David Myers
02-05-2012, 12:27 AM
The lumber for this project came from my grandfather's barn in Mississippi. It was harvested from cypress trees that from swampland that grew on the property. One of my uncles salvaged some boards and these made their way to me thru my parents. The finished table is a birthday gift for my mother.
I used the WW Mag Spring 2008 story as my guide. In that piece Chris Schwarz set out to build one of these using hand tools and one with power tools (but both ended up with meat powered and electron powered tools used on them). My project was likewise blended.
The top is the showpiece and ideally I could have had a single glue up. The boards were fairly wide but they included the pith and were thus too cupped to simply clean up the edges and glue together. So I ripped (with my TS) and the pith out, rough cut the various pieces and got to work cleaning up the surfaces. I chose to leave a nail hole in the top to help tell the story of the wood. There are also some nail holes and stains in the legs.
I had never completely four-squared a piece by hand before, but these pieces were fairly small my jack plane made fairly quice work of flattening the first face. Once I was finished I arranged match planed the edges for the top (three pieces). I was set to glue up but there was one piece that was significantly (1/8") thicker than the other two. I contemplated bringing it down after the glue up, or bringing it down prior, but finally decided to use my lunchbox planer go get everything uniform. The glue up and subsequent cleanup went well; the grain on the wood hides the seams nicely. I used an electric router with circle cutting tramel to shape the top and used a spokeshave to remove machine marks.
The legs were dimensioned by hand. I did take extra care to have them all square as they receive the lower stretchers and the faces need to be orthogonal to their mates. The cypress was a breeze to pare. The stretcher profile was rough cut on the bandsaw and final shaping was done by rasp and spokeshave with both pieces secured in my leg vise. Tenons were cut by hand with my tenon saw and pared down with a router plane. I was pleased with the results. Mortises were cut using a forstner bit/drill press and cleaned up with a chisel.
The half laps for the strechers were a little intimidating but came out well. I just took care to saw into the waste and then planed one piece down until there was a snug fit. The top strecher is joined to the top of the legs with dovetails. The dovetails were cut by hand as were the sockets. I used liquid hide glue and pegged the lower stretcher mortise and tenons. The top is joined using panhead screws in oversize holes in the stretchers.
Prior to assembly all surfaces were prepared for finishing with planes (Stanley #5, LN LAJ & LAS), scrapers (for a few spots of tearout; overall the wood was very well behaved), and a light sanding to even things out.
I enjoyed this project for several reasons. The construction was fun, the wood was a species I'd never used before, I employed some techniques I had not yet tried, etc. But the best part was knowing I was working with something from my Grandfather (I had only pictures and memories of him prior to this) and knowing that my mother would cherish it.
I used the WW Mag Spring 2008 story as my guide. In that piece Chris Schwarz set out to build one of these using hand tools and one with power tools (but both ended up with meat powered and electron powered tools used on them). My project was likewise blended.
The top is the showpiece and ideally I could have had a single glue up. The boards were fairly wide but they included the pith and were thus too cupped to simply clean up the edges and glue together. So I ripped (with my TS) and the pith out, rough cut the various pieces and got to work cleaning up the surfaces. I chose to leave a nail hole in the top to help tell the story of the wood. There are also some nail holes and stains in the legs.
I had never completely four-squared a piece by hand before, but these pieces were fairly small my jack plane made fairly quice work of flattening the first face. Once I was finished I arranged match planed the edges for the top (three pieces). I was set to glue up but there was one piece that was significantly (1/8") thicker than the other two. I contemplated bringing it down after the glue up, or bringing it down prior, but finally decided to use my lunchbox planer go get everything uniform. The glue up and subsequent cleanup went well; the grain on the wood hides the seams nicely. I used an electric router with circle cutting tramel to shape the top and used a spokeshave to remove machine marks.
The legs were dimensioned by hand. I did take extra care to have them all square as they receive the lower stretchers and the faces need to be orthogonal to their mates. The cypress was a breeze to pare. The stretcher profile was rough cut on the bandsaw and final shaping was done by rasp and spokeshave with both pieces secured in my leg vise. Tenons were cut by hand with my tenon saw and pared down with a router plane. I was pleased with the results. Mortises were cut using a forstner bit/drill press and cleaned up with a chisel.
The half laps for the strechers were a little intimidating but came out well. I just took care to saw into the waste and then planed one piece down until there was a snug fit. The top strecher is joined to the top of the legs with dovetails. The dovetails were cut by hand as were the sockets. I used liquid hide glue and pegged the lower stretcher mortise and tenons. The top is joined using panhead screws in oversize holes in the stretchers.
Prior to assembly all surfaces were prepared for finishing with planes (Stanley #5, LN LAJ & LAS), scrapers (for a few spots of tearout; overall the wood was very well behaved), and a light sanding to even things out.
I enjoyed this project for several reasons. The construction was fun, the wood was a species I'd never used before, I employed some techniques I had not yet tried, etc. But the best part was knowing I was working with something from my Grandfather (I had only pictures and memories of him prior to this) and knowing that my mother would cherish it.