Ash Coffee Table WIP

[mikefab]

I'm currently making a coffee table while loosely following the Paul Sellers / Woodworkingmasterclasses video series. You can see a sketch of the finished table here http://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/2013/02/coffee-table-project-info/. I'm not totally in love with the design but am following the process as I feel that at this point in my 'career' I will learn quite a bit from this. I'm building it in white ash instead of oak, and plan to alter the shapes of the aprons to be rather simpler (just a curve), as well as simplifying the design of the magazine shelf and losing the through tenons.

This is a total hand tools project for me, starting with rough-saw boards. I know that this is a pretty basic project for many people here but hopefully it will be interesting for some people and the interaction will keep my motivation up and save my wife from incessant woodwork chatter...!

I prepared the stock for the legs, top and apron before starting taking photos. The legs are laminated from 2 layers of thinner stock as I couldn't easily get hold of anything thick enough. I have downsized them from 57mm square to 52mm.

Here are the prepared boards good to go:


I ran a smoothing plane over all the components and then finalised their length (they were all 10-25mm over-sized):


My large tenon saw was in need of sharpening so I was lazy and used a small one!


You can see from the above shots that the boards weren't perfectly matched for the legs, so some careful though was needed about how best to arrange them. While some of the boards had their end grain running at about 45 degrees which results in nice even grain on all 4 sides, some were more like flat-sawn which results in edges with straight grain and faces with a very "flowery" grain (is there a technical term for this?!). I decided to place the two flowery faces towards each other at one end of the table and have the straightest grained faces looking outwards:


The legs were then brought together and marked with a triangle to allow orientation to remain constant:


I then arranged the aprons as best I could. Some of the boards have some darker streaks and I have elected to put these towards the top as it will look odd if the arcs of the aprons cut into them once they are shaped. These were then also marked with cabinet makers triangles. I'm really seeing the disadvantage of sending someone a cutting list for rough sawn boards here: it is so valuable to be able to choose what goes where, but I am going to live and learn and get on with the project! Maybe I need to buy whole boards for my next project.


I then moved onto marking up the legs for the mortices. The joints are haunched T&M so after chopping the mortice to 35mm deep the top 25mm section will be cut out to a depth of 10mm. Can anyone tell me what the advantage of the haunch is please? I was careful to keep looking back to those triangles on the top of the legs to make sure I got the right faces of the legs marked! I think I've got it right....


Finally I have started chopping the mortices. 1 down 7 to go! Sellers uses a jig which clamps alongside the workpiece and keeps the chisel vertical while chopping. I decide to go freehand as that has been ok for me in the past. I may try knocking up one of his jigs to give it a go.


Thanks for looking,

Mike

 

[tobytools]

Looking good so far, beautiful timber.
I'll follow this with great intrest

Thanks for taking the time to share
TT

 

[AndyT]

Thanks for writing this up and sharing it. I think this sort of project, where you do your thinking out loud, is just what the forum needs.

The point of the haunches is that with them the whole width of the boards is constrained against cupping. If only a part was held in a mortice, the remainder could move. (The most extreme case would be if each board was held by just one nail at the centre, when it could cup across the width as much as it wanted to.) The haunch can't go the whole length (ie it can't be a full width full length tenon) or else there would be no wood left at the end of the leg.

 

[Racers]

Well you seem to be doing every thing right so just carry on.

The haunch helps to keep the rails from cupping and doesn't weaken the legs but leaving some meat at the top of the leg.


Pete


Beaten to it!

 

[mikefab]

Thanks Pete and AndyT for your answers about the haunch.

Mike

 

[mikefab]

I got a bit of time today to work on the mortices at the top of the legs to receive the apron tenons. These were chopped with a 3/8" chisel.



Next it was time to create the recesses to receive the haunches at the top of the tenons. I marked along to the top of the legs and round the corner across the top, and also a line across the 10mm depth point. You can see that unfortunately there is a bit of a "wobble" in the middle of this mortice but I don't suppose this will matter. I can see that plenty of practice is in order with the mortice chisel! I then cut down to the line with my dovetail saw:



The waste was knocked and then pared out with a chisel, starting at the halfway point to assess whether the grain was sinking as in this case:


Repeated 7 times... and job done!


Hopefully onto the tenons soon.

Mike