a natural wood and painted project like this. Very cool! I am sure many of you will have the same questions I do about finish and construction specifics. So spill the beans Kevin!