The design is based on finewoodworking.com 's design. The difficulty level was "intermediate", which was much warranted by the complexity of the joinery underneath. The $12 design were useful, although I had to wing most measurements to fit the vagaries of working with rough lumber AND getting the table to be a whole 14" longer than designed.
The stretcher is made of hard maple while the tabletop is made of quatersawn white oak (which looks red to me). Milling the oak in all of its 8' length was impossible on a 6" jointer, so I had to improvise and joint on the tablesaw using a 8' melamine shelf as a sleigh (and some weird clamps that I found at busy bee tools). Overall, the table top is fine although I find it a bit rough. I have to say that I learned how to properly used the No.5 Handplane on the job. Some 6 hours of intense aerobic exercise were needed to bring the top to a reasonable flatness. I also had never dealt with such a large surface to finish: two danish oils and 5 Polyurethane coats later, I thing that I'm getting a feel for the process.
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| Flat and shiny... |
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| Chloe, ready to baptize this bad boy. |
Here are a few more pictures:
Very classy, Christian. Love the tennons and the tabletop surface. How did you do such long joins? I also like how well the rake motif goes with your light fixture.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteDo you mean the mortises through the 3" legs? All of the joints are hand made: three inches of hard maple is a bit akin to wrestling by times. The first mortice cost me about 2 hours and almost my finger tip, the last one was done in about 20 mins...