Latest and probably my best proejct

[Anonymous]

Just finished my latest project

An American Cherry coffee table. The fielded drawer picture (last one) is the closest to real colours of the wood which contains blues, greens and browns in an awesome grain pattern

Mrs T wanted me to go for a chunky feel with 4 drawers, and we played with a couple of Solid Edge drawings to get the right balance.

Thought I'd try a few new techniques, so the drawers have slips to avoid slots in drawer sides and fielded panel bottoms.

Of course, all of the DTs are handcut. Again, a new technique in that I bandsawed the drawer fronts in half and cut through DTs before re-gluing. I think this is going to be my preferred method rather than cutting half blind DTs which take me 6 times a as long.
The drawers are individually fitted to their holes and took as long as the rest of the table to make but they slide in and out absolutely beautifully

There is a lot of hidden joinery in this one such as all the drawer supports are fitted using sliding dovetails.

The legs are built up from cherry planks with a 5mm thick veneer all round

Some piccys (they don't really do the wood justice)

 

[Oryxdesign]

Really nice work Tony.

 

[halken]

What a fantastic table Tony i love the style and the colour is perfect its something i can only aspire to WELL DONE!!!!!!

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Very nice, I do like chunky. =D>

 

[TheDudester]

Very nice, Tony. Congratulations on building it.

D

 

[mr]

Very nice - are those legs solid ???

Cheers Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Very nice - are those legs solid ???

Cheers Mike

Two 2" thick pieces of cherry glued together with a bandsaw cut veneer on two sides to hide joins. The chamfer onthe leg completely hides the poit where veneer meets the 2" thick wood

 

[Pete W]

Thing of beauty, Tony - I like it a lot.

A nice blending of modern and traditional, and very pleasing proportions all round.

Could you explain the joinery of the shelf/legs connections?

 

[BradNaylor]

Very nice Tony.

You're getting quite good at this woodworking lark, aren't you?

:lol:

Cheers
Dan

 

[motownmartin]

This is a great peice of furniture Tony and the way you have disguised the join on the leg is brill, I could have sworn it was on peice =D>

 

[Smudger]

Luvverly. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[seaco]

Loverly work, I really like that! nice colour too...

 

[neilc]

Very nice Tony well done.
Neil

 

[bobscarle]

Lovely table, Tony. I really do like cherry.

Bob

 

[OPJ]

Very nice work Tony - it possibly is your best to date!

Could you go in to a little more detail on how you dovetailed those drawers? I'm not entirely sure of what you mean when you say you bandsawed the fronts in half before re-gluing?

Can you also tell me how the lower shelf is fixed? I'm thinking of making a small table with a shelf like this but I know there are several ways to do it.

 

[Woodmagnet]

Very, very, nice Tony :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Thing of beauty, Tony - I like it a lot.

A nice blending of modern and traditional, and very pleasing proportions all round.

Could you explain the joinery of the shelf/legs connections?

I looked at many ways of doing this (tenons that allow movement, rails to support it, biscuits, sliding dowles) and in the end decided that if I left the wood in the final environment for 2 months it was unliekly ot move much in a lounge, so I did this and then simply attached the shelf uising pocket hole screws :lol:
(never used them on furniture before, so i'll wait and see how it works)


Cherry does not move much over seasons, it is quite stable, and I reckon the shelf will extend over its width by a couple of mm worst case which will not harm the M&T of at the top as it is 300mm away from the point of expansion

 

[Anonymous]

Very nice work Tony - it possibly is your best to date!

Could you go in to a little more detail on how you dovetailed those drawers? I'm not entirely sure of what you mean when you say you bandsawed the fronts in half before re-gluing?

Can you also tell me how the lower shelf is fixed? I'm thinking of making a small table with a shelf like this but I know there are several ways to do it.

For the drawer fronts, I planed a piece of cherry to around 24mm thick and sized it to the final drawer front dimension.

I then ripped this on the bansdsaw, giving two 10mm pieces with identical grain pattern.

I took one of these pieces and cut it to exactly fit the hole for the drawer by removing around 10mm from each edge. This formed the rear piece.

I cut drawer sides and rear from Poplar, and hand-cut through dovetails on the smaller cheery (rear) front piece to make the drawer body. When the glue was dry, I hand planed the drawer to fit the opening smoothly.

I then planed a chamfer on the front piece before gluing and clamping it to the drawer assembly. The finished article looks like half-blind dovetails (all the front comes from a single piece of wood), but the work is around 1/4 of actually cutting them and fitting the drawer to the hole is so much easier this way

the shelf is held with pocket hole screws. Cherry doesn't move a great deal and I am sure there will be no issues as upper the M&T is so far away from the shelf that the apparent deflection will be less than a degree, and only a tiny bending moment will appear there.

 

[woodbloke]

I've PM Tony the other day and asked if I could do a critique on this piece and he's happy for me to talk about it a little, so here's my personal view on the table.
The overall proportions of the table are good and there is no question that the timber used (American Cherry) is outstanding. I like the chunky legs and the way that they've been constructed. However, I feel that a 'solid' look as in Tony's table needs to have a much cleaner line to it to look effective.
What do I mean be cleaner? The top rails in my view should be flush with the leg surface and not set back, similarly the drawer fronts ought to have been made flush with the rail so that the overall 'stepped' effect (leg to rail to drawer front) is no longer there.
The drawers have been well made but I question the use of handles on a piece like this. I think I would have made them with a simple spring operated 'push to open' thingie :? (don't know the correct terminology but I know Hafle sell them) I would have also made the rail and fronts from one piece of timber so that the grain flowed from rail to drawer front.
The top looks good but I think it should have been made slightly thicker in keeping with the legs, but the thing that looks strange to me is the shelf, which in a piece like this ought not to have been included, or at least made much thicker if it had to be.
At the end of the jour, this is a personal view of Tony's table and as I have said many times on the forum, I am more than happy for anyone to offer a constructive critique of anything that I produce.
The overriding outcome tho' is excellent as I understand, 'cos Tony has now accumulated a shed full of Brownie points from SWIMBO and can buy as much AC as he wants...can't be bad (better leave some for Waka tho' :lol: ) - Rob

 

[Corset]

Very nice table that. I think cherry is very difficult to photograph to give it justice so that the fact yours looks so good must mean its about 5x better in the flesh.
I think that the table is a nice clean modern design and would suit a lot of houses.
Owen