Mahogany Dining Table

[Ben Hatcher]

Here's my latest project, an African Mahogany dining table. It took a while to build, much of which was spent trying to figure out how to do the next step. The pedestal, though not super difficult, was very intimidating due to the cost of the wood that would be scrap if I messed it up.
151969


I know that I love the progress pics, so here are a few from my build...

The top was just a regular edge glue up. I cut the rough shape with a jig saw and finished it up with a plunge router and spiral up cut bit on a trammel screwed into the center of the bottom.
151970

I knew that I wanted a pedestal with deep curves. The 8/4 stock I had wasn't going to be thick enough, so I face glued two boards to make 16/4.
151971

I made a template out of MDF to get the angles right and checked one last time that I could get that size piece out of all of my stave blanks.
151972

I tuned the heck out of my 14" band saw, did a few test pieces, and finally just had to take the plunge and start cutting.
151973

The results were fantastic. The edges were so smooth that I debated the need to joint them prior to glue up. It wasn't a long debate, mind you, but I did consider it:D
151974

[Ben Hatcher]

I taped a piece of cutoff from the first side to make a fence for the second side.
151975

It was a little tricky to adjust the fence for the second cut because there was tape on the bottom of the fence. Eventually I got it.
151976

I think I only needed to take off maybe 1/32" on the jointer to clean up the faces. Here are all of the staves ready to be cut to rough length.
151977

I used tape on the points and a band clamp/rope to help me pull all of the sides together. I found that some long pocket hole screws did the best job of actually clamping the piece together. One screw on each end of each stave is all it took.
151978

Here's a shot of the pedestal all glued up.
151979

[Sam Layton]

Ben, your table turned out great. I do like construction photo's. What did you finish the table with? Are you building chairs?

Great job, Sam

[Sam Layton]

Ben, what do you know, more photo's while I was typing. Keep the photo's coming.

Thanks, Sam

[Ben Hatcher]

The only lathe I had access to was my dad's shopsmith. It wasn't long enough to take the full pedestal plus end plates so I had to cut some blocks to go inside the pedestal. It was also too heavy to rough out on the ShopSmith so I mounted my router to a plate, placed the plate on the bed of the lathe, and slowly spun the piece until it was round enough to turn. As you see, the router got out of hand a few times, but it worked well enough.
151980

About that time, my brother came over and wanted to get in on the action. As I recall, I don't think that I got to do any of the rough turning as he and my dad took turns hogging all of the fun.
151981

It only took an hour or so to get a shape I liked and get it sanded to what I thought was smooth enough. It turns out that I was a bit too eager, but what a difference that BLO makes!
151983

[Ben Hatcher]

My dad loves sanding, bless him. I left the pedestal over at his place for about two weeks and he oiled and sanded the heck out of it. He didn't even ask me to replace all the sandpaper he gummed up.
151986

One of the happy accidents that I had on this project were these diamonds. The deeper curves revealed the second layer of wood that I face glued to make the staves. When I saw them show up while I was turning, I changed my design so that I could reveal more of them.
151987

[Ben Hatcher]

The next step was the feet. Again, I face glued 8/4 boards to make stock wide enough for the feet. This time, I tried to be more careful about the grain. My stock was long enough to get 2 feet out of each board. When I glued them up, I made sure that the two facing sides had a running match. I like it, but I wonder if matching opposite feet might not have been as good or better.

After several mock ups in pine and mdf templates I finally got a shape that I liked. There's a bead on the bottom of the pedestal and I wanted that to flow along the bottom of the feet and into some kind of detail on the ends of the feet. I did some tests carving swirls and decided that wasn't for me. Instead, I'd just use a rosette cutter. I used the cutoffs from the foot blanks with some sand paper to hold the feet in the drill press.
151989

Cutting these was tedious and I was worried the whole time that the detail would chip out.
151990

In order to cut the 1/2" bead, I took the legs to the bandsaw and cut off about 5/8" from both faces, cleaned them up on the jointer, cut out the bead on the bandsaw, and finished up the curve on the router table. Then I glued those faces back onto the feet.
151991

I decided to attach the legs with double mortise and loose tenon. I did the feet on the router table.
151993

The pedestal I had to do with a hand drill and chisel. To make the attachment point flat, I routed a slightly recessed flat on the center section. I did this by mounting square blocks to both ends of the pedestal and used those as guides for my router which I had mounted on a long board.
151992

[Ben Hatcher]

The skirt was another one of those things that took forever to get started. I planed on doing bent wood lamination. I got the laminates cut, but couldn't get them thin enough to keep them from breaking. I don't have a drum sander and they'd chip out pretty badly in my plainer once I got near 1/4". I decided to steam them. I made a 1 time use steam box out of scraps, and borrowed a friend's turkey frier. I'm not sure what the problem was, but that frier wouldn't even boil water. Perhaps my propane tank has a bad valve. Anyway, I decided to steam them on my stove.
152008

It worked pretty well, though I almost ruined one of my cabinet doors with all that steam. Here's a detail of the frame I build inside the box to hold all of the laminates.
152009

When I pulled them out of the box, I put them all into my form at once. The goal was to get them pre-bent a little so that they wouldn't break when I did the final glue up. It worked out perfectly.
152010

While those dried, I put a few coats of garnet shellac on the pedestal. It really helped to hang it up while I sprayed it.
152011

here's a closer look at those diamonds I mentioned earlier.
152013

Here's the structure under the table. The square piece is bolted to the pedestal. The cross pieces are attached to the top with pocket screws. Those oriented with the grain of the top have several screws. Those going across the grain have a single screw in the center to allow for wood movement. The two are joined with screws in slotted holes.
152014

[Ben Hatcher]

My finishing schedule...
I sanded to 220 then applied BLO somewhat sparingly. I found that if I flooded it, the oil got into the pores and weeped out forever. To my eye, I got the same effect simply ensuring that the surface was sufficiently wetted, allowed to soak, wetted again, and then wiped off. I wiped again an hour later, and then the next day. After a week, I lightly sanded the surface again with 220.

Next was several coats of garnet shellac. I'd build several coats, then sand with 150, the apply more, then sand with 220. The main goal here was to fill the pores.

Finally, I wiped on about 6 coats of waterlox gloss. I like the gloss on the base, but not so much on the top. I'll probably refinish the top again this fall. Right now I'm waiting for the good old sunshine to even out the color a bit more.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my build.

[glenn bradley]

Great stuff Ben. Thanks for all the construction photos and tips. The table came out striking. Very nice work.

P.s. what don't you like about the gloss on the top?

[Ben Hatcher]

Thanks, Glenn. The gloss is just a bit too glossy for my taste. The biggest driver for my desire to refinish is that I've got some specks in the finish that need to be rubbed out.

[Bruce Page]

Excellent post Ben. Beautiful detail work. Couldn't you rub out the top with some 0000 steel wool and wax? I have created nice satin finishes that way.

[David Nelson1]

Great looking table Ben. I like the ingenuity getting it on the lathe Way to "Get R Dun". BTW how flipping heavy is it.

[Ben Hatcher]

Great looking table Ben. I like the ingenuity getting it on the lathe Way to "Get R Dun". BTW how flipping heavy is it.

David,
Thanks for the kind words. There were certainly many jurry rigged contraptions on this one. The base is probably 80 pounds or so. The top is maybe 150.

[David Nelson1]

David,
Thanks for the kind words. There were certainly many jurry rigged contraptions on this one. The base is probably 80 pounds or so. The top is maybe 150.

I'll definitely let you move it :D

[Ben Hatcher]

Bruce, I'm a little concerned about the durability of wax. This is a dining table, so I figure there will be spills and hot things on it. Before I refinish, I'll try to rub out what I've got with steel wool, scotchbrite or otherwise.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Great project. I also appreciate the build photos. Thanks for sharing!

[gary Zimmel]

Beautiful table Ben.
Thanks for all the pics of the build.

[Jeff Monson]

Nice project Ben, great job on the table and really nice pictorial to go with it.

[Michael Pfau]

Ben, nice looking table. Looks like fun to build!!

[William Hutchinson]

Very nice looking table. Thanks for taking the extra time to photograph and detail the construction process. Woodworking often involves finding creative solutions to shape wood. I've learned a few tips from your build that are much appreciated. I especially liked how you shaped the base and uncovered the hidden 'diamonds'. Well done.

[Ben Hatcher]

Thanks, guys. It was, indeed, a fun project. It took almost 18 months to complete. I lost a few months to a broken ankle, and a few more to a shop remodel. Even so, by the end I really just wanted to be done with it.

I enjoyed documenting the progress. I wish that I'd been more dilligent about it, but I think that I captured most of the important parts.

The one part I neglected to capture is the glue up of the top which I did in sections on my assembly table. I did two boards at a time, edge gluing them and then claming them flat to the assembly table using deep F clamps. Then, I glued the sections together to get the full width. The result was mostly flat, but not perfect. I flattened it with a belt sander then a 5" ROS. I thought that I had it nice and flat, even next to a low angle light. Then I put some (read: a whole lot of) BLO on it.:eek: It was not flat at all! Do any of you have a better way to flatten a large top?

When I put the BLO on, I followed some great tips I found in the finishing forum. I flodded the surface and slurry sanded in order to fill the pores. Had I not needed to reflatten the surface, that would have been great. As it turned out, all that BLO got way down into the pores and kept weeping out for weeks. I used a scraper to get most of it off, but there were some sections that wept for weeks. Is that normal? From what I read on the finishing forum it didn't sound too uncommon. Would adding Japan dryer help it cure faster?