A design dilemma for you to ponder...

[Kristian Wild]

Hello everyone, I have a design question that I need people to look at from a fresh perspective.

I have a client who is interested in having a "Japanese style" coffee table made similar to some she has seen on some furniture websites. The ones she has seen have quite thick, very rustic looking proportions. ie. The tops appear to be at least three inches thick and the straight leg stock around 2x3 inches.

Now these tables appear to be constructed with a skirt tennoned into the tops of the legs across the narrow dimension and a stretcher down below. The heavy planks for the top are attached individually to the skirt with about a 1/4" gap between them. (No expantion and contraction issues to worry about across the top.)

Now my dilemma comes from how to provide ridgidity lengthwise to the table because she doesn't want a skirt running in that direction. The pictures I've seen of them tend to make me believe that the legs are actually mortised right up into (but not quite through) the thick top. However... the top will only be about 1-1/2" thick. So besides having a skirt running along the length of the table, or some type of decorative corner brace, how could I make this thing to last?

If you're interested in the photos I'm trying to work off of have a look at the "Maru Coffee tables" on the www-dot-greenteadesign-dot-com website. With the one I'm building all of the boards in the top will be running lengthwise, there won't be the short ones running across the centre.

Thanks for your time and your brain-power.

Kris

[Frank Fusco]

How wide a span are you talking about? 1 1/2" is still plenty sturdy in almost all woods, especially hard-hardwoods. Maybe I should change my name to Frank-san and get thousands of dollars for simple design stuff like on that site. Wow! :eek:

[John Piwaron]

I recall seeing a similar kind of situation in the defunct magazine "Home Furniture." The project there is called a Tansu table.

While the Home Furniture project doesn't look like the ones you pointed out, it has a similar heavy leg to relatively thin top.

The author of the article over came that problem by attaching rectangles at the place the legs would join the top and then putting the legs over those rectangles in a sort of saddle configuration. The legs were screwed to those rectangles from the side and then plugged.

Or so it appears. If you have that magazine, perhaps you can look for yourself.

If you need something a little more accurate than my memory, I might be able to find that issue and article if need be.

[Jamie Buxton]

The legs on that Maru coffee table look like they're 4x6 or so, and the 6" direction runs the long direction on the table. You could use a mortise and tenon joint between the leg and the plank. The tenon would be 6" long and perhaps an inch deep. Heck, you have enough width to make it a double tenon or even triple tenon. That's lots of glue surface. The leg won't break loose from the plank it is fastened to.

[Kristian Wild]

Thanks for your suggestions guys. That gives me a bit more to think about.

Maybe I should have called it a "construction dilemma" and it woulden't have been moved.:)

[Wes Bischel]

Kristian,
An interesting detail I just saw might add to what others have posted above. On page 82 of the Nov. 2006 issue of Popular Woodworking there is a good detail on how Moderinca's Tenon Table is made. The Tenon Table can be seen here:
http://www.modernica.net/browseProducts.asp?CatId=1007
http://www.modernica.net/table.htm

The legs are made from baltic birch plywood, and flair out to create a "T" shape under the table top. The horizontal section is mortised into the bottom of the table top. Most likely this extra detail will be unnecessary if your legs are as wide as the Maru table pictures indicate - but just in case.

Wes