Half Blind mitered dovetail hallway table

[Edwin Santos]

This is a pair of tables inspired by a table showcased in Fine Woodworking by Michael Fortune. The subject of mitered dovetails was raised in another thread on the forum which prompted me to share this project.

I love waterfall tables, and I also love the dovetail joint. However the inclusion of a conventional through dovetail joint in a waterfall table is upsetting (to me) because the end grain of the tails appearing on the top surface of the table is like inserting a visual dam in the waterfall. The solution is a half blind mitered dovetail joint which cleverly showcases dovetails without interrupting the grain flow of the waterfall edge. In fact, the angle of the exposed pin end grain on the side actually accentuates the waterfall flow of the grain.
I did some mock up modeling on the smaller table and settled on a design concept of keeping one leg straight and curving the other which from some angles looks like twisting movement, like you might see in a Frank Gehry building.

The stepped drawers on the larger table were a little tricky, but the intention was to create a second horizontal waterfall where the spalted maple wraps around the drawer box onto the front.

The body of both pieces is made from American Walnut and the drawer fronts and partitions are made from Spalted Maple. The drawer boxes themselves are made from American Cherry. The drawer pulls were shop made from Walnut.
The three drawers in the larger table are joined with hand cut dovetails. The drawer in the smaller table is joined with dowels

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[Edwin Santos]

A couple of additional images of the stepped drawers:

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[Patrick McCarthy]

Edwin, ABSOLUTELY beautiful, and this from a guy who tends to period furniture. Absolutely beautiful.
I am not creative enough to have thought of it, but agree re the half blind dovetails to prevent the damming effect but also creating the splitting of water as it goes over the edge.
Initially scratched my head re lower horizontal shelf/drawer base not being parallel with plane of drawer faces, but end up with a very nice and thoughtful design feature.

Two questions if i might: 1) how are the two outside end drawers guided? And 2) in last picture (of single drawer table) it looks like the upper vertical face of pull is higher (measures more) than bottom portion, which seems reverse of what i would have expected - expected to see inverted L shape like a waterfall - is this an illusion?


Again, beautifully designed and crafted piece, sir. With admiration, Patrick

[Patrick McCarthy]

I am guessing the outside of outer drawer is stationery (part of case) and it and drawer front are mitered at 45’s?

[Bill Carey]

Love the tables Edwin. And the work / craftsmanship is top drawer. Everything from the waterfall to the steps to the pulls to the layout of the DT's is wonderful. Beautiful design.

[Patrick McCarthy]

And the finish used is/was?

Thank you for sharing. Patrick

[Andrew Hughes]

Good grief what symphony of complex joinery. Excellent craftsmanship excellent choice of wood arrangement.
Thanks for sharing it with us Edwin

[glenn bradley]

How fun. A great looking and challenging pair. Wonderful craftsmanship and execution.

[Prashun Patel]

That is perfect. I love pieces that I have to look at for a few minutes to really appreciate what's going on. The drawers and asymmetry of the top and shelf are unique enough. The mitered corner on the exposed drawer is tastefully thought out. But that corner joinery is really one for the books. It's impressive both for the subtlety of its design and its flawless execution. You do really nice work, Edwin.

Can you share a little bit about your 'through shelf' joinery?

[Joe A Faulkner]

Stunning. Nice photography skills too! Would love to see a pic with the drawers open. Love the design and the craftsmanship is fantastic. Very inspiring. Thanks for posting.

[Frederick Skelly]

Masterly execution! Your skills are exemplary.

[Scott Winners]

I think tonight I will go to my shop and just beat on my workboots with a mallet. Those are stunning.

[Phil Mueller]

Beautiful work, Edwin. As others have said; choice of wood, joinery, design are all stunning.

[Todd Zucker]

Like Prashun said. Just perfect.

[Jebediah Eckert]

I have some constructive comments, well not really.......when I looked at the pictures “WOW” came to mind. Love it.

[Tom Bain]

Stunning, just stunning. Something I would expect to see in the Fine Woodworking Reader’s Gallery.

[Jim Becker]

Dang...those are truly inspiring, Edwin!!

[David Utterback]

Many of us occasionally reach for the stars. You have reached them as your many recent projects show. Thanks for sharing and inspiring us to be creative and productive.

[Edwin Santos]

Thanks very much for the compliments.
A few answers to questions asked:

The drawers sides are stationary and the applied fronts mitered on the left side only because of the stepping. The three drawer table uses undermount slides. Usually I use Blum Tandem, but here space was so tight that the Hettich Quadro slides were slightly shorter and thus would fit. The smaller table was not deep enough for mechanical slides so nor an applied drawer front so the front is integral to the drawer and runs on wood shopmade slides.

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Regarding the through shelf joinery, it was a combination of dado, rabbet and dowel. The dowel jig is shopmade and the color coding you see was to help me distinguish between the dowel joint for the top-leg from the cantilever shelf-leg. Without the color coding I will always lose track of the holes. The dowels for the floating shelf are long 2" dowels that go through the leg and into the top, so in other words the outboard shelf and top are doweled to each other through the leg. The dado was cut with a plunge router and I seem to recall cutting the rabbets at the router table. The drawer box partitions were doweled to the top and bottom in the same way, though not in dadoes.

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Finish was Arm-R-Seal with a twist. I often think Walnut could use some livening up and depth, so here I applied and dry brushed a water based glaze tinted with Transtint over a sealer coat of Arm-R-Seal. I feel Arm-R-Seal has a high solid content and can become too built up for my taste so to counteract this, I cut it a bit (maybe 10-20%) with mineral spirits and wipe on VERY thin coats.
The drawer pulls may look upside down from what would be expected. What drove that was the feeling in your hand when you grasp them with your thumb and bent forefinger. Both nestle in the drawer pull in a cozy way, but I'll admit this is probably noticeable to nobody but me.

Thank you again for the compliments and feedback!

[Jim Becker]

I used that mitered corner method for the drawer on Professor Dr. SWMBO's desk drawer for which the end is exposed just like your project design calls for. It's really effective no matter what the wood, but that spalted material you used really makes the wrap around the corner amazing!

[michael langman]

Another beautifully, artistic piece Edwin. Your work is really reaching the limits of, this is really as good as it gets.