Console table build

[Phil Mueller]

Some time ago LOML requested a console table made to fit against a curved brick wall in our family room.
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Been working on it for some time now. I’ll post the build for anyone interested. We decided on a similar design to that of Derek Cohen’s sofa table, complete with drawers extending out the sides. In this case, though, it needed to be concave on the brick wall side, so a bit of re-engineering of Derek’s design was needed...but followed the same basic principals.

The bulk of the table will be cherry. I picked up a few hundred board feet from a fellow SMC member down in Ohio that was getting out the hobby due to health reasons.

Like Derek, instead of using solid cherry for the front and back “aprons”, I made then from pine...to be later skinned with cherry.

I started with a load of radiata pine from the orange big box and proceeded to glue up what would become the front and back “aprons”.

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They needed to be a bit over 5” thick to accomodate the curves. After the glue dried, I chiseled off the dried glue with my trusty “glue chisel”, and then proceeded to plane them flat and square.

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I made templates of the front and back (scribed from the brick wall) and traced them onto the two pine pieces.

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To be continued....

[Phil Mueller]

Before cutting out the pieces, I decided to make the groove for the drawer runner, and the rabbet for the kicker. I went with a rabbet because I planned to use the kicker as the means to attach the top as well. The groove was made with a Record 778, and the rabbet was made with a Record 044. In hind sight, I probably would have worked the groove from the other side...making the groove with the long extensions was a bit challenging. I ended up cleaning up that mess with a router plane.

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Now it was time to cut out the curves. I don’t own a band saw, and a jig saw certainly isn’t going to work. So the next best solution was the bow saw. Well, I’m in reasonably good shape, but this took a few sessions. The saw worked well, just a lot to saw.

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Of course, not being very experienced in bow sawing, the surface was uneven, out of square, and pretty darn rough. Gonna be a bit of work to get these curves smooth.

[Phil Mueller]

One more post for tonight...
The convex side could be done with planes and finished up with the spokeshave. The concave side, on the other hand, needed a lot of spokeshaving. A few hours and a lot of sharpenings later, they got to a pretty decent state.

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I then spent some time preparing the 1/4” cherry “veneer” for the faces. First, hand plane to flatten. Then (oh NO), resaw it on the contractor table saw, and run it through the thickness planer to get two pieces of 1/4”. After sawing out the curves, I decided to treat myself with a bit of electricity! Sorry, no pictures of the veneer. But really, who wants to look at a couple thin boards milled up :rolleyes:

The veneer was then glued up to each face. Took every clamp I own. Could have used more...and should have spent a little more tiime making sure the face was flat...or a bit concave. On a couple of spots, it just wasn’t going to clamp down tight to the edge. One of those times I hate to admit to saying “no problem, no one will ever see it”.

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Not a great photo of the result...but turned out reasonably well.

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For those interested, I’ll get some more posted over the weekend.

[Mark Gibney]

Good thread Phil, clear and concise. Really enjoying it.
Looking forward to seeing more.

[James Pallas]

Good write up Phil. One of the great things about being a woodworker is it enables you to build projects that fit a particular size or space. I do the same. I often wonder if someone in the future will see the object not in its intended space and think "why in the world would someone build this in such a fashion". I'll be following your build.
Jim

[Pat Barry]

Very challenging project! I'm impressed with your work so far and looking forward to the next steps. It will look great in cherry against that brick wall.

[Michael Todrin]

Nice design and a fun challenge. I am excited to see more.

[brian zawatsky]

I'll be following along as well. Nice work so far! I can imagine smoothing out that inside radius took some sweat and patience.

[Phil Mueller]

Thanks all.
Next step was to mark our the tenons for the aprons. I used the same template (which had the leg placement indicated) and marked out a 3/8 tenon on the apron that would leave about a 3/16” set back on the leg. I went for a 3/8” tenon (the biggest reason being that is the largest mortise chisel I own). It certainly could have merited a 1/2” or so tenon, and probably even a double tenon...but I figured a full 4” or so 3/8” would suffice.


I first rough cut the length and tenon, then fine tuned them so both aprons were exactly the same length. Here is my set up for guiding my saw cut to final length.

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The pull saw works nicely to get a smooth square cut against the guide. I’m always amazed at what a nice thin slice these saws can produce. Trust me, it’s not user skill(!!), just keep one hand against the saw/guide and pulll with the other. The other side of the tenon was completed the same.

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I now had two very even lenth aprons with tenons. I might add here, that my “designs” are always to some extent on the fly. I knew I wanted it roughly 48” wide including the legs, but if it’s off in the end by a 1/2 or 1/4” so be it. The important thing is to get the two aprons the exact same length...at least that gives me a better chance at getting a “squared up” table in the end! Maybe!

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I shortened the tenons to 1” at some point...just don’t have a picture of me sawing a small section off the tenon...consider yourself spared of that mundane visual.

Next, legs and mortises....

[David Eisenhauer]

Thanks for sharing Phil. Curved stuff brings new thinking and planning into the fore and is appreciated.

[Phil Mueller]

I had a few pieces of 8/4 cherry for the legs. They had quite a bit of checking and knots, but I originally thought I could get 4 legs out of them. Started rough cutting out some sections and they ended up splitting further and it all ended up in the “scrap box” for some future small project. I didn’t want to do a glue up from the 4/4 that I had, so I ended up buying 2x2 cherry stock from Woodcraft. Now, you have to know I really didn’t want to have to go this route, but I didn’t have the inclination to run an hour to the lumber yard and pick through their stock. Frankly, the it was the most expense in this project, but actually gave me some decent straight grained and blemish free wood for the legs at the time I needed it.

I planed them up square with hand planes and set about to cut them to length. I clamped my MF miter box to the bench and set up a “stop” (otherwise known as a large piece of pine) to the 31 1/2” lenght I was going for. Just a few minutes and the four legs were ready for mortises.

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Not much special about mortise work. Laid out the mortises using the tenons as the guide for offset and scribed the lines.

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A bit of chopping (love when I get to use my big mallet and pig sticker!) and the mortises were done. I have to say I’m always a bit paranoid when banging out a mortise that the sides might split out, so I tend to clamp them just for peace of mind.

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A quick dry fit and all ends up tight and square...another miracle in the work shop!

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[Phil Mueller]

Right you are Jim. I did think that someday if this table finds itself against a flat wall, I could make a new top that’s straight against the back. Probably good in theory, but who knows if it will ever happen.

The next pieces I made were the bottom curved stretchers. I used the actual aprons as a template, trying to get the stretcher pieces to match the apron curves. These will also serve to hold a shelf.

Rough stock was marked out, and sawed to length.

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At this point, the Bosch jig saw came out and the pieces were rough cut. Then back to the planes and spokeshaves.

As you can see on the far end, my jig saw skills are worse than my bow saw skills...that’s one wiggly cut :eek:

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A few sessions later, they smoothed out well. When I got close to the line, I matched it up to the corresponding apron and fine tuned here and there.

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Next was to figure out how to mark out the M&Ts that would join these to the legs. I ended up clamping the legs/apron assembly and squared them up. Then clamped the curved stretchers onto the legs. I scribed up from the inside of the leg to get the length, and then used a few brass measurement bars to mark the tenon level with the face of the leg.

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Tenons were then cut.

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[glenn bradley]

Really enjoying the ride on this one. Thanks for taking us along.

[Phil Mueller]

Next step was to chop the mortises for the front curved stretchers. With the legs attached to the aprons, I measured an equal distance down from the bottom of the apron on each leg to mark where I wanted to the top of the stretchers (accounting for a 3/4” thick shelf). I also wanted the shelf to have a set back from the front of the legs about 3/16”, and another set back of about 1/4” for the stretcher. After a little fiddling around with those measurements, the mortises were marked out and chopped. And then a dry fit.

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So far so good. There are three side “stretchers”. One aligned with the curved front strethers, and two to frame in the drawer. The bottom stretcher was made wide to accomodate support for the shelf. I also decided to put three “slats” down each side (sort of shaker or craftman style). So the bottom shelf stretcher and lower drawer frame stretcher were made wide enough to accomodate.

The six pieces (3 each side) were all cut to exact length accounting for the tenons (or dovetail for the top one).

M&Ts were marked out, cut, and chopped. Dovetails chopped in the top of the legs.
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I also added a center support that was dovetailed into the sides. I set it in fairly deep for the support, but also because it will be the “stop” for the back of the drawers.

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The end result...so far.

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And here’s how fancy I get with my drawings (sketch to the right of the photo). I tend to draw out certain components like this, just to make sure it’s going to work. Then set out to make the parts...that’ll be next up.

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[Brian Holcombe]

Great thread Phil!

[Phil Mueller]

Thanks Brian!

So the legs have a sort of craftsman/shaker style with the three vertical pieces. I’m not sure I love the look, but wanted to try something I hadn’t done yet, and seems to add a little something to the design. I ripped two long strips, and followed my typical MO. I hand planed two adjoining faces square and flat, and then ran them through the lunch box planer to final thickness. Pieces were then hand cut to length, accounting for the depth of the mortise. Then tenons were cut.
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The upper and lower stretchers were marked out and mortises chopped. As seen in the previous photos, I don’t spare any painters tape marking stuff. Because my tenon/mortise work is still a bit inconsistent, each one gets a sort of “custom” fit and I’d never remember which tenon goes to which mortise when all is done.

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As much as I procrastinate the glue up part, I took a deep breath and glued/clamped the leg sections.

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Did my best to get everything tight and square. Close examination will reveal slight gaps at the back side of the tenon/mortise joint on a couple. Never tackling a multiple set up where all the parts need to be darn consistent, I felt ok about it. Sometimes no matter how many dry fits/clamp ups, something goes awry. Then that nasty, throw perfection to the wind mind set comes in...”doesn’t matter, it’s on the backside and will be hidden by the shelf” (thank goodness!) :rolleyes:

Then I had no excuses not to tackle the complete glue up. All went well. I might mentioned the other upside of this project is I needed one more Bessey 50”clamp. So even if this thing were to end up kindling...at least I got a cool clamp out of it.

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I tend at this point to start already thinking “I wish I had”, but the glue is dry so carry on.

[Derek Cohen]

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https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=380396&d=1520173984&thumb=1 (https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=380396&d=1520173984)

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It's looking very good, Phil.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Christopher Charles]

Phil,

Build threads are my favorite. Thanks for sharing and the table is looking great and looks like it will fit the space brilliantly.

Looking forward to seeing more.

Best,
Chris

[Jim Koepke]

Good going Phil, but you missed one big opportunity:


I went for a 3/8” tenon (the biggest reason being that is the largest mortise chisel I own). It certainly could have merited a 1/2” or so tenon

Expressed properly to SWMBO, this would have you obeying her order to purchase a bigger mortise chisel or two.

jtk

[Joe A Faulkner]

Will you pin the M&T joints or blind wedge or just glue?

[Phil Mueller]

I then set about to make the shelf and top. I use 1/4” foam core board. I do a rough cut and then a lot of trial and error to get to the final template. The foam core is stiff enough to hold, can keep a pretty good edge, and easy to work with.

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I then make a copy of the foam core template with vellum trace paper. I do this so that I can see through it and get a better idea of how to arrange the boards in (what I believe) to be the best orientation before I cut, joint, and glue them up.

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I then hand ripped where I wanted the boards to join, and did a cursory face planning to remove a bit of bow, cup, and twist on each of the three boards.

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Boards are then jointed and glued up.

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I’ll note at this point, that the cherry I purchased from the fellow SMC member down in Ohio had a good deal of sap wood. That’s ok with me. I took some time to lay it out to highlight it, and keep what I think is an interesting pattern.

Once out of the clamps, I spent some time with a cursory flattening of the panel with a bevel up low angle jointer and a #5 jack. I then laid out the vellum pattern and arranged how I wanted to cut out the panel. I marked the outline about a 1/4” or so oversize (I did this knowing when I go to final planing there is a good chance of tear out on the edges).

I rough cut one curve with my bow saw.

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Well, that was fun enough. For all other cuts (including eventually the top), the Bosch jig saw came out.
A final planing session or two to flatten and smooth out followed.

From there, it was pretty much block plane and spokeshaves to final curved edge.

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You’ll notice I cut the notches for the legs at some point in the process. No real point in showing off that stellar talent. A few dry fits and a little tweaking and it was good to go. I did leave a bit of room front to back for expansion. The length is a pretty tight fit. At this point I have no plans to screw it to the bottom stretchers...but that would be simple to do if for some reason it makes sense in the future.

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[Phil Mueller]

The top was constructed in the same way as the shelf. A foam core & vellum template was made, boards were marked and rough cut.

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Edge jointing next, then glue up.

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One out of the clamps, same process as the shelf...plane flat (always a good workout), marked out using the template, and rough cut with a jig saw. Curves were finished with block plan and spokeshaves. Don’t have a picture, but for both the shelf and the top, I used a spokeshave to round over the edges, refine with a curved cabinet scraper, and then sandpaper. While not a sophisticated “tool”, I cut out a hole in a piece of scrap with a forstner bit, cut that in half, and used it as my sanding block to finish out to 320 grit.

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I next spent a bit of time cleaning up a few “mis-alignment” issues to square, level, and flatten a few areas. Especially in the drawer area before moving on to build those.

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Drawers next...

[John Schtrumpf]

Looking great so far, waiting to see what you are going to do with the drawer fronts.