Walnut & Maple Living Room Tables

[Mike Schmalzer]

In our recent move from Tucson to Portland we had a few casualties of war, Namely our coffee table and end table. What better chance to break in the new shop and make some sawdust.

The legs are just your standard hard maple, the rails are some really quilted maple, and the tops are western walnut. Much harder to find than the eastern variety but very much worth it.

The tops have a couple coats of "walnut" danish oil followed by 6 so so coats of Waterlox. I wanted to darken the tops a bit to create a little more contrast. The bases were finished the same as the tops just with a regular danish oil.

Oh and we decided to have the tops float off the surface of the base about 1/4".

Enjoy.

[Andy Korfin]

Mike this is a very impressive project. I am going to be making a new coffee table for myself in the near future. One question how did you jon the boards for the top ?

Andy

[Martin Shupe]

Very nice tables. I like the floating top detail.

I have a plan for one from wood magazine, but the legs look a little to "big" (cross section) to me. Usually when I make a Shaker table, my legs are 1.5" square. But I think (and I don't have it in front of me) the plans I have are 1.75", and to me that looks clunky.

Your table legs look nice and proportional. Would you mind telling me how big they are in cross section?

Thanks.

[Mike Schmalzer]

Thank You

Andy, The top is simply edge joined and nothing else. I regularly glue up panels this way and have yet to have a problem. As long as the wood is dry and your edges are straight there is little room for a problem down the road.

Martin, The legs are actually 1.75" at the top and have a taper only on the inside edges which take them down to 1.25" at the bottoms. They may not appear to be as clunky because the taper begins about a 1/2" under the rails.
I played with the design in Sketchup for a couple days until I finally decided on the leg thickness.

[Martin Shupe]

Mike,

I think the secret is your taper. Yours look much nicer than the ones in my plan. Thanks for the info and the tip.

[John Thompson]

Nice job, Mike. I like the contrast..

Sarge..