# Butler's table



## gasman (17 Jan 2013)

Not really a traditional butler's table - but the client wants a side table with a removeable tray on top. There is going to be some fancy marquetry in the form of a college crest - plus inlays all round the sides as follows:





I am toying with putting a secret drawer in the back by drilling out one of the rear legs and replacing the inlay with a drawer with the inlay as the drawer front - not sure yet I need to think this through very carefully




This is a bit of a rip off of the Linley writing desks - but what the heck... so I mocked up a corner piece to see what it looks like as follows:




Also started on the legs and side pieces - from some nice quartersawn sycamore. The legs were made after shaping a template and double-side taping it to the 45x45mm leg blanks using a CMT bearing-guided spiral router cutter



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I will do this as a WIP if people are interested
Best regards
Mark


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## stevenw1963 (17 Jan 2013)

Mark,

Carry on with the WIP plse - u make some cracking stuff


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## Graham Orm (17 Jan 2013)

Yep keep it coming, not enough WIP on here if you ask me!


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## MickCheese (17 Jan 2013)

I'm interested. 

Mick


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## Harbo (17 Jan 2013)

Yes interesting stuff - WIPs please.

Rod


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## bobscarle (18 Jan 2013)

Yes please. Love a good WIP with loads of pictures.


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## gwr (18 Jan 2013)

I would like to see the WIP through to completion gasman very interesting project.


Thanks


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## Togalosh (19 Jan 2013)

I love the idea of secret drawers but so far I've chickened out of giving it a go.. how would the hollow style/rail (?) be made & jointed to the leg ?? I'm imagining secret side made up as if for a drawer.

I'm also busy convincing myself I could never make matching legs..
1) how did you make the template/jig - sketch out shape & freehand through a bandsaw.. & finish it how??..or some other way?
..that gets you 1 face/side shaped
2) how do you shape the other faces if the side facing down is not flat?
3) does 1 template do all the sides of a leg?

Thanks
Togs


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## gasman (20 Jan 2013)

Thanks everyone for the interest
The legs were far easier than you might imagine
First I found a 'curved table leg' using the sketch up online resource




Then replaced the square but tapered legs which I had in my early model and fiddled a bit to get the scale, sizes and positioning OK
The beauty of this is that it is all chopped out of a 45x45x720 square piece. The top 100mm of each leg is square - then it is just 2 edges which have a long concave curve cut out of them, whilst the other 2 have a convexity cut off from the lower 1/3 - which makes it fairly straightforward
So then I cut a template out of an old bit of 1/4 inch ash which was lying around




After squaring up all 4 legs, I double-side taped the template to each one in turn, marked round it, cut it roughly on the bandsaw outside the line, then using the bearing-guided cutter below I ran both sides past going very carefully and trying to take light passes but keeping it absolutely 'grounded' at all times. Then took the template off and replaced it on an adjacent face




Then I morticed the tops for the side rails of the table so at the moment, loose fitted I have 4 legs and two sides




And that is as far as I can go today - waiting for the limewood burr to arrive which they want the inlays on the legs to be from
Thanks for all interest
Mark


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## Orcamesh (20 Jan 2013)

Yep, keep it coming Mark, excellent stuff. Although I don't comment in here very often I am pretty much always lurking and going through the Projects board mostly. There is a lot of excellent stuff here from all of you, so thanks to all for making this site probably the best woodworking site in the World (and much tastier than Heineken too)!!! ;~)


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## Togalosh (20 Jan 2013)

Looking good & sounding so easy.


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## gasman (28 Jan 2013)

Despite the cold (so wish I had better heating in the workshop) I made some progress over the weekend.
I made a start on the inlays for the legs and 'rails' of the table. 
The layout is quite straightforward. Each leg is 45x45 for the top 100mm, so an inlaid panel will be central horizontally and vertically in each of the 2 outer faces of each leg. The inlaid panel will be composed of a 59x27 piece of burr oak with a 3mm american black walnut edge to it - thus there will be a 6mm gap at the sides of the legs and 17.5mm top and bottom.
The technique for each is easy - mark 17.5mm (top) and 82.5mm (bottom) the lines in pencil. Then with a double marking gauge score the side lines, then cut the line with a 36mm map chisel top and bottom. Following that, I routed out out to 2mm depth within this rectangle using a straight spiral 6mm bit before cleaning up the corners etc with a chisel.
For the walnut 'lines', I cut a piece of ABW on the bandsaw to 4mm and then took it carefully and slowly down to 3mm on the thicknesser. Sliced this up into 2.5mm widths and then carefully went round each rectangle slowly, inlaying the 4 pieces one by one as shown below - actually this is a side rail of the table not a leg but the principal is the same.



. 
I used CA glue with an activator to save some time to glue these little strips in. Then planed those inlaid walnut strips back to the surface and cut a piece of 3mm thick inlay to size, dropping that in and, when dry, planing flush using the _lovely_ QS low angle plane with a 46 degree angle on the blade - impressive result on such figured wood.
Here's a finished side of a leg - also showing in the background some of the burr oak



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So after doing the same process for 7 sides of 4 legs (the 8th will be the secret compartment) and 2 sides I had this:



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By that stage I was cold so called it a day
Thanks everyone
Mark


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## stevenw1963 (29 Jan 2013)

looking good Mark


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## gasman (17 Feb 2013)

Sorry about the delay folks - have been inundated with other types of work etc (not woodwork tho :-(
The table has made some progress albeit in fits and starts
I made the back and front rail of the table in the same way as the sides, except that the back needs to have a cutout for where the secret drawer will go:
So here's the front of the back (as it were) showing 2 x 10mm dowel holes with which it will attach to that leg - to allow the space for the drawer between them




And here's the other side of the back with the cutout for the drawer




The front has a drawer in it which is the size of the inlaid burr so I made up the frame, carefully matching the 'ripples' of the sycamore and glued up




Then I dry-assembled the legs and rails so far




Need to work on the compartment for the secret drawer next
Meanwhile I had glued up an 8mm thick 500x400 piece for the base of the tray and started the inlaid crest
First inlaid 3mm depth of burr lime in 2 halves which roughly matched - an exact match is not required as you will see




Added an alternating sycamore / purpleheart centre. 




This is done by glueing up the 10mm strips of sycamore and purpleheart alternating, then using a print out of the crest to shape this as required, then 'tracing' round this using a number 11 scalpel blade onto the actual piece, then scoring this deeper, before using a 6mm router bit on my bosch palm router to cut almost exactly to the line, before finishing with a very sharp chisel. This image also shows some trial versions of how the 'stars' will look




Added 'stars' by turning a 15mm sycamore dowel, cutting a 30mm length, then inlaying 1.5mm strips of ebony into a radial saw cut, before planing the sides to form a pentagon and then tracing round the outside and cutting in as follows:




After doing this 8 times I ended up with this:




As I am sure you all know, the purple colour needs sunlight to come through. Thanks for looking
Mark


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## Paul Chapman (17 Feb 2013)

Looking very nice, Mark.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## MickCheese (17 Feb 2013)

Looking great. 

Keep up the good work. 

Mick


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## Apache_sim (17 Feb 2013)

Wow! that looks great


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## gasman (18 Feb 2013)

I spent another hour at the weekend adding detail to the crest - so to start with I made a 4mm rod from yellowheart by hammering a 4mm square piece through a LN dowel plate, then cut 4mm holes in the centre of each rose with a very sharp lip and spur 4mm bit and inserted the yellowheart rod into each - then trimmed off with one of those saws without any kerf on one side from Veritas. 
Then I decided that 3mm would be too big for going round the outside of each rose - so I made myself a kind of dowel plate by drilling a 2.4mm hole in a spare piece of lignum vitae, hollowed out the other side as a cone so it acted as a dowel plate, then made a 3mm rod of purpleheart using the LN dowel plate as before , but after put it though my new 2.4 mm dowel plate. Interestingly I think it ended up crushing the fibres rather than cutting them - but that was fine by me as I ended with a very shiny round looking 2.4mm - and using a 2.5mm drill put 5 little holes round each rose, and with a dab of CA glue inserted the end of the rod, trimmed off, on to the next etc etc
Ended up with this - now I have the complex Griffin to do on this
The size of the crest is 115x98mm




Thanks for looking
Mark


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## gasman (25 Feb 2013)

My apologies for all the delays. Have had to break this project to make a 50th birthday / 25th anniversary present for 2 old friends - so decided on a Butler's tray!
This seemed to get more and more complicated as it evolved. Decided to carry on using my stash of ripple sycamore (running out :-( though) I designed a large tray 700 x 450 x80 which has splayed sides so the dovetails have complex angles - it was quite fun actually - daunting at first but there are quite a lot of internet resources and videos. There are some videos on Youtube by a 'murrican called Chad Stanton whose patter and presentation I found irritating but the methodology is sound and easy to follow. His dancing is particularly irritating but each to their own!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk3tV_WvKlU
The sides of the tray are 12mm sycamore, the base is 8mm. The angle the sides splay out is 10 degrees. The channels in the 4 sides were cut on the router table using an 8mm cutter - but I double-side taped a 14mm thick piece to the router table so the channel was at the correct 10 degree angle.
I also decided to inlay their initials and the date they got married in one side (I checked it many times with quite a few mutual friends!)








I put a band inlay round the top of the whole thing and glued it up yesterday so will take some proper photos later today

Back to the main Butler's tray / table. I have been struggling with the secret drawer a bit but made a major breakthrough in terms of the mechanism. This is a bit complicated but hopefully will become clear...
I am going to use rare earth magnets to hold the secret drawer in - and also to push the drawer out. So, on the back of the drawer will be the N pole of a 6mm diameter rare earth magnet. This will be attracted to the S pole of a corresponding magnet at the back of the drawer - but that magnet will itself be on a spring-loaded wooden sliding bar like this (I have not drilled the holes for the magnets yet - need to make the drawer etc first




There is a corresponding channel cut in the piece of wood which makes up the back of the drawer frame (this was done using a keyhole cutter on the router table). The channel is waxed, the spring (which is 7.5mm diameter) is wedged into a 7mm hole drilled in the upper rail of the back of the table to hold it in, the lower rail of the back has a 20mm circle drilled in it, so the sliding bar has a 19mm button which will be accessed from the bottom of the rear rail of the table to push in.




Thus, mounted on this sliding bar will be TWO magnets. At rest the S pole will engage the N pole on the drawer back to hold the drawer in place. When the button is pushed it this will mean that the S pole 'disengages' and the N pole of another magnet located 20mm lower in the sliding bar will then become opposed to the N pole of the drawer - thus pushing the drawer out. I have tried it and it seems to work but it has been fiddly working it all out
More this week. Thanks for looking. comments always welcome. We are spoled for choice with WIPs at the mo due to the box competition - good to see as I love this part f the forum the best
All the best
Mark


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## gasman (26 Feb 2013)

Last night I tidied up the 50th birthday / anniversary tray gift with the QS low angle jack plane, with a 45 degree blade freshly sharpened and polished and the mouth closed right down. It really is a fantastic plane for tricky timber like this ripple sycamore - which has a huge tendency to tear out at the first opportunity. The finish from the plane is the final finish - I did not use sandpaper or anything else except some 400G paper to take the sharp corners off . Then added a coat of Liberon finishing oil




Details of one of the compound dovetails 




For the butler's table - I made some more progress with the internal structure
So this will be what the front drawer runs in




And this is another photo of the sliding bar which the magnets will be mounted on - I think it is a bit more clear




Mark


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## Paul Chapman (26 Feb 2013)

I like the way you've done the initials and date, Mark. Very crisp.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## bobscarle (26 Feb 2013)

The table project is coming along really well and I do like the idea of one magnet holding the drawer shut and another popping it open. So cunning even Blackadder would have been proud  .

The tray is excellent, I love sycamore. I have an LN LA jack (don't like it at all) that tears out and is not nice to use. I just wish I could get it work like that.


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## gasman (26 Feb 2013)

Bob have you tried a 45 degree angle on the blade? - I am sure that would help. Even tho' I understand geometry etc I get very bored by all the stuff about reverse bevels and angles etc on plane and chisel blades - but honestly it gives such a super finish but it needs to be really sharp - and I have, after years and years, got really sharp blades now (Veritas Mk 2 jog + set of 4 10"x4" DMT stones that I got in the US for $200 + metal polish on MDF to finish - both sides are mirrors now which I never had before)
Regards Mark


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## gedwood (26 Feb 2013)

What a fantastic piece of work I am gobsmacked lookes great


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## gasman (26 Feb 2013)

Thanks gents for the positive comments. Paul I absolutely love inlaying it is very satisfying. These letters are 36mm high so much easier to do than little ones which require steam or soldering iron bending of the wood (nigh on impossible with ebony)
Cheers
Mark


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## gasman (27 Feb 2013)

Final images of the compound dovetails on the tray









Second coat of finishing oil on this morning before work - think it will take 4 or 5 to get really smooth
Thanks all
M


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## DMF (27 Feb 2013)

Just all amazing! Lost me a bit on the secret compartment but i kind of get how it works now, the fact the thread has been interesting enough to read about ten times so far helped! Thanks for posting, great read  

Dean


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## gasman (28 Feb 2013)

Quite frustratingly I only ever seem to get an hour or so at a time - never enough time to do what I want...
So last night I concentrated on the secret drawer construction:
First here is the compartment where the secret drawer will go - you can see the slot in the background where the sliding bar with magnets will be, plus I have loosely put a 3mm thick piece of sycamore top and bottom. This will shortly be glued in and will smoothe out the join between leg and rail and also create a stop to prevent the drawer front going in too far. The left hand side piece is not there yet as I will get everything to fit before fitting that




Then I cut up some pieces for the secret drawer - the front is a 10mm thick piece of burr oak with 3mm ABW surround exactly the same size as the inlays on the corners of the other legs, the sides are 4 mm sycamore, the base is 3mm iroko (I am required for sentimental reasons to use iroko as this is from an old fence post from the College. All these pieces are sitting on (coincidentally) a 5mm thick iroko base from the same source which will be the base of the main drawer




Looking forward to getting something more notable achieved this weekend
Mark


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## gasman (3 Mar 2013)

Got a good few hours done friday night and saturday before lunch
First I assembled and glued up the little secret drawer as follows:




Then I glued up the back onto the side as the secret drawer cannot be finished without the inside being absolutely smooth. The diagonal clamp is only there to keep the agnle exactly to 90 degrees




I finished the rest of the cabinet where the main drawer was to go - just a simple pair of rails that the drawer will slide on. The brass screws in the back piece are necessary as I may have to access the secret drawer if I have problems with it




The drawer is very straightforward - dovetails for the front and a simple rebate joint for the back
The base of this drawer is also the iroko which I am required to use in the construction.








For the secret drawer mechanism, I embedded 3 x 6mm diameter magnets in the drawer like this using a short 6mm lip and spur bit with a depth stop




From top to bottom they go N S N. The sliding bar in the cabinet also has 3 magnets in it - also N S N from the top - but at rest the position is such that the top 2 of the sliding bar magnets engage the bottom 2 of the drawer magnets - is N attracts S and S attracts N so the drawer is held in by these 2 magnet pairs. Here is the inside of the secret drawer cabinet showing these 2 magnets visible and the little spring




So, in its resting state, the corner of the table looks like this




Upon pressing this button




The drawer pops out quite smartly to about 3 inches




I have to be honest I never thought it would work as well as this and am delighted with the result. Maybe I will work out how to upload a short video?
Thanks for looking 
Mark


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## No skills (3 Mar 2013)

Now that's just cool.

=D>


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## Paul Chapman (3 Mar 2013)

Very neat  

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## gasman (7 Mar 2013)

Thanks for the comments
Another quiet week due to work but I have made the top of the table - the edges are 35 x 25, with a rebate in the top such that there is a 10mm 'rim' to the top - the tray will sit within this lip. The top is 10 mm - it is a wide sycamore board 400mm wide - but as I have not got a planer that big I cheated and cut it in 2 x 200 mm pieces, thicknessed it to 14mm, brought both pieces inside for a couple of weeks, then re-thicknessed to 10mm to remove any cupping, then joined the 2 pieces with 5mmm dominos. This piece sits in a 10mm groove in the edge pieces. The edges were mitred carefully on a shooting board with an 8mm dowel joint to locate them accurately.




Then glued this up with PU and clamped it




Cheers
Mark


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## gasman (9 Mar 2013)

Glued up the main table last night - having first removed some of the back rail so I can get to the secret drawer in case I need to make adjustments




Then cleaned up the top - this is the piece that the tray will sit in and loosely placed it on top of the table to see what it looks like




I may relieve the lower edge of that top a little to bring the bottom of it closer in size to the top of the table - will try a test piece today
Cheers
Mark


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## MickCheese (9 Mar 2013)

Mark

That is looking realy good.

Thanks for the WIP I can only imagine how much it interferes. 

Mick

edit - Spelling


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## gasman (9 Mar 2013)

Big day today - very time consuming and concentrating hard. Really bad back tonight having a large glass of vino collapso to recuperate!
I could not find a router bit which would give me the profile I wanted on the top of the main table - so decided instead to finish off the crest on the base of the tray




So the technique is that, having printed out the crest on plain paper and also on labels, I started with the 'background ' parts - so I cut out the part from the sticky label, stuck that to a piece of 3mm yellow heart, cut that out on a scroll saw, traced round it using a new No 11 scalpel blade, routed out to 2mm depth with a 1.6mm Trend single flute router cutter in the Bosch mini-router, then finished off with the scalpel, then used CA glue to glue it in
So after all the background bits were done it looked like this




Then it was just a case of having a cup of tea every now and then, and finishing it off. The tongue is pink ivory, the eye is end grain ebony in a sort of triangle, with a 1mm hole drilled then a piece of solder stretched and inserted for the pupil




Now that is virtually finished (the piece of wood it is on is 10.5mm thick - so I need to take the whole front surface down 0.5 mm with a plane tomorrow), I can make the dovetailed sides and finish the tray
Cheers - time for another large glass
Mark


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## gasman (11 Mar 2013)

Worked some more on the tray over the weekend. Cut some sycamore 15 mm thick and cut 2 pieces 500 x 40 and 2 pieces 400 x 70. Then shaped the 2 400 x 70 pieces and drilled them out for the handles as follows




Cut dovetails on the 4 pieces and dry-assembled it as follows




This has been a long haul - downhill stretch now
Regards
Mark


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## Harbo (11 Mar 2013)

Fantastic work!

Rod


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## gasman (14 Mar 2013)

I decided to add a frame to the crest on the tray as I thought it completed it better - so routed out a 2mm groove carefully and glued in 2.5 mm ABW (done on thicknesser but VERY small increments) then hand scraped down to 2mm carefully. When that was dry I glued up the tray with PU glue having first sealed all the inner surfaces with sander sealer - I find this reduces the difficulty of getting the excess glue off




Unclamped, but before cleaning up it looked like this




This weekend should finish it
Cheers
Mark


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## gasman (25 Mar 2013)

Virtually finished now. I have been using Liberon finishing oil - a coat every few days rubbed down well with initilly 320 grit abranet now just with 0000 wire wool and it is really starting to sine








The only things left to do are to insert a silver inlaid plaque which I am waiting for
It is interesting the contrast between the ripple sycamore on the frame and the legs - this is a much greater contrast in the pictures compared to real life.
Thanks for looking
Mark


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## gwr (25 Mar 2013)

Absolutely superb workmanship if in the future I can produce half as good job I would be well chuffed .


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## gasman (25 Mar 2013)

Incidentally, the reason why I have been so slow with this by the way is that I keep getting interrupted. This time it was for a 'writing slope' as a retirement gift for a surgeon which had to be finished by this Friday coming





It is in cherry (from a few odds and ends left over from a dining table from last year), with ABW edges (this helped with the fact that the top 'slope' which is the widest piece, was actually 1mm too narrow for how I had designed it). The writing slope itself will have an inlaid leather skiver which is on order but if it does not arrive today or tomorrow will be a black felt inlay. That's all that's left to do apart from 2 more coats of finishing oil.
On the inside flap there are ebony inlaid initials and a 'scalpel' inlay to personalise it which is ripple sycamore (blade), ABW (body) and end grain zebrano




Mark


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## MickCheese (25 Mar 2013)

I like that.

When I first looked I thought the scalpel was a real one that you had used for the initials.

Someone will be very pleased with that.

Mick


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## marcros (25 Mar 2013)

MickCheese":1n8gq0ku said:


> I like that.
> 
> When I first looked I thought the scalpel was a real one that you had used for the initials.
> 
> ...



i have to admit, so did I.


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## gasman (26 Mar 2013)

Thanks for the kind words guys - that ripple sycamore does plays trick with the eyes!
The leather skiver arrived yesterday and I had one of those 'big cahonas' moments when the success of whole project is determined by one action - in this case the depth that I was routing out for the leather, what glue to use to stick down the leather - wall paper or PVA etc etc. I have only fitted one leather skiver before - on a much bigger desk and that was done with wallpaper paste. I had to make a decision and get on with it last night as time is so short - in fact it has to be picked up by thursday morning as he is being presented with it Thursday night at a dinner.
In the end I routed out 2mm on both the flat writing surfaces - and as I really needed the glue to be bomb-proof - the leather is acting as the hinge for the inside flap of this writing slope - I used PVA. It has come out OK although if you are ultra critical there is a 0.5mm gap on one side of the leather - curiously the leather seemed to contract with the glue rather than expand as it does with wallpaper glue.
Images taken this am after 1 coat of finishing oil on top of 2 coats sanding sealer denibbed with 0000 wire wool












Mark


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## gasman (30 Mar 2013)

Back to the Butler's table - the client decided she wanted some detail added to the feet to draw more attention to the curved legs so I first put a 3mm walnut band around each leg 40 mm up from the bottom - hand cut with a marking knife and chopped out with a 3mm dovetail chisel. Once that was done it was obvious more was needed so I routed 2mm off the sides of that bottom 40mm piece and glued on a 2.5mm thick burr piece - trying to match the grains round the corner
So after tidying up with the tiny Proxxon belt sander - used very rarely and has nearly been sold a couple of times but occasionally very useful - and then finished off with a card scraper. One coat of finishing oil on those legs so far









Cheers
Mark


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## Gary Morris (1 Apr 2013)

such beauty, truly fantastic Mark

Gary


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