Bruce Lowekamp
06-20-2020, 3:29 PM
I realized earlier this year that the only major projects that had come out of my woodshop for the last few years had been beds (all the same design with white paint over poplar) for the three girls, and that I missed building real furniture. So I decided to make a set of end tables for our family room. I mostly followed the "Craftsman End Table" from Woodsmith 127, but scaled it down a bit and removed the spindles from the sides b/c I thought the lower shelves could be a good place to put a charging station and take tablets in/out from the side. I used dominoes for the joinery.
I was originally going to do a bookmatched top, but I found a board with some interesting figure on it that I liked even better so made the two tops and one drawer front with that board.
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I applied BLO to the cherry and then used two coats of EM6000 gloss pre-assembly and two coats of SG after. The top has two coats of EM1000 sealer, one coat of gloss and two coats of SG. (I was a bit unsure I had sanded all of the wild grain smooth on the tops and wanted them to be a bit smoother than the rest, anyway.)
I guess it's the blotchy nature of cherry, but I did find after I applied the finish that a few boards that I thought were evenly colored had some almost grayish areas in them, though it's honestly more noticeably in the 5K light of my shop than in the actual family room. Otherwise, I was pretty happy with how everything turned out, and even the hand-fitting I had to do to make sure the lower shelf was let into the legs properly came out fairly well, though that was the most fiddly part of the project.
Bruce
I was originally going to do a bookmatched top, but I found a board with some interesting figure on it that I liked even better so made the two tops and one drawer front with that board.
435361435362435363
I applied BLO to the cherry and then used two coats of EM6000 gloss pre-assembly and two coats of SG after. The top has two coats of EM1000 sealer, one coat of gloss and two coats of SG. (I was a bit unsure I had sanded all of the wild grain smooth on the tops and wanted them to be a bit smoother than the rest, anyway.)
I guess it's the blotchy nature of cherry, but I did find after I applied the finish that a few boards that I thought were evenly colored had some almost grayish areas in them, though it's honestly more noticeably in the 5K light of my shop than in the actual family room. Otherwise, I was pretty happy with how everything turned out, and even the hand-fitting I had to do to make sure the lower shelf was let into the legs properly came out fairly well, though that was the most fiddly part of the project.
Bruce