I finally finished my coffee table yesterday and moved it up into the house!!!:eusa_danc
I need to find some time to get some good photos taken, but these will have to suffice for now. The legs and stretchers are cherry, the bottom is maple plywood (IIRC) and the top is padauk. The top goes onto the stretchers with sliding dovetails and the legs use a pegged bridle joint. There is no glue and no fasteners in this table (other than the 8 pegs) - no screws, nails, brads, biscuits...nothing but what you see! Getting the perfect fit on all the joinery was quite a challenge for me - almost as big a challenge as the finish. I made some of the parts 3 times before I got them right...and still not perfect. The joinery was cut in the dry winter...but we'll see how it holds up when the dry weather comes back.
No stain or dye - all natural wood colors. The Finish is shellac and everything but the top was wet-sanded with danish oil. Paduak has large pores, like oak or walnut, but I wanted a mirror finish...and I did not want to use a pore filler. So I put on many heavy coats of shellac and cut back the finish with a hand scraper every 5 coats or so until it was smooth. Then wet sanded with mineral oil up to 2000 grit for a perfectly smooth satin finish. Let that dry for a few days and came back to find a few places where I had sanded through, so I repeated the process again (though it required much fewer coats this time). Then I french polished the top - that probably took another 30 or 40 passes (this goes really quick - probably about 4-6 hours total). This was my first time with french polishing (besides my practice pieces) - the gloss is not perfect, but I'll go out on a limb by saying that I'm getting close. At any rate, it is by far the best finish job I've ever done.
I've been working on this on-and-off since last fall - interrupted by a major shop remodel. Credit for the design goes Dale Raymond, who graciously shared his plans with me.
Critique welcomed.
I need to find some time to get some good photos taken, but these will have to suffice for now. The legs and stretchers are cherry, the bottom is maple plywood (IIRC) and the top is padauk. The top goes onto the stretchers with sliding dovetails and the legs use a pegged bridle joint. There is no glue and no fasteners in this table (other than the 8 pegs) - no screws, nails, brads, biscuits...nothing but what you see! Getting the perfect fit on all the joinery was quite a challenge for me - almost as big a challenge as the finish. I made some of the parts 3 times before I got them right...and still not perfect. The joinery was cut in the dry winter...but we'll see how it holds up when the dry weather comes back.
No stain or dye - all natural wood colors. The Finish is shellac and everything but the top was wet-sanded with danish oil. Paduak has large pores, like oak or walnut, but I wanted a mirror finish...and I did not want to use a pore filler. So I put on many heavy coats of shellac and cut back the finish with a hand scraper every 5 coats or so until it was smooth. Then wet sanded with mineral oil up to 2000 grit for a perfectly smooth satin finish. Let that dry for a few days and came back to find a few places where I had sanded through, so I repeated the process again (though it required much fewer coats this time). Then I french polished the top - that probably took another 30 or 40 passes (this goes really quick - probably about 4-6 hours total). This was my first time with french polishing (besides my practice pieces) - the gloss is not perfect, but I'll go out on a limb by saying that I'm getting close. At any rate, it is by far the best finish job I've ever done.
I've been working on this on-and-off since last fall - interrupted by a major shop remodel. Credit for the design goes Dale Raymond, who graciously shared his plans with me.
Critique welcomed.