A media stand in cherry

[Mark R Davis]

Hi. I just joined this forum and am anxious to share some of my work. I guess I'll start with my most recent large piece.
I finally got around to replacing my old CRT TV with a nice LED flat screen last year and needed a new stand that it would fit on. I had some 8/4 cherry slabs that had been milled sequentially from the same bole. There was a curve to the main slab that inspired the design. I cut a straight edge off of the convex side and joined the cut off edge to square milled stock from the same tree to make the shelf. I thought this gave an interesting look with the concave edge of the top. This simple design relied heavily on the natural lines of the lumber and was a super easy build. :)
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One simple design element that I was pleased with was the way the center leg seems to pierce the shelf in the front.

BTW, hello Saw Mill Creek community. Pleased to meetcha.

[Todd Burch]

Welcome Mark - table looks great! What type of construction did you do for the base? It that center leg in front continuous, and you notched out the lower shelf and then glued on the front piece, that was the cutoff from the top? What are the dimension?

Do you draw pieces like this out, use a tool like SketchUp, or just start cutting and do it by eye?

Todd

[glenn bradley]

Welcome. What a nice "light" looking piece for a job too often done by a bulky room commanding cabinet. Very nice. I really like the opposing curves.

[Dave Gaul]

That is awesome! What a great first post!

Just my opinion/advice... that subwoofer seems out of place.. to me it throws off the lines of the table.. maybe if it was pushed further under the table, and something was placed on the other side to balance it out...

[Mark R Davis]

Thanks for the compliments. Light and open was the idea Glenn. I'm glad it comes across that way.
I originally had the sub woofer off to the side but it just sounds better directly under the TV. There are baskets that normally sit under the other side that I pulled out of the way for the pics.
@ Todd, The whole construction is mortis and tenon. The center legs were shaped as one piece and then cut at the appropriate point and tenons were cut and the shelf was mortised on both sides. A tiny hole was drilled through the center of the first mortise to ensure that the opposite one would line up perfectly.
I design many pieces "on the fly" these days. This piece is one of them. I had a basic idea and a quick sketch for the basic look of it but details such as the lines of the apron and center legs were designed in my head after the cutting and joint fitting had already begun. I often make tables this way but more complicated structures require more careful planning. When I do working drawings I do them the old fashioned way, with a pencil on paper. I got my drafting education in the early 80s before CAD was readily available for home use.

[Craig D Peltier]

Nice job, looks kind of whimsical :)

[Mark R Davis]

223119223120Whimsical? Hmmm...
That makes me wonder what you might make of these cocktail tables.
All the parts except the corkscrew willow stringers were re-sawn (re-sawed?) from thick stock and matched table to table.
The stringers themselves were dowelled to blocks that were joined to the outside of the legs and then carved to blend in to the willow branches. The result is a seemingly continuous organically shaped stringer.

[David Winer]

Mark, welcome to the forum. That's a terrific design that can be done in a relatively short time. But best of all it is functional and delightful to the eye.

One morning in the 70s my wife asked if I could come up with something for a sideboard for her dinner party that night. So I got out a slab of cherry and cobbled something together of 8/4ths with wavy natural edges and a few 4/4th boards for shelves. Your design reminds me of that piece that I finished with Watco in time for the party. It's still going strong in the current dining room.

[Mark R Davis]

I'd like to see it David. That stand took me less than a week start to finish. A solid day was spent ripping the 22"+ wide slab and re-sawing it to about 7/8".

[David Winer]

I'd like to see it David. ...

Mark, see private message.