Mid Century Modern Coffee Table Build

[Hasin Haroon]

I 'started' building this coffee table in mid 2017 - worked on it a little bit on and off until recently when I was able to dedicate several hours over a week to complete it.

A little bit of background - I really enjoy the mid century modern aesthetic, and some of my influences are Wagner and Eames. I played around with the design for this table for a long time, finally settling on the 'box' design of coffee table. I've seen this various editions of this 'class' of table throughout the years, and almost all of them looked a bit off to me - mostly due to the proportions of the box itself, or the box to the door, or the box to the base height/width etc. I decided to try and make my own version, and keep in mind the proportions of the various elements in relation to each other.

At the outset I decided I would do this neander-only (no power tools). By the end of the project I regretted this decision, and used power tools to mill the stock for the divider panel and back, so it ended up being an around 90% hand tool build. In the future I will not be setting arbitrary constraints on myself and will just go with what's easier (ripping, resawing and milling rough stock by hand is just no fun).

The materials used were Walnut, some exquisite quilted maple, and a little bit of brass.

Here's my final design sketch (when I say final, I mean I changed some more designs as I went):

381319

And so it begins:

I dressed one face and one edge of the boards to let me glue the panels for the box up before dressing them again after glue up. Needless to say these stages took a while.
381316381315381317381318

[Hasin Haroon]

Flattened one side, marked off final width, and repeated...(If any of you have tips on more efficient workflows, please do share)
381320 381321 381322

Crosscut set up:
381323

And 'shooting' to final length and square:
381324

[Hasin Haroon]

I decided to join the box using dovetails. I went with narrow pins, and an alternating pattern of a larger tail followed by two smaller tails.

Marked out dovetails and used Derek's painters tape tip.

381337

Built a moxon wise in the mean time, which proved very useful:

381338


381339

Chop chop chop:
381341

Using a variety of chisels, old and new.
381342

Dry fit:

381343

Tweaking all the edges:

381344

[Christopher Charles]

Hasin,

Looking fabulous, as do all you builds. I completely agree about artificial constraints. Now. That I have recently done two desks nearly completely by hand. The knowledge and confidence gained were invaluable, but to repeat the process would be unnecessary toil :)

Looking forward to following as this build is similar in many elements to one of my three (!) ongoing projects--a north bennett st. tool chest with similar carcass construction (new to me, at least at this scale). Thanks for taking the time to post.

Best,
Chris

[Hasin Haroon]

Plowing the grooves for the front and the back. Placed these to miss the tails so the ugly ends of the groove don't show up. The groove is a bit deeper in the top to allow for seasonal expansion of the door.
381345

The corresponding groove in the sides need to be stopped for the same reason:
381346
Routing out the grooves for the divider panel:
381347

Here's the door being prepared. 50 degree frog made fairly short work of this exquisite quilting:
381348

Made and attached the pull:
381351

and wiped on some tung oil:
381349

Close up of the handle:
381350

[Hasin Haroon]

Preparing the pieces for the base:

381354 381355
The stretchers will have haunched tenons that are metered at 45 degrees to meet in the leg mortises.
381356 381357381358381359

With the joinery complete, moving on to the aesthetics. I decided to angle the outside faces of the legs rather than the inside faces. That was a major design change.
381361

[Hasin Haroon]

Thanks Chris. My wife has entertained my pointless delays for long enough, so I'm afraid I have little choice in the matter anyways!
I look forward to seeing your three projects soon.

[Hasin Haroon]

Leg shaping complete. Happy with the lines on these legs. They angle in on both outside faces, if that makes sense.
381363

Pinned the joints with two brass pins, more for aesthetic reasons than anything else:

381364 381365 381366
Important to epoxy the front of the pins, and hammer them in from the back. That prevents squeeze out in the front.

Mortising for the z-clips. Easy to forget this step before gluing up the base (I forgot to put in this photo till now, case in point)
381367

With that, the main build is complete, minus finishing.

[Hasin Haroon]

I finished the table with two coats of tung oil, followed by two coats of dewaxed blonde shellac sanded down, followed by four coats of General water based poly (The last photo is pre-finishing). I'm already not pleased with the durability of the General poly, and will probably sand it down and look into something else.
381369 381370 381371381372 381373381368

[Phil Mueller]

Beautiful piece and very well done. Thanks for sharing!

[Michael Todrin]

Looks great Hasin. I love the contrast of the brass pins and the quilted maple door.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Hasin, beautiful piece. Love the walnut and quilted maple plus the brass, a LOT! Very much appreciate the build photos.

still trying to decide about the 180 degree rotation of legs from design to finish; intentional aesthetic or did you pull a “Patrick” while mortising?

[Jim Koepke]

Great work, the depth of the maple's figure is amazing.

jtk

[Tony Wilkins]

Beautiful piece and very well done. Thanks for sharing!
What he said!

[Matt Lau]

Fabulous! And much better made than the midcentury furniture I've seen in person.

[Hasin Haroon]

Thanks Jim, it really was a beautiful piece of maple.

[Hasin Haroon]

Thanks everyone.

[Hasin Haroon]

Thanks Matt. Unfortunately mid century modern furniture isn't often done justice, the clean lines and angles make it well suited for production work and inevitably people cut corners...