Finished Hall Table

Last Saturday was our last day on the course and we spent it giving out tables the final touches. It was most fun, especially getting to run a sander over oil and have it splash all over my t-shirt.

All in all, I’m very happy with the way it turned out. I’ve still got some finishing and waxing to do and need to actually make the inside of the draw and attach the top to the base, but aside from all those bits and pieces, it’s done!

Want some more information on this?

• Woodworking Courses at Ideal Tools
• Work in progress photos on my Flickr stream
• Work in progress discussion on the Woodworking Forums

Lots of progress in the last few weeks. The main one was a significant design change. Instead of the “fans” on the side, I decided to add a curved stretcher at the bottom. This compliments the slender lines of the legs better than a “fan” type thing on the side would.

Here’s Anthony helping to route a curve on a piece of ply for me. This will become the template I use to cut the Jarrah. By doing it this way, I can recreate the exact same piece multiple times (I need 2 for this hall table).

Routing the curve

In between the two curved pieces, I made a number of “tenons” to fit between them. All in all I made at least 18, 9 of which were too narrow, the other 9 of which I only used 5! It took me a few hours to get the size right and chamfer the ends to they’re fit into the rounded holes. It’s not a job I want to do again soon.

I then laid out all the pieces in an organised manner, placed my clamps nearby ready to slot into place and yelled out for some help. The glue up is stressful. So many pieces needed to come together perfectly all at the same time and it wasn’t something I could do with only two hands.

Finally it came together, and here’s the current result.

Glue up

Next on the list:

• Making the draw and draw handle
• Making the top and attaching it
• Finishing the piece with oil

I’m a few weeks into my first woorkworking course at Ideal Tools and thoroughly enjoing the experience. Most of my updates on this are on the wood working forum and on my Flickr account, but I thought I’d post a summary of my work here.

I started with rough lumber and dressed it to size with the jointer and thicknesser. This was good learning for me as I have read about this many many times, but haven’t done much of it myself. I ended up with four nicely square legs and the rails for the front, back and sides.

Dressed legs

Making the draw front was interesting. The piece has a rectangular hole cut out of the front rail. I was wondering how we would do this so perfectly, but learnt I learnt the trick. I ripped the front rail into three pieces with the centre one the height of the draw front. I then cut out the draw piece and glued it all back together. The end result … it looks like I’ve cut out a perfectly rectangular slot for the draw.

Draw cutout

Moving ahead a few steps … after putting an inside taper on the legs, finessing all the pieces, and making the mortises with the Festool Domino (I want one!), I was ready for my first dry fit. The result? Pretty impressive if I say so myself. I was very very happy to see it come together so nicely.

Dry fit #1

Still lots more to do:

• Bottom rail
• “Fans” for the side
• Bottom shelf
• Top
• Draw & draw handle
• Finishing