Cherry and Walnut hall table

[Hornbeam]

Just finished this table in American Cherry with Walnut stringing. The legs are laminated with walnut laminations for the stringing. The top has walnut lines inlaid with the end lines cut as short grain to get over any expansion issues. Any comments appreciated. I have more photos as a work in progress if anybody wants. As usual struggle to get images the right way round
Ian

 

[MikeG.]

I'm sure there must be guidance somewhere about getting photos correctly orientated.

I'm much more interested in a WIP than in the finished article, and as there are a whole bunch of woodworkers here, I'm sure others share that preference.

 

[Hornbeam]

Thanks Mike will sort out some of the WIP photos and some general comments
Ian

 

[Woody2Shoes]

+1 for a WIP!

Nice design and execution (although my neck hurts already!). The laminated leg reminds me of my old Dunlop Maxply tennis racket!

https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2016/ ... de9a78.jpg

Cheers, W2S

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

Very nice - but I have to echo Mike G about the WIP being of much greater interest!

Tara a bit - SOTA

 

[Hornbeam]

Legs
I only has 1” cherry, so the legs were always going to need to be built up. As I wanted to include some walnut stringing I decided to go for a laminated approach for the legs.
The laminating former was built up from plywood. I shaped the first 18mm layer very carefully and then used this as profile template to cut the next 2 layers on the router table with a guided bearing cutter. I then cut the bolt support pieces which are screwed and glued to the sides of the former in the curved section. I spent a bit of time fairing the former as any imperfections will be transferred to the laminate. I used 150mm coach bolts and 18mm plywood cross pieces to apply pressure. I think this is better than clamps as the pressure is greater at the sides of the laminate resulting in tighter glue lines. I used parcel tape to prevent anything sticking to the former or pressure blocks. I also fitted side restraint pieces as although everything goes together fine when dry, as soon as you add glue everything moves with a mind of its own

I then made a trial leg lamination using 10 layers of 4mm birch ply which gave a leg dimension of 40 X 40. I decided this was too chunky and reduced the the number of laminations to 8 to give a dimensions to 32 X 32mm which is much lighter but still plenty strong enough

I cut the laminates pieces and accurately thicknessed to 4mm.
Each leg is made from 2 laminated pieces. When laminating up the leg sections, the straight portion is only half width but the top curved section is the full width. This means that 4 of the laminations stop just after the curve. I used cascamite for laminating as it gives a good open time and I think results in a far stiffer laminate than titebond or PVA.

Once dried the laminates were planed and then thicknessed to 32mm
I trimmed the waste laminate from the curve-straight transition on the sawbench using a spacer

piece against the fence. These were then cleaned up by hand

The legs were to have all corners radiused with a 12mm cutter and I wanted these to run down were the 2 half legs join. I shaped a piece of sacrificial wood which I clamped to the half leg to provide guidance for the bearing cutter. I put a small spacer in so when clamped the transition from the leg to the sacrificial piece was tight

Once this was done it was time to join the 2 half legs. Clamping the straight part was easy with G clamps but applying pressure around the curved area I used multiple wraps of old bike inner tubes. I have dozens of old tubes and find that these allow you to put light pressure by a wrap or 2 , finalise alignment and then increase the pressure with more wraps. Alignment is critical as the radiused internal sections are already completed.

The glued up legs were then radiused on the router table
I made a datum mark on each leg and used this to position each leg on the table saw to cross cut both top and bottom to length
Back to the router table and the halving joint was cut. I didn’t need the sliding tennon jig as the legs are wide enough at the splayed top to provide secure alignment against the fence
Result 4 completed legs

 

[MikeG.]

Much better. Thanks.

Why did you go to the trouble of building in all those threaded rods? Is it that you just don't have enough clamps?

As an aside, I prefer the slightly chunkier legs from your trial piece. Personal taste: we all have it.

 

[ColeyS1]

That's a great looking table. Very much enjoyed the wip as well ! Smart job.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[custard]

That's impressive!

=D>

I regularly make pieces with cross grain stringing, sometimes just 1mm wide,

Cross grain stringing is one of the trickiest jobs I do as a cabinet maker, right up there with making a classical jointed chair or sunburst veneering. So I take my hat off to you, that's excellent work!

 

[Hornbeam]

Much better. Thanks.

Why did you go to the trouble of building in all those threaded rods? Is it that you just don't have enough clamps?

Hi Mike using threaded rods or coach bolts is a standard method for laminating . See Tag Frid teaches woodwork book for details
It has a number of advantages over using clamps
It is much lighter than large G clamps. If I had used G clamps I would have struggled to move it and would have needed 8 inch ones
The coach bolts are set to the pressure is at 90 degrees to th the glue line
The pressure points can be set close together without interfering with each other
The top bearer plate flexes slightly putting more pressure at teh edges giving tighter glue lines
It is very cheap, adaptable and easy to store
I always put a sacrificial pressure plate lamination to stop the actual laminate getting marked
Thanks for the positive comments
Ian

 

[Hornbeam]

WIP part 2 underframe and top
Underframe.
The halving joints on the top end of the legs were offered up to the underframe rails which had been left overlength and the curved housing line transferred. In practice this curve is very shallow. I also marked out the curved profile for the rails.
I roughed out most of the waste from the halving joint with a router and then cut , finished and radiused the rail profile. Las job was to trim the edges of the halving joint back to the scribe line. I did it this way round as the area around the end of the halving is quite fragile

The end cross rails are mortice and tenoned to the rails. Leaving the rails overlength provides a guide for the router fence
The mid cross rails are joined using sliding dovetails. They are also installed with the long axis to provide the most support to prevent the legs twisting.

The leg/underframe housing joint is only 6mm deep so not really strong enough on its own. The main strength in the joint is from the additional dowels. I did debate using screws instead.

The lower stretcher rails are mortice and tenon joints. The tenon shoulders had to be curved slightly to fit the leg profile
Once glued up, I planed the top of the legs flush with the rail
Last thing was to cut slot screw holes in the end cross pieces and slots for buttons on the rails. This was nearly a cockup as my router, with the bit fully into the collet only just fitted between the rails.

Top.
I had intended to make the top from a beautiful wide board but when I started to clean it up a few small splits appeared causing a rethink. The top is made from 2 pieces but glues and aligned/strengthened with biscuits. Use of 2 pieces did make thicknessing easier as I am limited to 12 inches. One issue with the joint is that to get the best grain match the boards were cut such that the grain in each piece slopes in opposite directions. This means that while there is a good pattern match the angle of light can make one piece appear lighter/darker.
The joined top was cut and finished to a rectangular shape. I then used a 4mm router cutter to cut the inlay lines. Always a nervous moment. I has some left over walnut laminates which I used for the inlay. The end inlay pieces were cross cut off the laminates so the grain runs in the same direction as the cherry top.

I did this on the panel saw but did lose a few to the extraction system. Even though the grain runs in the same direction I should have mitred the intersection. Its is fine on 3 corners but the 4th could be better.
I think the table actually looked better with square corners but as it is to fit into a relatively narrow hallway the corners were rounded using the inlay corner as the centre of curvature. The catspaw knots were filled with a glue sawdust mix and then artist acrylic paint to get a good colour match. The edges were all eased with round over cutter
Everything is finished with 4 applications of boiled linseed oil and then a wax polish