Build a coffee table

Retro styleFor years Ive been wanting to make a new coffee table. After making the credenza/TV stand a few weeks ago, I was motivated to make another "mid-century modern" piece. This time I wasnt adhering exactly to any particular 50s style coffee table, but rather I wanted something to echo the credenzas design. After years of building up a mish-mash of furniture, it is nice to finally have a couple pieces that go together!

A lot of the construction of this is similar to the credenza, so in this video I tried to focus on a few techniques that I glossed over in the other video. I know, I know: retro furniture isnt to everyones taste, but you should be able to pick up a few tips in this that might help you do design your own coffee table.
But if you do like this style as much as I, and want to build one just like it, here are plans for the coffee table:

• WWMM Coffee Table PDF Plans
• WWMM Coffee Table Sketchup file

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Imaginary coffee table

Matthew Pausley, an obvious genius at Sketchup and 3D design, send over a couple variations on my retro coffee table. In his imagined versions, he uses classic 50s materials: plastic & metal.  One includes a Lucite top. I absolutely love these designs. If you built them, they would draw a handsome fee.

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Tool storage. If you will recall, I wasnt thrilled with the method I used to hang my handsaws on the french cleat. Heres a solution Ofer Elimelech sketched up. I like it.

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Joshua Blevins came across another solution from Woodsmith. Check out the article here.

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Got a real nice note from Jon Hillstrom describing how his son Preston got him motivated him to get back into woodworking. Now Jon makes projects with his father-in-law in the garage and is planning on building a shed just for woodworking. Common interests can go a long way.
Cute alert. Heres Preston with the toolbox Dad made for him:

And heres a clever project. Jon made this toy organizer for his mother. The grandkids each have their own storage box with their names on the fronts.

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A while back I experimented with some wood bending and made a quilt rack. Jeff Galak made one! Oak with walnut dowels. Beautiful! Read more about it here.

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And speaking of bent lamination. Check out this instrument stand Dan Johns made. I love how graceful it looks. Thats an oud on it, by the way. A beautiful-sounding instrument.

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Finally, if you are interested in short updates in my shop, Ive started experimenting with posting videos on Keek. Its sort of the Twitter version of YouTube: videos are only 30 seconds long. Its kind of fun to shoot quick updates on my phone and instantly upload them. Watch videos online or download the Keek app for your mobile device. You can also subscribe to my feed if you want update notifications on your phone. Heres my page.

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Coffee table follow up

Following up yesterdays video with answers to some questions. And a little bit on rabbets vs. rabbits. And dados.
Mere Minutes

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Coffee Table

My latest creation - a Pine Coffee Table.

I am quite happy with how this project has turned out as it does actually look like a piece of furniture.

 The whole thing was designed around the Pine (although it looks a bit like Spruce) top which was salvaged from a crappy bolted together IKEA type piece of office furniture that was being thrown away at the local dump. This same piece of furniture also provided the base to my Cutlery Tray - recycling at its finest.

As the top had four dowels and holes already in it, I decided to reuse them and measured the remaining table frame based on their spacing. The frame is made from 50mm x 50mm Pine from the local wood yard.

I decided to try and make the table without any lower bracing and therefore used big chunky Mortise & Tenon joints for maximum rigidity. The tenons were so big, they had to be mitred inside the Mortise and I was quite impressed with myself for cutting quite a complex joint completely by hand using only a brace and chisel.

As mentioned previously, the top is attached using four dowels and the whole thing is glued, there are no screws or nails whatsoever.

I finished the top by sanding and using boiled Linseed oil mixed with turpentine and light rubbing with wire wool in between coats. There are a few marks on the top but it was not possible to plane them out as the wood is really knotty.

The anaemic light coloured pine legs and frame were stained darker to closer match the top but came out quite patchy.  Even with some rubbing of the darker patches with wire wool the finish is not ideal, Im sure they will look fine once the table has aged a bit - its rustic.

All in all I learnt a great deal building it and enjoyed the process. The cost of the wood is probably less than £10 and actually seeing the finished table that I built with my own hands being used on a daily basis is very satisfying!

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Large Coffee Table

This project started with me hanging out in the workshop, day dreaming and staring at my remaining wood supply. I wonder what I can use this 2m length of 2"x2"  (42mm x 42mm) for?. 

My first coffee table was a success (to me anyway) and it gets used everyday - this post has been written on it!  However, I didnt actually make the top from scratch, it was reused from an Ikea type piece of (crap) furniture I reclaimed from the dump. Also, its quite small and is generally permanently taken up by my laptop. Time for a larger one...

As already mentioned, I had a 2m length of 42mm x 42mm which I figured would make four legs and two 1.5m lengths of 67mm x 32mm which would make some nice chunky stretchers. 

Let the woodworking begin...

Cross cutting the legs and stretchers to length with the carcass saw on the bench hook.

Precision trimming to length on the shooting board. Legs are the coffee table standard height (or so it seems) of 40cm.

Doh! - I managed to make a mistake within minutes of starting by cutting one of the short stretchers too long - more coffee required! This means the long stretchers will be a bit shorter as a result as I planned one long and one short stretcher from each length of wood. Oh well, Im not building to any specific sizes.

The table base pieces - four legs, two long (90cm) & two short (47cm) stretchers.

After learning from my mistakes in the past, I now mark all my pieces using masking tape thats easy to remove. I have tried to orientate each piece to show the best grain. Pencil marks always seem a hassle to clean up at the end and I always miss some.

Marking out the tenons. I have decided to have the stretchers flush with the outside face of the legs and offset the tenons to make them stronger by having more wood between the mortises at each corner.

Cutting the tenons with my dovetail saw.

Eight tenons cut, time for the mortises...

I mark out the mortise using a knife and then pare inside the waste side of the line with a chisel to create a shoulder before chopping out the waste. Here you can see how the joint will be offset.

Here is my favoured set up for chopping mortises & dovetails. I use a large butchers block on my saw bench. The small scrap of wood with a screw in it I use to check the depth of the mortise.

Eight mortises ready to go... two per leg.

Doh! - Working with soft Pine, you would think I would have learnt to be more careful by now. Forgetting to brush away the debris during chopping means the piece I am working on gets marked easily from the chips that find their way underneath. More clean up to do at the end.

Using the shoulder plane and bench chisels to fine tune the joinery and do a dry fit.

Before gluing up the base I planed all the show side joinery flush. Now I need a top...

Fresh from the timber merchants, three pieces of kiln dried 38mm x 225mm Pine all cut from the same single plank. I think its Southern Yellow Pine and I allowed it to sit in my room for a few days before using it.

I allowed  about 10cm over on each piece to give me room to work around the knots. Back to the bench hook with my large tenon saw to cut to length.

My sawing skills are getting better and better - you just cant beat a good saw!

Despite a little twist in the boards, I decided to go ahead and glue them up. I will flatten them altogether afterwards. First two boards (shown) were glued, then the third afterwards.

Let the sweating commence ... I planed the top face flat using my no#4 set to take a deep cut to remove the small ridges that resulted from the boards not being slightly twisted. Then followed up using my no#6 to get everything flat. I am not worried about the bottom side as this will not be seen when the table is complete, I only need to make sure the edges are flat so it sits nicely on the table base.

Cleaning up the glue marks on the end grain.

Chamfering the edges, nothing too fancy... I also chamfered the table base and rounded all the corners.

Time for a tune up, getting everything nice and sharp before smoothing the table top. A tighter mouth, a closer chip breaker and a honed blade set for the shallowest cut possible made for a lot less tear out. I still suffered some planing tracks though, its almost impossible to camber the blade using the Veritas MkII honing guide.

Liquid wax is new for me as I have been using Good Ol Boiled Linseed Oil for all my projects so far. First application and ...I hate it!

Second application and then a light coat of well rubbed Boiled Linseed oil - I love it!

I have decided against fitting the table top directly to the stretchers as originally planned. Instead I am going to make some small blocks attached to the stretchers to screw into the table top.Hopefully screws will take care of any seasonal shrinkage or expansion of the top.

Glueing the blocks to the base. I am sure they will be strong enough using modern glue as each glued surface is (side grain to side grain) 32mm x 52mm and there are six of them. Also, the only time these are loaded is when the table is being lifted up. The actual table base weighs very little. Time will tell...

Two coats of liquid wax, followed by a rubbing of BLO into the table base and it was on with the top. With the table top face down on the floor and the base on top of it, I measured the distances all around to make sure the top was square. Once again I used my gimlets (i love these things) to drill the pilot holes before screwing in each of the six 1 1/2" screws.

There are a few slight finishing marks that could be sorted by light sanding and re-waxing as a result of squeeze out glue i missed, or rather glue i rubbed away but not completely, hence it went unnoticed until waxing. Other than that - job done!

Its quite difficult to get accurate pictures using flash, but the top actually looks quite stunning in real life. With the table top measuring 104cm x 64cm, this is my largest project yet and I was struggling for room in my small workshop, I assembled the base to the top in a bedroom! I really like the liquid wax finish, some of the stretchers look very much like real Oak, there are no knots to give the game away easily. Its heavy enough and feels solid enough to be Oak!

Anyway, its time to clean up the workshop and hoover the entire house after I trod wood shavings into every room after smoothing the table top - I wasnt very popular.

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