End tables
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12 June 2016 at 2:33 pm #137790
Here’s the progress thread for my end tables I posted about a few weeks ago. I went with white oak. The only difference between the design drawing will be a smaller leg without a taper (1 5/16″ square). First project I’ve taken rough lumber and flattened it by hand (or otherwise I don’t have access to the machines). It’s hard work but feels rewarding in the end.
I do have one question about white oak since I’ve never used it. I’m having these flecks on the surface on the “edge” sides of the legs (from the edges of the board prior to ripping). I guess it would qualify as torn but really minor when hand planing but I can’t seem to prevent this by changing directions…. do I need to just keep these areas in mind and focus on using a scraper in those areas before assembly?
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You must be logged in to view attached files.13 June 2016 at 12:18 am #137797I’m not sure why you got the tear out in either direction. I didn’t think that white oak was prone to changing grain directions. I would make very sure that your plane is as sharp as you can get it before cleaning up and go lightly at first. The scraper can help too.
Those tables should look very nice in white oak.
13 June 2016 at 2:53 am #137800Thanks I’ll be sure to try the smoother again right after sharpening before I go straight to the scraper.
I move kind of slow but here is the progress from today. Legs are still several inches long…
Even though I used a guide I seem to have the mortise a bit out of parallel with the outside face where the guide was… Or the other wall is flairing out a little at the bottom it is hard for me to tell the result is that the apron sits flush on the outside but a small gap on the inside and I can tell it doesn’t sit 90° and extends at an angle… I seem to have corrected it but I am still trying to figure out how it happened to prevent it next time…
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You must be logged in to view attached files.Hi there, i have done red oak coffee table legs and found some the same markings on the faces where the ray flecks of the medullery rays. You would change dimensions of the leg trying to take them out it looks like, maybe 1/32″ deep? Im not sure if it is tear out from the flecks themselves? I remedied mine the best i could with a sharp plane, cabinet scraper, and card scraper, sandpaper per the usual methods.
14 June 2016 at 1:39 am #137814@lcalbertson – I’ve had the same problem with my mortise guides. I wasn’t getting mortise walls parallel to the outside face. Very frustrating. First thing I did was check the mortise guide for square to the leg stock when they were clamped in the vise. I was shocked to see that it was not perpendicular to the stock! I tried shimming the mortise guide and that helped, but that is not a good solution. After some investigation (if memory serves), it was the vise that was at fault. The front jaw is slightly angled (by design) so that the top of the jaw meets the top of the rear jaw first when they close. There is a gap at the bottom of a few millimeters until the vise is cinched down tighter.
In your case, if you check the mortise guide for square to the leg when they’re clamped in the vise, then you may be drifting while chopping. That just means that you need to keep the chisel hard against the guide as you chop.
Whatever you do, check it out thoroughly before you chop more mortises. You’ll be much happier in the long run if you figure out and fix the reason the mortises are not parallel to the outside face.
9 July 2016 at 6:26 pm #138383Ok so here is my first table. I think I mentioned above that I was going to make two – one for some work friends and one because my wife wanted one.
Well with the troubles I had with getting a square shoulder all around my tenons I just wasn’t happy with the outcome so I made some design changes. I chopped the aprons down (I didn’t want to throw them out and start new since the one for me doesn’t need to follow the design) a bit so I could make new tenons (after fixing my out of square problems with the prep work). My table finished at an almost square 18.5″x16.5″ (don’t ask why it wasn’t 16.5×16.5 like I wanted when making the modification *face palm*). I’m actually happy with the dimensions now that I see it in person.
I also ditched the bottom shelf since my wife wasn’t a huge fan of it anyway. We have a few very annoying cats that love making a mess of that type of thing. Any magazines or books on that bottom shelf wouldn’t stay there for long.
So I’ve attached my photos (looks an awful lot like a photo I saw recently on someone’s blog…can’t remember where exactly). The table is for our baby room to hold a lamp next to the nursing chair.
Now to make progress on the second table and this one (hopefully) I will stick to the drawing.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.9 July 2016 at 11:08 pm #138394Looks very nice. And it also looks like it’ll last several lifetimes. Functional, beautiful and long lasting – something you don’t get at Ikea.
24 August 2016 at 3:06 am #139632Here’s an update on my second table which is much closer to the plan… The one change I made was to ditch the tapered legs altogether since I liked how the straight legs came out on my first one… Slow progress… A 4 week old is much more demanding than expected…
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