A small table from scrap pieces

I had intended to post part II of the Three Rivers series before posting about anything else, but it has been some time since I’ve posted about furniture and I’ve just finished this new piece so I thought I’d sneak this post in now.

We needed a table of just the right height to hold a fan in our bedroom window at home.  Although I am in the midst of a pretty big project just now I thought I’d check out a few of my scrap piles to see if there was anything there to inspire me.

And, while I was at it, maybe I’d check out the paint locker and see what was lurking in there.

Here’s what caught my eye:

A couple of pieces of MDF, some interesting walnut cut-offs and a nice green latex paint.

I glued up the MDF pieces into a block 1-1/2″ thick-

Cut the walnut cut-offs to a uniform length-

Then drew a pleasing curve to shape the legs.

I cut out the first leg, used it as a pattern to trace out the other two, cut them on the bandsaw and sanded the curved cut.

Next I created a guide for my router to cut out the mortises into the top that would hold the legs.

The legs were rounded over on the router table on the long straight face.

I used a variety of implements to draw out a pattern for the top, created a template for 1/2 of the top, transferred that shape onto the top, flipping over the template to get the other half so that the curves would be symmetrical and shaped the top.

I wanted to create an interesting joint detail where the legs met the top. I did some sketching and decided that the top should have its bottom edge rounded. This was done on the big shaper, a finger chewing machine if there ever was one.

I managed to get the top rounded with out loosing any fingers and proceeded to cut the mortises on the under side of the top using the jig I had created earlier.

I adjusted the fit of the legs into the mortises by carefully sanding down their final thickness.

You can start to see what this table will look like at this stage. I still need to square off the round corners left by the router bit in the mortises. I did this by hand using a sharp chisel.

Now I was able to see if the joint detail came out like I had hoped.

OK, this was what I wanted. A look as if the legs were cradling the top. This is reminiscent to me of the original tripod that held a bowl or tray from eons ago.

And here’s the table before finishing:

I painted the top, glued in the legs, rubbed on some of my special oil/ varnish mix and the table was complete.

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Surf Board Table III -iv

The table base is glued up. While the glue sets I’ll start sanding the boards I’ve glued up for the top. First I set up some cross pieces on a work bench.

By using shims I can get the three cross pieces aligned in a single plane. This helps as I need to now sand the top as flat as I can. Having the work piece rest on a flat plane helps a lot. And now I begin sanding the top. Table tops take a lot of sanding.

I start with a belt sander.

To make sure that I am sanding the work piece flat I check it often with a pair of winding sticks.

And then I go back to sanding. Eventually I get one face flat, then I turn it over and work on the other face. After an hour or so of using the belt sander I turn to a jig I developed some years ago to further flatten the work and to take out the machine marks left by the power belt sander.

It’s good exercise!

When the top is flat and smoothed I lay the pattern back on it, trace the outline one more time and then cut it out with a jig saw.

Sorry about the dust on the camera lens. Things are pretty dusty at this point.

The sawn edge is smoothed by using a sharp block plane.

The edge is then rounded over with a router.

And the top is starting to look like a surfboard.

Ice storm today

Today we are being hit with an ice storm. The forecast is for up to 1/2″ of ice this afternoon. No way was I about to drive my old pick up truck into work this morning. I live on one side of the Milwaukee River and my shop is on the other side. You have to travel down into the river valley and then back up going in either direction and the roads can get pretty treacherous with an ice covering. Luckily I only live about 2-1/2 miles from my studio so when I need to I can walk. There have been times when I’ve cross country skied in. Today I chose to walk it.

As I walked. more like trudged in I was thinking about some of the images of my shop I posted yesterday. They sure make the shop look messy. I know that part of it has to do with the nature of photography, collapsing the foreground and background onto a single plane, and I didn’t monkey with adjusting the depth field on any of the shots. But, to be honest, my shop is pretty messy. When I look at some of the woodworking magazines I subscribe to I am always impressed with how clean and organized the shops they show in them look. Although, I must say, there is definitely a trend toward showing ever cleaner, ever more well organized shops in some of those magazines over the last 20 years.

I think that messes are very personal, neat and organized is very impersonal. Of course every one can be neat in their own way, but there are some obvious rules about neatness and organization that everyone must follow if they want a space to look organized and neat to others. As far as the magazines go it maybe that neat, organized shop spaces appeal to more people than more individualistic spaces. More appeal, more copies sold.

There is also the issue of safety. An organized, clean and neat shop is without doubt safer if there are several people working in that shop. Actually, there is an imperative to organization and neatness when working with several people in one shop. Each person will likely need to know where all the various shared tools are to be kept so that they can find them. When I’ve had apprentices and employees my shop has been much neater, if for no other reason than there are more people available to put things away and sweep up.

Yesterday, as I was working on the surfboard table base I reached for my cabinet scraper and it wasn’t in its little cubby hole where I keep it. I spent about 15 minutes searching for it. That is actually a pretty rare experience for me. My shop looks messy, but it is really very personalized and I can usually put my hands on any of the 100’s of tools in the 2,500 square feet of the shop within a minute or less. I really hated to loose that scraper. I’ve had it for at least 15 years. Eventually I grabbed another, even older one for the task but kept my mind exploring for that thing.

Pop, of course, I used it when I had gone out to help a friend with a finishing problem, and there it was packed away in my touch-up tool kit.

Here it is, in its plastic case. It is a small tool but immensely useful.

Part of the reason I hated loosing it so much is that I’ve worked that scraper so many times, both in sharpening and scraping wood. The sharpening process is particularly a matter of feel and interaction with your skin and hands. It’s almost like your hands have to know how to sharpen it more than your brain. You start by using a file to square the long edges with the faces as the scraper is held in a vice. You have to hold the file as square to the faces as you can, using your knuckles to brace and guide it, then you lean your whole body forward to push the file along the edge. You repeat this with a sharpening stone to remove the file marks.

At this point you should be able to run your finger across the face, over the edge and feel a smooth path. You then hold the scraper down on the bench with one hand and take a tool called a burr, a piece of very hard steel that is either a rod or a rounded in an oval and draw it down the edge of the scraper at just the right angle to push up the corner edge made between the scraper edge and face to create a very small curl of metal. This hook is very sharp and can make the finest shavings if scraped against a piece of wood.

There are other tools that I am quite connected to. Here are a couple of hand planes.

The larger plane is a jack plane that once was my dad’s. When he gave it to me I had to tune it up and have, over the years, slightly modified it to suit me. The smaller plane is a block plane which I have also tuned and modified. Both I keep within easy reach, sometimes just needing to take a few strokes to get the final dimension of a work piece just right. Sometimes I’ve spent an entire afternoon planing wood by hand with one of these.

One more tool for now, as I really need to get back into the shop. Something about a snowy day that seems to say everything is different today. Anyway, I made this mallet many years ago while working in the shop of a great freind of mine.

As a matter fact, the friend is Dan Cramer and you can see his link in my blog roll. He was teaching about the wood lathe and I made this as an exercise. Somehow I got it just right the first time and although I’ve made several other mallets over the years this one fits my hand the best. The little knob at the end of the handle keeps the mallet from slipping out of my grip without me having to hold it really tightly and it can be used to give a very gentle tap by reversing the mallet.

I was thinking about saying something about the various wood shapes I stash in my shop.

And the lathe in the northeast corner of the shop.

The lathe which I just recently used to complete a small turning project and haven’t yet cleaned up, but I really need to get back to work now. Maybe more on neatness later.

Surf Board Table III -ii

Part 2 in the making of the surf board coffee table.

One more check of the pattern with the boards test clamped then I trace the pattern onto the boards to help me align them during glue up.

I gather up my supplies- wood glue, shop made applicator, extra clamps, wax paper and a rag -and bring them to the glue up frame area of the shop. You can see the boards set on the glue up frame in preparation of a test clamp. Once you start spreading the glue you have to work fast to get the boards set up on the frame, aligned and clamped so it pays to have everything you may need at hand.

Here’s the glue up frame with the work pieces all clamped in the test clamp. This is the time to decide if you need more clamps, cross palls or other supplies.

The cross palls are, in this case 2 x 4s, clamped across the direction of the glue joints to hold the boards in alignment and in a single plane. They also keep the whole glue-up assembly from popping off the frame when I crank down on the bar clamps.

Now I take everything down and spread the wood glue on the edges to be glued.

Did I mention that you have to work fast to do this?

While the top is in the clamps as the glue sets I work on cutting out the legs.

Once the legs are cut out on the band saw they go to the drum sander to sand out the saw blade marks and get the legs to their final shape.

to be continued….