Cherry End Table completed...

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

Well, about 2 weeks ago, I finally completed my end table.

The stats:
Cherry
Hand-cut mortise & tenon aprons to legs
Hand-cut dovetail drawer
Finish: BLO/Turpentine/Bees-wax mix - 2 coats.

Overall, I'm happy with it. I have a slight twist in it, which causes it to teeter-totter about 1/16" when on a flat surface. Fortunately, the spot for it next to the sofa in the basement has some uneven-ness in the concrete and it sits perfectly flat! So, naturally i tell everyone i built it for that exact spot. I won't show the rear of the drawer since I COMPLETELY butchered it...accidentally hacked off a pin when i wasn't paying attention. But, the cheapskate in me salvaged it and made it stick together since i didn't want to waste any more wood.

Anyway, this is project #2 since my hobby started.

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[Robert Chapman]

Sweet! We all know all the litttle - and in our mind - big blems in our finished products and nobody else ever sees or notices them. Your table is very nice. Cherry is fun to work with.

[John Keeton]

Nice job!! Excellent work on the dovetails. What did you use for drawer sides?

BTW, I have a sister that lives in Lititz - neat area.

[Jim Rimmer]

Nice table. Don't worry about the blem; we all have them. Made a sideboard once with three drawers across - one is two inches narrower than the other two due to a measuring error on the face frame. Built it almost 40 years ago and no one has ever mentioned it and I don't think they even notice.

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

Thanks for the kind words, guys. I do enjoy working with cherry...sometimes its a bit annoying because it is soft and dings fairly easy, but that forces me to take my time.



Nice job!! Excellent work on the dovetails. What did you use for drawer sides?

BTW, I have a sister that lives in Lititz - neat area.

Cool. Lititz is a great place to live. I have a Lititz address, but live about 6 miles north of town.

The drawer is a very simple "box" that rides on runners and kickers above and below the drawer sides. There is nothing on the sides or on top or bottom to keep it centered. Very very simple construction from that standpoint. This of course means that when you push it shut, you help guide it. The front legs serve as the face frame, if you will. They help keep you centered to some degree.

I took the plan from the Taunton published book on Tables. It was a fun project and very good for a beginner.

[Mark Valsi]

NICE !!

an Inlay on the top would have really been great !

[David Keller NC]

John - A comment about the drawer construction. It appears that the drawer sides are either maple or cherry. While one can certainly dovetail any two boards together (even if they're rosewood, which would take hours to saw the tails into), typical drawer construction from the age of handwork uses softer woods for the drawer sides/bottoms than the front.

Generally speaking, shaker furniture from the Eastern coast used eastern white pine for the drawer's sides and bottoms, while more Western communities used poplar. Colonial american furniture secondary woods were typically eastern white pine (new england), poplar (middle colonies and Philadelphia), or cypress (Charleston). Occasionally, one finds hard pine (Southern Yellow Pine), butternut, or chestnut, but these woods are comparitively rare.

The point here is that the softer secondary woods were selected for several reasons. One is that they can be "4-squared" with hand tools with far less effort and time than a primary hard cabinetwood. More importantly, though (and why you might be interested in this), these softer woods will compress somewhat when a dovetail joint is whacked together.

That means that considerably less precision is required in the sawing, and the compression of the secondary wood will ensure an absolutely light-tight fit on the tails. Also, there is very little risk of cracking/splitting the hardwood front when the joint is driven home.

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

John - A comment about the drawer construction. It appears that the drawer sides are either maple or cherry. While one can certainly dovetail any two boards together (even if they're rosewood, which would take hours to saw the tails into), typical drawer construction from the age of handwork uses softer woods for the drawer sides/bottoms than the front.

Generally speaking, shaker furniture from the Eastern coast used eastern white pine for the drawer's sides and bottoms, while more Western communities used poplar. Colonial american furniture secondary woods were typically eastern white pine (new england), poplar (middle colonies and Philadelphia), or cypress (Charleston). Occasionally, one finds hard pine (Southern Yellow Pine), butternut, or chestnut, but these woods are comparitively rare.

The point here is that the softer secondary woods were selected for several reasons. One is that they can be "4-squared" with hand tools with far less effort and time than a primary hard cabinetwood. More importantly, though (and why you might be interested in this), these softer woods will compress somewhat when a dovetail joint is whacked together.

That means that considerably less precision is required in the sawing, and the compression of the secondary wood will ensure an absolutely light-tight fit on the tails. Also, there is very little risk of cracking/splitting the hardwood front when the joint is driven home.

Good to know, David. I was aware that typically drawer sides were poplar, especially nowadays for cost reasons. Makes good sense though, in the hand-cut realm. The compression of the softer wood like pine would be an advantage. In this particular case, I was following the books plans fairly close and all i had on hand was cherry, so that's what i went with.

I've messed around with pine and poplar a little bit a while ago, before i did any "real" projects and I don't believe my chisels were sharp enough as I would get a lot of breaking and tearout.

Do you find poplar easier to hand-cut dovetails with or pine?

[Jim Kountz]

Good looking table John, the dovetails look great. Cherry is such a nice wood to work with, I would love to see it in a couple years after its darkened!!

[David Keller NC]

"Do you find poplar easier to hand-cut dovetails with or pine?"

John - "Pine" needs some qualification. In my experience and in my opinion, there is no wood that's more satisfying to work with than the heartwood of Eastern White Pine. It cuts very easily and very cleanly, assuming your tools are razor sharp. It's also beautiful in its raw state, and will quickly age to a pleasing tan color, particularly if left in sunlight.

Hard Pine, on the other hand, is a real bear to work. The hard pines refer to any of the resinous species that have strong early/latewood delineations in it. Examples are the shortleaf pine, slash pine, loblolly pine, long-leaf pine, etc... Generally, these are lumped together as "Southern Yellow Pine" by the lumber trade. I generally find it very difficult to get clean dovetail sockets in this wood because of the strong contrast in hardness between the darker latewood (very hard) and the lighter early wood (very soft).

Poplar I would rate as less satisfying to work with hand tools than EWP, but far better than SYP and cypress as a secondary wood. I find that it's a bit "stringy", so it takes very sharp tools to get clean cuts. That's usually not a problem with hand tools, because a bit of stropping brings them to well beyond razor sharp. One rather unpleasant aspect of southern tulip poplar is the strong scent - I've heard it compared to horse urine before.

However, once everything is prepped and put together, it's a beautiful wood. If you don't care for the greenish color of the heartwood, one can simply leave it in the sun for a couple of days. Unlike most other species, the poplar heartwood will fade, while the sapwood will darken. The greenish color also goes away. After the sun exposure, you're left with a uniform light nut-brown color that will continue to darken over time.

[Jason Tuinstra]

John, keep up the good work! Project #2? Impressive. I'm glad to see that you've taken up the challenge of hand-cut's right off the bat. I've spent a lot of money over the years only to end up where I should have started - with a saw and chisels. Nice choice of wood for the drawer front as well. I can't quite tell, but do you have the end grain on the table top facing the front? If so, on purpose? Just curious. So what's on the docket for #3?

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

David - again, thanks, good information. I will probably attempt poplar again shortly. I have to tear out a window sill as its rotted from an old, leaky window. Since it's a painted sill, I'll probably use poplar and while i'm buying a board, may as well get a couple more for odds/ends for woodworking. SYP is hard to come by here in PA. I've looked for it twice a couple years ago for a workbench and the guy at the lumber yard looked at me cross-eyed. I thought: stick to 2x4's, buddy. I'm sure he never heard of douglas fir either.

Jason - Thanks. and yes, you noticed my bad top orientation. I'm not sure how it ended up with that grain orientation. I originally intended for it to be turned as its a square top, but i believe my "amateurness" overlooked this upon attaching it.

As for my starting w/ hand-cuts...yes, I decided a while back that I would attempt the furniture craft with hand-cut joinery. I was going to mill all the wood by hand too, but i quickly realized that that is just rediculous. I'm not saying its wrong!!!! It's just not for me. I am using handplanes for all the finish work - no sanders here! I'd like to think I'm using technology where it matters. There are "style" reasons to handcut DT's, so i can justify it. A couple passes w/ a razor sharp #4.5 plane and I don't need to sand, so again i can justify it. I'd like to think the craftsmen from 120+ years ago would laugh at us handplaning rough cut wood when when have these inventions called jointers and planers. :)

[David Keller NC]

"I have to tear out a window sill as its rotted from an old, leaky window. Since it's a painted sill, I'll probably use poplar and while i'm buying a board, may as well get a couple more for odds/ends for woodworking. SYP is hard to come by here in PA.

John - this is one application that I'd advise against poplar. It really goes quick in an outdoor application, even if painted. All it takes is one little ding in the paint and the stuff falls apart from the inside.

The ultimate material for this purpose is heart (yellow) pine, if you can find some. It smells strongly of pine sol, and will never rot. Failing that, I'd use genuine mahogany or spanish cedar. Both stand up to the weather really well. Besides, that gives you an excuse to buy some mahogany, and there's no better cabinet hardwood on the planet, in my opinion. It's beautiful, and really works well with hand tools. If you go this route, be sure you're getting south american mahogany. Some unscrupulous dealers have re-labeled african "mahogany" (which is generally a Khaya species) as the genuine article.

You'd know it, though, as soon as you put a chisel to it. African mahogany generally has heavily interlocked grain, and is a bear to plane and chisel cleanly. It also doesn't resist the weather very well either.

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

Ah, i should have clarified. The window sill is inside and it just a trim piece. I'm unsure how it got mildewed over the years; the house is 48 years old and I just had the windows replaced about 3 years ago, my contractor assured me everything else around the window looked good and showed no signs of mold/mildew. But the sill, before i painted it, was black and has a bit of a mildew smell to it. I chalked it up to being exposed to rain a few too many times as its a westerly window and if left open during a storm would get a soaking.

[David Keller NC]

Well, I'd still tell the wife that genuine mahogany was required for the repair, and you can't just buy a "little piece". :D

[glenn bradley]

That came out really nice and the back of the drawer looks great from here ;-)

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

That came out really nice and the back of the drawer looks great from here ;-)

lol. :) Sure does, doesn't it?