Shaker style table in maple and cherry (finished with pics)

[Ironballs]

This was our set piece for our second year cabinet making class, a shaker style hall table. We had a basic design to follow but were allowed our own embellishments and wood choices. Our choices for timber were ash, oak, maple, cherry and if you were feeling rich, walnut. I decided to go for maple and cherry, the timbers would be an interesting contrast and give it a more modern look too.

Part of the reason for doing this WIP is that it still is a WIP despite the course finishing in June. I'll not tell you where I've got to yet, but it does need that final push to finish it. So I'm hoping public shaming will be an additional spur, though the fact it already looks great should be enough (well, I think so anyway ).

So here goes, machines were used for most things - morticing, tenoning, planing, thicknessing - though there was plenty of fettling to be done by hand, plus all the dovetails.....

First up the machining of the main pieces, cherry legs and maple rails. We think the timber may have been fresh in to the college as despite it being hotter than the surface of the sun with a humidity of 0%, all the pieces moved a bit after we had machined them down to size. Knew we should have left a bit over

Marking up of the mortices in the legs

Legs after morticing, not too bad, I ended up using the Axminster which was easier to set up but not quite as accurate as the large Wadkin

The rails after being run through the not insubstantial tenoning machine - which was slightly out of true

Side on view of the tenons

To be continued... in case the PC crashes and I have to do this all over again :x

 

[RobertMP]

I'm using a WIP thread for a bit of motivation too :lol:

I do like the look of Maple. Doesn't match anything in our house but I do have a plank of it so must think of something to use it for

btw... you need to make a follow up post sometime showing your progress

 

[Ironballs]

Well it did crash, it's nothing if not predictable. So, the saga continues...

Actually it would continue if Photobucket wasn't down for maintenance

 

[joiner_sim]

Looking great! Using machines, there's nothing wrong with that at all! Especially when the jobs a paid one and time is money, machines speed up the woodworking process. Unfortunatley looses some of the skill, but as you have already said, the machine can only do so much, the joints do still have to be altered by hand.

 

[Ironballs]

Creating this post is harder than doing a bleeding dovetail as my PC crashes more often than Raikkonen in a rain shower.

Anyway the last pictures showed the tenons and you can see some breakout that we suffered from that machine, very frustrating.

This one shows the haunches being cut, some done on the bandsaw, some done with the tenon and coping saws when there was a queue for the bandsaw

Not got a pic of the top rail tail being cut, but here is the socket in the leg being cut, my first ever dovetail joint. Went quite well

This here is the leg tapering, tapered on the inside faces only. Rough cut on the bandsaw and then finished with the plane. Nice satisfying job

Missed another pic where I put the curves into the bottom of the rails, again bandsaw to begin with and then finished with the spokeshave - Veritas flat sole. Lovely tool. This here is one end being cramped up

And closer in, you can never have too much glue. Ahem

 

[Ironballs]

Next step was quite a big one, the first vaguely table shaped object. Dry cramping of the back rail into the sides

Here are some of the mortices that had to be cut into the rails and cross pieces, this was where I was cursing having chosen the figured maple. Actually I was cursing it before when it started moving all over the place...

And another one being cleaned up in the front rail

A major step this one and not one that should have been undertaken using PVA in a white hot workshop :shock: There were numerous dry clamps and fettles to get to this point and the clamping took some planning. And a lot of clamps. Couple of issues with ultimate fit, but nothing insurmountable. you can also see from here that I went for the 2 rather than 1 drawer option

 

[Sawdust]

That is a gorgeous piece of furniture. I like everything about it; the contrasting woods, the taper of the legs and especially the curved rail under the drawers.

Very very nice, I can't wait to see it finished

Cheers
Mike

 

[Ironballs]

What you can't see clearly in that picture is that there is a slight gap in the join at the central divider (it was a swine that piece, 3 tenons and 1 mortice) and the movement in the front rails mean that the front does go in slightly towards the middle. Not really noticeable and some subtle planing of the drawer fronts will hide it. A good milestone though and I celebrated with a few speckled hens when I got home.

Next job was to select the piece for the drawer fronts, it had to be a nice piece and I also had to allow for the gap at the divider so that the grain flowed from drawer to drawer. Here's the dry fit, which was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but then my apertures weren't perfect rectangles...

Once these were done it was onto the drawers themselves which meant dovetail time. My one regret here is that we were given tulip wood to use, which to be honest is crap. It's soft and boring and almost anything else would have sufficed. Anyway, here is the first side being marked up

And then the first cut

Tails cut and transferring to the fronts

Set up the router to remove the bulk of the waste from the sockets. This would also give good clean edges at the top and bottom, worth the effort setting up and only slipped up a couple of times in a minor way - you have to be wary of tipping the router over

Following that it was clean up and fettling time, I spent a long time doing this, too long really, though they did come out well and these are my first drawers. Went a little closer than I planned to the sides though, that was brown trousers when doing the test fit but thankfully no splits

 

[shim20]

looks nice, good work. i like working with cherry and maple nice woods. look forward to seeing more

 

[Ironballs]

Okay, next step was to assemble the drawers after I had routed in a rebate all round to take the drawer bottom (5mm ply as the college budget didn't extend to cedar). The fronts/sides went together pretty well though the rears were a little more rough and ready, but perfectly tight. Little bit of tweaking with the clamps to ensure all was square, but much easier than clamping up the carcass. Note I had to make some little MDF blocks that sat on the tails to ensure they were pressed home fully

After that was some fettling to get the drawers to fit in the aperture again and also ensure that they would slide the length of the central runner (the only one fitted at this point). Mine (like most of the others) had ended up with a slight tightening towards the rear, not critical and fixable with the plane. A symptom of lack of experience and some elements being rushed - it's amazing how quickly your 3 hours goes each week. Finish smoothing of the drawer sides and bottoms is also done with the plane, no sanding allowed. Seemed to go in quite nicely and another big moment

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that a top has appeared, this is 3 piece cherry that had cunningly moved twice so despite learning my lessons from before it had moved further. Thankfully it was only a slight bow on the length so we were able to fix with biscuits, weights and clamps, otherwise straight butt joints. Smoothed with a real luxury, a great big belt sander that I could feed the top through. I wish I had one of those. Shown here the edge is unfinished, a chamfer was applied later on the spindle moulder.

This almost brings us up to date, I've machined and drilled all of the drawer runners and kickers and I also have the buttons for attaching the top. The table is going to live in our kitchen so it's been acclimatising under a sheet in there for a couple of months (hey, that's my excuse). Doesn't appear to have moved visibly, as my girlfriend keeps remarking, but the drawers need another planing as they don't fit now, though that was expected.

The one thing I'm still unsure of is the attachment of the top to the front rail, the instructions were to screw through the rail above each drawer aperture and hold the top in place. The intention being to control the movement by being fixed here and allowing it move widthways across the back. Seems logical I just want to ensure I get the holes drilled neatly through the rail without the use of a right angled drill - the hole is easy, the countersinking isn't, think I may have to go in at a slight angle from the front.

The other part that is awaiting the beginning of next term is the 2 drawer knobs, these are to be wedge tenoned mushroom knobs in walnut. I have the walnut and the design but no lathe. Finish is undecided, not sure whether to go for a gloss or emulsion :lol: Want to avoid Danish Oil as it will yellow the maple too much, so bought some Osmo yesterday to experiment with, if that's too yellow then I'll have a look at other options.

It was interesting to see the other tables reach the same point and how they looked in different timbers: there was a reference table in ash that looked too coarse and plain for this design, similarly the oak didn't quite cut it, but it was quite pale and sappy in places, the all cherry looked fantastic and we did luck out with the quality of the cherry, the all maple looked very good too, though perhaps a little too white and bright, it also suffered from deep water/stick marks and the dark stained areas that you can get in maple

 

[maltrout512]

Looking very good. Nice lines always makes a piece of furniture look really stunning.

 

[Woodmagnet]

Very nice. :wink: 8)

 

[RogerM]

A lovely piece! What finish are you going to use? Looking forward to the next episode .

 

[Ironballs]

Currently have an offcut of maple in the garage which is having a strip of Osmo oil, a strip of Danish Oil and a strip left blank to see how much they colour the wood. If they're too yellow/dark then I'll have a look at an acrylic. Thanks for the comments

 

[MikeG.]

Finish is undecided, not sure whether to go for a gloss or emulsion Laughing Want to avoid Danish Oil as it will yellow the maple too much, so bought some Osmo yesterday to experiment with, if that's too yellow then I'll have a look at other options.

I reckon Rustins Plastic Coating is your best answer for keeping the finish un-yellowed. I've only used it a couple of times, but am really impressed. I suggest thinning it down quite a lot (Rustins don't suggest that, but it works well). Bomb-proof, glossy if you want it, and completely clear......

Mike

 

[joiner_sim]

Looking great! Be sure to post a picture of it with its "finish" on!

Tapering table legs...... :?:

I have a basic table to make, but still want it to look good. Tapering the legs looks good. does tapering the legs on only rhe inside edges give it a completley tapered look? Or does it need it all the way around. I was also thinking of putting a large chamfer on the edges of the tapered legs? What do you think?

Also is a table stable enough with just top rails and 4 legs? I plan to mortice and tennon with glue. But would the dovetails hold better as in your pictures? The table I plan to make is on a budget for someone else, so would it just be easier to mortice & tennon, glue, then screw & plug?

 

[OPJ]

This is looking great! The contrast between the cherry and maple works really well. It's clear but, not too strong.... (Mike, you should've used cherry legs on your bedside tables!! :shock: :? ).

This is American Cherry, I presume?


Simon, traditionally, table legs are only tapered on the insides face and edges. I don't personally think chamfering these edges would add anything to the legs... Unless you did them on the outer straight edges, perhaps?

How big is this table? Good fitting mortice and tenons are all you need; modern glues will do the rest. :wink:

 

[Ironballs]

Tapered legs are strong enough, but this is a fairly delicate table that isn't designed for rough use, ie it's a hall table that sits against the wall and you pass by it, you don't sit next to it and give the legs lots of kicks.

If you taper the outsides then you get a funny look where the insides are straight but the outers sloping, on most tables this will look odd especially with thin legs. It has to be the right piece for an outer taper. I'd also suggest taper or chamfer in most cases, not both. To get an idea of all round taper and chamfer then look at some classical pieces of furniture.

Sim M&T joints are fine for tables, the reason this has a dovetail on the top rail is that the drawers take up most of the rail thickness so there isn't much strength there. The dovetail gives the strength and pulls the sides together.

OPJ it is American cherry and Mike, thanks for the tip but I want to go for a satin finish rather than gloss. Test strip in the garage shows the Osmo only slighter lighter than Danish after 2 coats each and both are darker than the natural (but show the figure much better), however Osmo suggest 2 coats only so we'll see

 

[OPJ]

Yeah, I've used Osmo satin a couple of couple of times this year and have also found it doesn't end up quite as dark as Rustins' Danish Oil. Perhaps it's due to the wax-content? Or, the lack of tung oil, etc, in the Danish mixture?

 

[MikeG.]

IB,
you can easily rub the RPC to get a satin (or even matt) finish......and it definitely won't yellow.
Up to you....

Mike