Advice Sought on Coffe Table Design

[Lyndon Graham]

I am about to venture into unknown waters as I intend to start on my first 'real project". (I have currently only made cutting boards, a work bench, etc).

I like thick "massive" looking peices of furniture for some reason and I want to try and make a coffee table similar to the one shown below. I have sketched out dimensions also shown below.

I will probably use pine only because I will probably screw things up and pine I can afford to scrap a lot (I seem to make everything twice, once to learn on and toss and once to keep :()


Questions for those who have designed:

(1) Thoughts on the proportionality of the dimensions?
(2) Best joinery to make the table top (both parrallel and perpindicular peices)?

Tools I have availble:


Plunge router
Fill size Table saw
Full size drill press
Benchtop mortising tool
Miter saw
Biscuit saw
Jointer (6")
Planer (12")
plus the normal other stuff (drills, jig saw, hand planes, etc)
All advice welcome.





http://s-lgraham.smugmug.com/Pets/Misc/Picture1/956051430_V6bM5-O.jpg


http://s-lgraham.smugmug.com/Pets/Misc/Picture2/956051429_VAWoF-O.jpg

[Prashun Patel]

Those joints should be relatively straight forward to cut using yr tablesaw and a dado blade - or a straight blade and a chisel to clean the bottoms.

If you want to challenge yrself, you can Google Maloof joint, and you'll see how to make a similar joint. The top and bottom of the coffee table would have add'l rabbets cut, which would make a tenon into which a notch in the leg would mate. This makes an extremely strong, and aesthetically pleasing joint (since the roundovers in the corners of the rabbets are visible...Anyway, a pic will be worth 1000 words...

As far as design - that's personal! Personally, I think chunky legs look best when they're a little shorter. Contrasting woods might also be a nice way to highlight that top joint and the dowel.

[Jim Rimmer]

The length to width you chose matches the Golden Ratio (1.618) pretty close. Is the height close to a standard coffee table? Or the height you need?

[Lee Koepke]

The length to width you chose matches the Golden Ratio (1.618) pretty close. Is the height close to a standard coffee table? Or the height you need?
HA .. two answers to one question.

I keep forgetting the Golden Ratio, that might keep me from making an odd looking sofa table ... THANKS