# Victorian drum table



## gasman (25 Jan 2011)

Been a long while since I posted a WIP. Mostly I have been doing stuff round the house but I am now faced with a bit of a problem. We have a mahogany dining table which looks out of place in our dining room as the other furniture is all light-coloured. My wife has never liked the table - it was made by my late father so has sentimental value to me but it is very big and I do not think was his best piece. It definitely looks out of place in the room where it is. 
Anyway, I think it is going to have to go but I have come up with a possible solution which might be acceptable to my dear old Dad up there in heaven, to my mother, to my wife and to me.... I am going to turn it into a Victorian drum table similar to this one which should look much more in keeping with other furniture in the house. 









The table top was 78x38 inches and nearly an inch think!
I have started work and will upload more later. There are no plans I can find for this sort of thing so it is all going to have to be made up as I go along.
Also I need to find some special touches and secrets to put into it.
Just ordered some brass table leg 'cups' from Martins and have cut my laminating press to a 36 inch radius.
More to follow
Mark
Can't work out why the photos are not working - could it be that they are grabbed from the internet and not my own photos?


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## kirkpoore1 (25 Jan 2011)

gasman":2a8jpgyy said:


> Can't work out why the photos are not working - could it be that they are grabbed from the internet and not my own photos?



Mark:

Your links are actually pointing to the Flickr pages which include the photos, not just the photos themselves. I think you have to make them shareable or something under Flickr to grab them directly, though you can go to the page source and get at least a small version:





Kirk


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## gasman (25 Jan 2011)

OK thanks Kirk I will try and sort out


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## gasman (26 Jan 2011)

OK finally worked out how to post images after so long away!
I failed to take any photos of the table before dismantling it. Here are the legs - big and solid - over 4 inches diameter at the top 




The table top I have already cut into two. This half will eventually be the circular top of the new table unless I decide to put a leather inlay onto it in which case I will use MDF.




So I took the rails and cut them into 500mm lengths, then changed the saw blade for a rip and cut them longitudinally into 5 or so mm thicknesses, then thicknessed them all down to 3mm and ended up with 36 of these pieces each about 500 x 110 x 3




Then after making a 450 mm diameter laminating press from an old bit of green oak I glued up 6 of these pieces to make the first of 6 laminated side pieces




Once these are all done I will know exactly how big the table top will me
Thanks for looking
Mark


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## gasman (30 Jan 2011)

Made some reasonable progress today... - it warmed up a bit and was almost reasonable in the shed for the first time in ages.
At the moment I am thinking this table is going to have an inlaid leather top, 2 curved drawers, 3 curved tapered legs with fluting on the curved surfaces going into a turned pedestal (one of the old table legs). However it is a bit hazy at present. Also I think the table top will have some sort of triple reeding around it to complement the fluting on the legs.
Even though it is vague, I have been getting on with the curved sides and the legs as I have a good idea of how I want them to be 
I had been glueing up one laminated section of the table edge each day and leaving it to dry for 24 hours before doing the next one. So after 6 days I ended up with 6 curved laminated sections as follows. At the moment they are 18mm thick x 100mm deep and are all 460mm or greater in length but will eventually be cut down a bit in length when I have decided how it all will turn out. I think I am going to have a thin vertical piece of grain between each laminated section but need to work out how that will look with the reeded bit above it.




Then I started the legs. I had bought from Martin's some solid brass table leg cup ends




I made a template for the 3 legs from MDF, then cut out and joined together 20mm thick mahogany pieces and used a bearing-guided router cutter 




to get the legs to size




This is the first time I have even made anything 'properly' in mahogany and I like it alot - much less tearout than the oak, ash or walnut which I usually work with
With the 3 legs clamped together and using a clamp to guide the router I cut a channel across all 3 using a small cove cutting bit to mark the upper limit of the fluting on the legs. The little Bosch router is so useful - it is so small and controllable.




Then used a bearing-guided triple flute cutting bit in the router table (Axi) to produce fluting on the legs. Wished I had the Veritas beading tool to be able to do this by hand as it always makes me virtually cack myself using a router to do stuff like this!




The the legs were tapered with a hand plane, before the table legs were all shaped to receive the brass ends and loosely fitted




More next weekend - I have a busy week and prob won't get much done
Thanks for looking


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## doorframe (31 Jan 2011)

Hi Mark.

Really enjoying this one, as I've got an old table to 'transform' at some time in the future.

I notice one of the flutes appear burnt. I seem to burn the wood about 10% of the time when routing. Can never decide if it's coz I'm moving the work too fast, if the routers running too fast, or if the bit's blunt. I don't think it's the bit as the next cut is often fine. As you were using a triple fluted cutter could it just be that the wood had a 'harder' section, as it's only that one section that appears burnt. If it is burnt, is there any recourse, or will it be a 'feature'?

Can't wait for the next installment.

Roy


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## mtr1 (31 Jan 2011)

doorframe":m38psm6u said:


> Hi Mark.
> 
> Really enjoying this one, as I've got an old table to 'transform' at some time in the future.
> 
> ...




Burn mark's are never a feature, and are usually sanded/scrapped away. You do get some dark lines in mahogany sometimes however.


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## gasman (31 Jan 2011)

Actually it is not a burn mark but superglue as a tiny bit of mahogany got knocked off which I stuck back on. I have since scraped it all off and it looks fine
Thanks
Mark


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## Paul Chapman (31 Jan 2011)

That's looking really good, Mark.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## doorframe (1 Feb 2011)

mtr1":2qp62hfw said:


> Burn mark's are never a feature, and are usually sanded/scrapped away. You do get some dark lines in mahogany sometimes however.



I think you're right. I've tried (without much success) to disguise them behind the finish but they stand out like a sore thumb. In the style of Renee from Allo Allo, I just tell Mrs Doorframe "You stupid woman... they're a feature of this particular type of wood!"

I won't have enough spare wood to do the laminations as you have as the existing table is not that meaty. If I just face it with mahogany I would guess is it ok to just use pine laminations.

Roy


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## gasman (1 Feb 2011)

Yes I agree completely - You could laminate any old wood and then just have the top 3mm mahogany. To be honest, because of the sentimental value of this I am planning to use all the wood from this table so that it is still Dad's table but has just morphed into a slightly smaller one!
As I am going to use a leather inlay for the top I could also use MDF for the main part of the top and then just save the outside 2" mahogany edge


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## gasman (3 Feb 2011)

I had an unanticipated extra day in the workshop today and made good progress.
First some calculations and plans for the dimensions of the table top which needs to be quite accurate. The curved side pieces have 'splayed' very slightly after coming out of the press - but only enough to increase the diameter of the table from 900 to 910mmm so acceptable. I suspect that if I had used pine or some other softwood for most of the laminate and then just used mahogany for the outer laminate it would have splayed more than this?? 




Then I made up the framework for the top - all using the 22 mm old table top cut up. The drawer fronts have been roughly sized and just put there to see they will be OK. I have now cut these parallel to the sides and 10mm too long.




Then I did some turning - very much an occasional hobby of mine and I am sure not a great job. But it was quite straightforward as I already had these huge legs from the old table which are over 4 inches in diameter at the top



. I sealed it with friction polish whilst it was still mounted.
Once this was done I marked the base out and cut slots every 120 degrees around the base with a router for the legs, flattened the curve at this point and and then converted these to very shallow dovetails with a chisel.




I then glued up the legs one at a time clamping each one at the same time
I used another leg to provide the square bit which the table top will be mounted on and routed out a 2 inch cylindrical recess to take the top of the base. After a bit of cleaning up the base came out looking OK. It needs more careful cleaning up and I think will be fine




Finally today I started the intricate job of preparing the other 4 curved sides and cutting the sides to take them accurately. This needed careful cutting using a guide-rail guided saw set at 32 degrees and then routing out an angled rebate in the ends of the sides. Hope this is clearer from the photo. One curved side piece is not long enough so I am having to use another spare piece cut off one of the others to extend it very slightly. The join should be hidden as I am going to have vertical pieces between each curved piece - difficult to explain but it will become clear in due course.




Hope to get this finished if I can get another couple of good days
Thanks for looking 
Mark


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## woodbloke (4 Feb 2011)

gasman":10hr7oy9 said:


> . I sealed it with friction polish whilst it was still mounted.



I hope you don't reach for those painters pyramids too often Gman :shock: :shock: :shock:...edge down would be much safer - Rob


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## gasman (7 Feb 2011)

Some good progress over the weekend - starting to look like a table.
I made some decisions - first I finished off the curved sides of the drum table and then decided not to have 2 drawers which I know is a bit of a copout but I was running out of mahogany for the drawers and also one drawer will make it more stable.
So here is the top all structurally complete except for the drawer bit




I decided to reinforce the curve side which would have been a drawer as it was a weaker join




Then I started work on where the drawer will go and added some rails and a support for the front of the drawer




Attaching the top to the pedestal base was next - routed out a slot in the top, and 'suspended' the top from it - then using a spirit level to make sure it was level with the floor I put 2 fairly heavy duty screws in each side




All that got me to here:




I need to decide how to do the top - whether to inlay leather which I want (my wife does not so you can tell where that's going) etc etc. Also still waiting for an Axi triple beading router bit to arrive - which has been on back order for nearly 3 weeks
Can I ask what other people think about the top. If I used a leather inlay I could replace most of the top with MDF - which would obviously be more stable than mahogany. Also, I was going to make the leather inlay 2 inches smaller radius than the tabletop so there was a 2 inch wooden rim around it. I could therefore even cut up the table top so that the grain of the 2 inches of table outside the leather inlay all are radial (or even tangential) but not all pointing in the same direction - do you get what I mean?
I will try and finish the drawer this week
Thanks alot for looking
Mark


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## gasman (10 Feb 2011)

Last night I made the front drawer and cut all the dovetails
Those on the front curved edge I found a bit trickier than normal as I was cutting obliquely through different grain directions due to the curved, laminated front but it was Ok if one just took time and cut a little bit at a time




Dry fitted the joint looks OK.




There is just one pin on the back of the drawer which had a screw going through it which needs a bit of concealment once the drawer is assembled. It is on the inside and should be quite easy to scarf a piece in




I dry-assembled the whole drawer to check it would fit OK with the curved outside etc




Astonishingly there has been a change of plan and we are going to go with a leather inlaid top - so I have ordered an 800mm diameter circular leather top with tooling - and therefore I will be using an MDF top with edges of mahogany
I did one more thing which I know will horrify the purists, but I was worried about the strength of the base as the table is getting heavier and heavier and all the weight tends to splay the legs which just have a shallow glued sliding dovetail... so I put some metal brackets bent to shape and screwed them to the underside. I think I will cover them in due course but they make it much stronger




Finally I cut the first of the short curved pieces which will go between the curved side pieces as follows:




Thanks for looking
Mark


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## studders (10 Feb 2011)

I know they won't be seen but, those Metal strips look awful and would irritate me just knowing they were there. I don't have an alternative in mind but I think I would have looked for another method. That aside... cracking job.


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## gasman (10 Feb 2011)

I take your point Studders and TBH I agree with you entirely. The trouble is it definitely needed something as it is fast becomeing a very heavy table. Wood which was thick enough to be effective would be visible. I have chiselled them out so that they are flush with the surface and I think that by countersinking the screws a bit I could put a thin wood 'cover' over the brackets so that it would not be seen. The other thing I wondered was Miller dowels or similar?
Thanks for your comments
Mark


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## studders (10 Feb 2011)

Yes, I've been thinking about it today and........... I've yet to think of a way to do it that wouldn't involve drastic surgery.

OK Just paint the brackets Brown.


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## mtr1 (10 Feb 2011)

Looks great, in the past I've restored a few tri-pod tables, some come with the spider brackets on, and usually just need something done to the top. Some come without, and are usually in pieces. If the look of the spider(yours isn't a true spider as the central disc is missing that ties the three legs together) bothers you, you can file fleur de lys in the ends, just an idea feel free to ignore.


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## gasman (11 Feb 2011)

Thanks for your comments - I have some time this morning so may have another look at that and .
Meanwhile in an hour last night I scarfed in a piece of matching grain to fill that screwhole I had shown a photo of




and then finished the drawer - routed out a 1/4 inch groove in all 4 sides, joined the 4 pieces making up the drawer bottom and glued it all together




MTR! sorry to be thick - what are fleur de lys?
Cheers
Mark


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## mtr1 (12 Feb 2011)

Good progress Mark!!(how long have you been doing woodwork Btw?), first off.... you are not being thick. If you do not know, you do not know. 








These are some examples of the Fluer De Lys, we would file this design onto the ends of our spider brackets. Sometimes we would have maybe 1(a real one) a month to restore, the others we would make ourselves. These new tri-pod tables were made traditionally/copied with the tapered sliding dovetailed joints. None of these tables(old or new) left the workshop without the bracket fitted.


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## gasman (12 Feb 2011)

Another hour or so last night
Unclamped the drawer and cleaned up the dovetails with a low angle plane
Dry fitted it and it is quite a good fit. Once it is sanded / scraped / sealed / waxed it should be fine








Then did a bit of wailing and self-flagellation as I snapped a japanese dovetail chisel by levering too hard:You can just about see the fracture line in the polished hard steel of the bottom layer just next to the dimple underneath
Not sure what to do about this except buy another chisel. It certainly showed the difference between the brittle hard steel of the bottom lamination and the softer metal of the top which is still fine




Then started thinking about the table top and I don't have enough mahogany left to do the whole thing. So, because the centre is going to be leather inlay, I cut a hexagonal piece of 18mm MDF so that the leather will just cover the corners. 



Then I cut and exactly shaped the 6 side pieces (these will be domino'd to the MDF)




And dry-fitted it all together:




So I will use a router on a trammel from the centre to rout out the circular recess when it is all glued and dominod
Finally I have looked at the awful brackets again and countersunk the screws better. I have an idea I will be able to cover it and made a circular piece to see if it would be worthwhile:




I will think some more about this tomorrow. Thanks MTR1 for the fleur de lys details - so this would be engraved in the metal bracket or have I still got the wrong end of the stick?
Nothing today as I am out all day - hopefully should get the top finished tomorrow
Cheers
Mark


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## studders (12 Feb 2011)

That bracket now looks much better to me. Can't the chisel just be snapped off the rest of the way and reground?


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## mtr1 (12 Feb 2011)

The end of the bracket would have the fleur de lys shape cut out/filed, not engraved.


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## gasman (13 Feb 2011)

I assembled the table top today
First I marked both the hexagonal MDF and the 6 side pieces where the dominos would go - I planned 6 for each side and 1 between adjacent side pieces.
The MDF is 18mm thick but the side pieces are 22.7mm thick. I wanted the side pieces to be 2.5 mm proud of the MDF to allow for the leather inlay, so first I cut all the MDF domino slots on a 9mm depth setting, then changed this to 11.5 mm to do all the side pieces - which should give me the required 2.5mm difference.




I glued up 2 side pieces at a time using TB3 and then left them for a couple of hours clamped before doing the next 2. The last one was a bit tricky to insert the dominos joining the 2 side pieces.




I thought I would get more done today but at least the table top is all together.
Studders if I snapped the chisel off I would have to grind the back down considerably as the crack goes through the hollowed out back that jap chisels have - I think it is rogered TBH!
I also nearly finished covering up the metal brackets and I will post more photos of this repair later this week
Thanks for looking
Mark


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## Paul Chapman (13 Feb 2011)

Looking very good, Mark.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## studders (13 Feb 2011)

gasman":19y8jrf9 said:


> Studders if I snapped the chisel off I would have to grind the back down considerably as the crack goes through the hollowed out back that jap chisels have - I think it is rogered TBH!
> Mark



That's a bit of a gutter. I've thought about buying some but that's put me right off the idea now.


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## gasman (14 Feb 2011)

I don't think you would regret buying them - they are awesome chisels and, provided you don;t use them for the wrong purpose  will last a lifetime


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## studders (14 Feb 2011)

I tend to fall into the 'Heavy Handed' category. OK with a £10 Chisel but..... then again it might 'make' me be more 'Genteel' in my work? Might still get one to see how I get on with it.


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## gasman (15 Feb 2011)

Getting close to completion with one major tricky job left to do. 
I am off work all week due to having a plate removed from my arm yesterday and having a steroid injection into a facet joint today - so I am taking it very slowly but tonight have no back pain for the first time in months - a fantastic feeling
So first today I very gently completed covering up the awful metal brackets on the bottom and I think I am happier with it




You cannot really see it at all when the table is upright which I guess is the acid test.




Then I glued in the small vertical pieces into the gaps between adjacent curved pieces




The vertical pieces also have a slight curve in them to add interest. I debated long and hard with myself about putting an inlay into each of the 6 large curved side pieces but (my wife) decided against it!




So onto my last tricky problem...
I have got this Axi beading router bit to complement the fluting one which I did the legs with. 




My original plan was to use the Festool MFS system I have to use as a circular jig to do the outside of the table edge with. So I drilled an 8mm hole in the centre of the MDF and attached the pivot pin underneath the 1000mm MFS piece so that it acted as a trammel arm




Then using the rest of the MFS to balance the router I attached the router and tried it out.



. 
At the moment the diameter of the circular base is 920 whereas the diameter of the rough sawn table top is about 950 so I have plenty of room to play with to get this right. Eventually it wants to be about 6mm proud all the way round so the beading sticks out from the sides - ie a final diameter of 932
The problem was keeping the router in exactly the same horizontal plane - it kept wandering up by a mm or 2 and therefore the beading looked a mess... so I put a straight bit in and went round the whole table to bring it down to about 935mm - still big enough not to worry too much - yet! You can just about see in this photo where the attempted beading wandered - only a mm or so but enough to make it look awful.




So, I think I have 2 options tomorrow - either mount the beading bit again and repeat but this time go very very carefull and hope like hell it works. Alternatively, and this is my favoured option at present, attach the top to the curved base securely, then use the larger diameter bearing I have attached, and use that bearing against the curved sides to cut the beading. There will be a slight problem as I go over the curved vertical pieces but I could move it round a bit to do them? I guess a third option would be to get the Veritas beading tool. Does anyone have any better ideas or suggestions?
Thanks for looking
Mark


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## studders (15 Feb 2011)

I'd retry using the same method but a much stouter trammel that was at the same height as the table edge.


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## Paul Chapman (15 Feb 2011)

The trouble with using routers for this type of job is that if it goes wrong it really makes a mess of things, as you've found. Unless you can be sure that you can guide the router in a way that will work, I'd be inclined to use a scratch stock.

Easy enough to make a scratch stock - there's a good video clip by Garrett Hack here http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAn ... x?id=31290

Hope it goes well, Mark, whatever you decide. You're making an excellent job of it so far.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## gasman (16 Feb 2011)

Had a really good day today and solved my last remaining big problem...
First I used my circular mounted router to rout out the circular area where the leather inlay will be




Then after a good clean up with a sander followed by a card scraper it looked OK




I had a look at what the leather would look like - and I was not certain about the colour but I think when the mahogany is alot darker it will offset the rich brown well




Then I thought about the table top edge again and how to sort out the triple-beading. First I used the trammel-guided router to take another 2 mm off the outside of the table top
Then, instead of the options I discussed earlier, I ended up using the offcuts of MDF from the table top construction which I glued to the underside of the table top with hot-melt glue.
Then I used a bearing-guided flush trim bit with the bearing running on the mahogany table to cut the MDF to the same size as the table top




Once this was smooth, it was easy to use the bearing guided triple-beading router bit with the bearing running now on the MDF to produce the desired effect without the worry of the router bit 'climbing' because of the workpiece being constrained between the router and the fixed pivot point.




Just got to put it all together and do the finish
Thanks for looking
Mark


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## Paul Chapman (16 Feb 2011)

Good to see that the beading worked out OK, Mark. Looking great.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## gasman (17 Feb 2011)

So after putting it all together I am happy with what is done so far but am not certain I am happy with the overall appearance. I think maybe it needs another row of the triple beading at the bottom of the side as well? And the small vertical pieces look wrong to me - maybe they could be the triple beading as well?
I think it needs some more 'wow' factor and maybe an inlay or two would look good.... we are away for a week to Egypt so will have a fresh look when I get back
Thanks for looking


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## eoinsgaff (19 Feb 2011)

Hmmm, another triple bead might be too much. How about a single bead on the bottom?

Eoin


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## mailee (19 Feb 2011)

I agree, a single bead would look much better. :wink:


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## stuartpaul (19 Feb 2011)

Mark,

Looks really good.

Without wishing to sound impolite I'd be worried out the join between the legs and pedestal even with those brackets. I made a much smaller pedestal table (pedestal-table-wip-finished-t39114.html) and had quite deep mortices.

Your table is much bigger and heavier and I'd have thought that a likely place for future failure.

Great to be using your Dad's old table and recycling it into something you can have for years to come.


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## gasman (28 Feb 2011)

Have been away in Egypt for a week's holiday - interesting with a 1000+ room hotel in Hurghada running at 3% occupancy during half term week! Very quiet but good food
Anyway thanks to those of you who commented about the beading etc - but I am afraid I was swayed by one of the original photos of a drum table I liked which had a triple beading top and bottom - and also the client a.k.a. my wife said she wanted it like that! I glued on the triple beading in 3 pieces using lots of clamps and taking lots of time to let each bit dry before cleaning it up and then moving on to the next place
So, it is all finished tonight - I just have to glue in the leather tomorrow night




Here's the drawer - haven't decided yet whether to add some hardware - ie a handle for it




Details of the legs




I do have some worries about the strength of the legs but I do not think there is much else I could do. In retrospect I think Miller dowels from the bottom would have been a good idea but the metal brackets seem to make it very sturdy and I can't see them now which makes me happy
Thanks for looking
Mark


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## Paul Chapman (1 Mar 2011)

Now that you've done it, Mark, I think that double row of tripple beading looks good.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## gasman (1 Mar 2011)

Finished tonight
Carefully cut the leather to size, mixed up some stiff wallpaper paste and pasted it together before rolling it flat
I am pleased with the final result - and I think Dad would have liked it too. Thanks to all the helpful comments. 
Stuartpaul I had a look at your pedestal table thread today for the first time - don't know how I missed it before. I understand what you are saying about the strength - but I think mine will be OK. I loved your table and we even had the same triple beading router bit from Axi!
ANyway here are 2 shots of the final finished piece
Thanks for looking 
Mark


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## Paul Chapman (2 Mar 2011)

Looks lovely, Mark - great job.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## Chems (2 Mar 2011)

Vimpressive finished product and a great WIP.


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## stuartpaul (4 Mar 2011)

Mark,

Looks the dogs!! Cracking bit of work, - reckon your Dad would be proud. Mine passed away last year and when I use some of his tools still get a lump in my throat. Having a piece of furniture like that is a great reminder.

I'd leave the drawer without hardwear, - it doesn't need it visually. Unless of course you need it to open the drawer!

Stuart


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## gasman (5 Mar 2011)

Thanks ever so for the comments. I agree about the hardware - it is almost a 'secret drawer' without hardware as you have to look quite hard to see there is a drawer there. The missus is pleased, my mother is pleased, I am very happy and I think Dad up there is looking down saying 'not bad, son' - he had a very critical eye!


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