Any woodworkers?

Dowel it?

 

Dowel seconded.

 

I wish the guy hadn’t smeared liquid nails around the joint. I’m gonna try to gently scrape off the liquid nails so I don’t have to refinish all 4 legs to get the finish to match.

 

Plastic or pine scraper. Should be softer than the maple or oak leg.

 

Edge looks nice, should be easier on those sitting at the table (thighs when sitting, etc). Edge staining is always tricky ... I disassembled a desk I made 25 years ago and stained BADLY!. Gave me a chance to reinforce loosening joints ... but the end-staining was a bear. The angles you chose make slightly flatter staining surface instead of full-end-grain.

But my "fine-finishing" skills are suspect at best, so you may already have that handled. Looking forward to the final product.

 

It is going to be an 18” tall coffee table so no worries about people’s legs underneath. The chamfer is all about looks in this case.

The finish will be Natura One Coat hard wax oil to match the tv console and chairs. It was delivered yesterday. I like oils like this because they are so easy to apply. No stain on this project, just the natural color of the wood.

I should finish the coffee table up this weekend and maybe get started on the end table that goes with it.

All of these large pieces of furniture are basically firsts for me. I never had the guts or the skills to tackle projects this large before the Covid shutdown. I came home from a bike ride one day to see that my wife had ripped out our kitchen island. I built a new one and used a butcher block top from Home Depot. That project gave me the confidence to design and built bigger pieces of furniture. It has been a journey full of mistakes and learning. I still get frustrated with something every time I am in the shop. The difference now is that I let myself get upset then take a break to cool off and start thinking of ways to move forward.

I have no actual training or taken any woodworking classes. I have just watch hundreds of hours of YouTube and made more mistakes than I can count.

Current pic of the island. My first large piece of furniture.

 

None of us are experts, you learn by doing! Good for you for taking this journey.

 

The first thing you need to know will likely be the last thing you learn.

 

Get an hour or 2 in the shop after work.
Started sanding the church refrigerator magnets.
Got 7 done.

Still cutting the next batch of crosses.

 

Not sure I'd call myself a woodworker but my son and I built this for his Eagle Scout project (the other boys in the troop helped with sanding, staining, and sealing) over the past few weeks. It's an information kiosk for the senior citizen's center here in town. The blue up top is a corkboard for different events and the cubbies are all sized to fit flyers with info for them. I think it came out pretty good for a guy who's woodworking experience consisted of building speaker boxes for his and his friends cars 30+ years ago and a kid who had no experience at all.

 

A little backstory before I explain my current insanity.

We bought a house six years ago and the office area was a complete, well, mess. So I remodeled it, and then built a desk. When I built the desk it was largely by hand, with just a circular saw and a sander. Six years later, for a multitude of reasons, the desk top has split in a few places along the joints. Time for a remodel of the desk top. I'm also going to clean up the frame a little and add USB's for charging stuff.





My current plan is to utilize the walnut slabs I brought back from my dads shop. And because I like mixing and contrasting woods, I was going to add a lived edge red oak to the from and trim with maple to a breadbox trim, minus the live edge. I have fallen out of love with that idea. Yesterday while playing around with some scraps, I put some hickory next to the walnut and really liked it.

Here's where the insanity comes in. I'm thinking about using the hickory I previously milled for the outdoor table in a brick pattern on the from of the desk, trimming three sides in spalted maple and then a .25" walnut trim on the whole desk.

Rough idea of the concept.



Insanity: No metal in the desk top, all glue up and joinery. I'll have to cut the rounded edges off the hickory and will probably tongue and groove the whole top for alignment. I have a biscuit cutter, but I haven't used it yet and not sure if that's the best option for a project like this. I have to order a few things before I start doing too much. Thoughts on the assembly? Will the biscuits provide enough strength to keep the alignment or is the tongue and grove a better option? Also this will have to make a five hundred mile move in a 8-9 months when we go to the new house. Have I lost my mind?

 

My brother is smart, disciplined, successful. But his choice in wood-working is using the wood cutting boards for cooking ... works for everyone.

That is impressive work for people who were learning joining/edging/finishing/design for their first project, especially one so young and still learning impulse control (Eagle Scout, yes ... still maybe quick to rush in, probably). Some adults cannot match your result because they do not plan well.

 

That is so cool! I also built speaker boxes back in the day. Man were those rough. Good thing that the glued on carpet hid all of the horrible joints and silicone.

That glue up is ambitious, at least for me it would be. I would definitely use something, tongue and groove / biscuits / dominos, to help you with alignment. The glue will be strong enough, the biscuits/ dominos will help keep everything square and level during the glue up. Do you have access to a jointer? If not, you are going to need to be very accurate with your table saw. I am going to be adding some stock guides to my table saw in the near future to help with keeping everything tight against the fence for glue ups. I have struggled with this on my last few large glue ups. My jointer is too small to help with big boards, it does more harm than good IMO and I end up going back to the table saw. I would glue it up in sections then do my best to get square edges, table saw/ jointer/ hand plane, ect, then glue it up to the next section. Last thing, make sure that you have enough large clamps. I know that I need a few more for sure.

Good luck!!

 

Agreed, this is ambitious and nothing like anything I have tried at this scale. So I would done this in segments. I have a table top joiner that would be two small to the larger boards. I have done the same thing you said. Recently. Table saw is a small issue. I have a job site as we elected not run 220 to the garage since we'll be moving in the spring. I do have a friend with a pretty good garage set up and he has offered to do some larger stuff if I need the help. That being said, the walnut slabs look pretty good already. My dad had a good place he went to buy this stuff. Trouble is schedules. I have some various clamps that I can hook together and a few pipe clamps I haven't bought the pipe for. This might be a good time to do that.

 

Yup, buy tools as you need them.

 

I finished sanding the refrigerator magnets and got the holes drilled for gluing the magnets in. I used a brad point bit.
All drilled, 1/8" depth.

And I finished cutting the last few crosses for this batch. 33 that need to be sanded.

Then I changed the paper on the sanding mop in preparation for the sanding.

 

Glued up the base of my coffee table.

I had to do it in two stages due to only having one crazy long parallel clamp. You can see the groove for the the z clips on the aprons.


While waiting for glue to dry I started some smaller projects.

Table saw stock guides. Mounted to some left over maple with Magswitch 150s so the entire jig is removable and sturdy.





Giving new life to this chair with a cherry seat. The old version had a weave of jute, I think.


Now waiting for even more glue to dry.

 

Mistakes were made. One that I can’t fix, but overall am happy with it so far. If I ever build another one, I know what to check before final glue up.

 

If anyone complains about the "error" (I can guess maybe, but cannot see it for sure) ... you are well within your rights to eject them from your life. Glue that over-seeps tend to ruin a finishing job, and I do not see any of that.

I am not an expert, but I did look since you mentioned a "mistake".