Coffee Table Critique

[Dave Shawley]

Hi all, I've been working on a design for a coffee table with a folding top to replace one that our golden retriever... umm... modified. Here's a link to the original table at Raymour & Flanigan (http://www.raymourflanigan.com/catalog/details.asp?ID=2442#). I'm not trying to recreate it but I want the same folding top style since my wife is a jigsaw puzzle junky. I'm aiming for a mission or arts & craft style table instead of the original. This is my first real attempt at designing furniture so I am expecting some helpful criticism from the experts on this one ;)

I'm planning on doing this in QSWO. I haven't decided on a finish yet, but I think that the design is done. I'm particularly worried about wood movement and the like since I'm pretty new to this. Most of the construction is pegged mortise and tenon and I plan on connecting the top to the apron with either wooden buttons or z-clips... haven't decided on that yet either.

[Edit - I got the SU file to attach... apparently Safari doesn't handle the attachment process that well :( I had to zip it to meet the file size requirements though]

[Dave Shawley]

I just realized that I never attached any pictures of my design for the non-SU users out there. These are linked in from my Flickr account. You can go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveshawley/tags/tabledesign/ to see the entire set.

The final shot is an exploded view. Is it safe to make the mortise and tenon joinery between the apron and the leg a tight fit with QSWO or do I have to leave some space for the tenon to expand due to moisture?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3266/3138205353_4ffe2dbc9d.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3296/3138205303_9449eb5d30.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/3138205571_29cac294f9.jpg

[Jason Whitaker]

I cannot speak to your design questions too well, don't know enough yet. But as for the design, I think that is Fabulous. You really did a great job on it and I am looking forward to seeing the finished project! Might use this for some personal inspiration.

[glenn bradley]

Love the basic design. I am no expert and this is just a gut reaction to a first glance; the legs "feel" heavy but I think it may be that the vertical rails are a bit narrow.

[David Gilbert]

Dave,

I like your design and will be interested to see how long it will take to do. It's quite ambitious. I do have a couple of comments about the design and construction. I enjoyed tearing your sketchup model apart to see the construction details. I'm not sure if the sketchup model is exactly what you intend to build so my construction comments may be mute.

Have you considered adding drawers on the other side of the table? One larger one or three to match the other side? Your drawer runners only go 1/4 inch onto the center support and I wonder if they won't come loose. I would extend them and bury them in notches (dados or dovetails?).

The legs look OK to me but I also think the vertical rails are a bit thin. I wonder if the front rail's thru mortise with the leg will be a problem. It will be plenty strong but may be hard to execute. The tenon for the side rail to the leg is only 1/2 inch and this doesn't give you much room for your peg. You can extent it to give more gluing surface and room for the peg. I also wonder how the curved leg piece will stay in place. Loose tenons or dowels and glue would work.

Did you forget to add some pegs in your design? You have them on the table top and on four of the five vertical rails (but not on the top of the rails). If you are pegging joints then there are lots of joints to do.

You haven't mentioned what you are making the top out of. If you are pinning the center panels to the edges and you are using solid wood you may have some movement problems. I know that sketchup limits how some of the textures get applied so the grain direction may not be what you intend. Plywood would minimize the movement and I'm not sure it would need to be pinned. What about using MDF and veneering the faces? I'm mentioning this but recognize that this would push this project way over the top in terms of complexity.

You mentioned that your wife does jigsaw puzzles. It appears that when you close your wings there won't be room on the inside for the puzzle. Have you considered sinking the center of the table by 1/8 inch or so to leave room for the puzzle? That way when company arrives and you need to clean up you can just slide the puzzle into center, close the wings and cover up the partially completed puzzle. That would seem to be a very useful feature.

Good luck with your project. Please keep us posted regarding your project.

Cheers,
Dave

[Dave Shawley]

Glenn - I had that feeling early on. I'm still trying to get a feel for the proportions. I bumped the width of the rails from 1" to 1-3/8" and it does balance things out. This fits with the stock that I have on hand. It even reduces my waste a little :D

I'm going to add some new renders a little later on. Thanks for the comments.

[John Schreiber]

David,

First off, I'm a big SketcherUpper and I really like the pictures of your model. They don't have the "SketchUp Look" at all. I'm guessing that you used some style changes and perhaps something with the overlay feature too. I think people often get hung up trying and failing to be photo realistic; instead you made really nice drawings.

I've got some design ideas, but I'm no expert so don't give them any more worth than they deserve.

I agree about increasing the width of the vertical pieces on the ends.
The bottoms of the legs don't look quite right to me. I'm not very familiar with that style, but I'd go back and look at the way the taper is done. I suspect it's either too dramatic in your model or perhaps it is only supposed to go on one side of the legs.
I'm not sure exactly how the top fits together, but there are two concerns I have. If it is frame and panel, I wonder if the narrow edge piece will be strong enough to support the hinges and the folding top. If the top will be all glued together, the end piece becomes more like a breadboard end and it could stick out beyond the hinges causing interference with the folding piece. That is, if the top contracts, it will pull the hinges in and the breadboard will stick out causing interference with the the top as it folds out. A possible solution would be to keep the edges of the table stationary and force the movement to a gap in the center. There are some table designs on the Creek by Mark Singer which use this technique beautifully.
I'm not quite clear on the thickness of the pull out supports. I'm thinking they should be a little thicker, perhaps the bottom should line up with the bottom of the drawers.
There's something about the height of the apron/drawers which doesn't look right to me. The area seems delicate compared to the double thickness of the top when folded. Making bigger knobs might help or perhaps the edge lines in the model are confusing me. I'd take a look at the model with the lines turned off and shadows on to see what that looks like.
I like the overalll look a great dea and these are a lot of comments for a guy who's just pulling ideas out of the air. I really appreciate it when I get detailed feedback here so I'm just picking nits.

Hope that helps.

[Dave Shawley]

Dave,

I like your design and will be interested to see how long it will take to do. It's quite ambitious. I do have a couple of comments about the design and construction. I enjoyed tearing your sketchup model apart to see the construction details. I'm not sure if the sketchup model is exactly what you intend to build so my construction comments may be mute.

The SU model is a work in progress. I think that I am almost having as much fun doing the details in SU as I will in the shop. It definitely has helped me think through the details without making dust.


Have you considered adding drawers on the other side of the table? One larger one or three to match the other side? Your drawer runners only go 1/4 inch onto the center support and I wonder if they won't come loose. I would extend them and bury them in notches (dados or dovetails?).My original design had three through drawers instead. My mother-in-law has since bought a table with through drawers and they've lost their appeal. There really isn't much benefit to them. I was considering mirroring the drawers on the other side. One large drawer might be interesting though... it would make a good place to put a puzzle box. The drawers that I have there are sized for books and remotes and the like. It seems that having a drawer for the puzzle box is probably a good idea as well.

You're right about that 1/4". Since they will be pine or some secondary wood, it's easy enough to extend them a little. I was wondering what the best way to keep them vertical was. I think that I'll add a rail in the center to support them.


The legs look OK to me but I also think the vertical rails are a bit thin. I wonder if the front rail's thru mortise with the leg will be a problem. It will be plenty strong but may be hard to execute. The tenon for the side rail to the leg is only 1/2 inch and this doesn't give you much room for your peg. You can extent it to give more gluing surface and room for the peg. I also wonder how the curved leg piece will stay in place. Loose tenons or dowels and glue would work.I think that I might go to using 1" stopped mortises on the apron rails. The more that I think about it, it makes more sense in terms of all around strength. Not to mention that the through mortise on the front and back doesn't really buy me anything since I am hiding it with that little side adornment anyway. Speaking of that little critter... I still haven't figured out the best way to attach it. I like the idea of dowel and glue though. I was thinking about attaching it to the end of the through tenon with glue or a loose tenon but that's just crazy talk ;)


Did you forget to add some pegs in your design? You have them on the table top and on four of the five vertical rails (but not on the top of the rails). If you are pegging joints then there are lots of joints to do. Yep. I did forget them. Ick... I guess I could put double pegs through the legs into the apron pieces. This will give me something to do tonight.


You haven't mentioned what you are making the top out of. If you are pinning the center panels to the edges and you are using solid wood you may have some movement problems. I know that sketchup limits how some of the textures get applied so the grain direction may not be what you intend. Plywood would minimize the movement and I'm not sure it would need to be pinned. What about using MDF and veneering the faces? I'm mentioning this but recognize that this would push this project way over the top in terms of complexity.I was considering using solid QSWO for the majority of it. I might lighten things up a little by using 3/8" stock for the top instead of 3/4" stock. I'm not sure if 3/8" will be strong enough though. Wood movement was one of my largest concerns with the top. I'm going to do the top panels with breadboard ends so the holes for the pins allow for some float. The center pin will be glued solid and the other pins are glued to the end. I think that it should work. I really wish that there was a good way of showing glue surfaces and grain orientation in SU.


You mentioned that your wife does jigsaw puzzles. It appears that when you close your wings there won't be room on the inside for the puzzle. Have you considered sinking the center of the table by 1/8 inch or so to leave room for the puzzle? That way when company arrives and you need to clean up you can just slide the puzzle into center, close the wings and cover up the partially completed puzzle. That would seem to be a very useful feature. Now that is an interesting idea. One of the problems that we have with our current table is that the puzzle pieces have a tendency to slide out.

Thanks for the advice. This is why I posted here.

[Jamie Buxton]

Your table, IMHO, looks much better than that thing in the link.

A few thoughts....

The drawers look pretty shallow to me. Just eyeballing off the jpegs, they seem to be 2" tall at the front. You'll lose some interior height to the drawer's bottom. I'd make the rail taller, and the drawers taller.

When you pull the outriggers all the way out, there's almost no length inside the table to help hold them (and the table) up. Instead, I'd make the outriggers longer. You've probably made them as short as they are to avoid colliding with the outrigger from the other side of the table. Move that outrigger sideways an inch or so, and both outriggers can be the full width of the table. You now have them hooking into a crossmember. You could have the two full-length ones hooking into opposite faces of that crossmember.

If you use standard leaf hinges, their knuckles will stick up from the playing surface. Instead, use hinges called "butlers tray" hinges, or "sewing machine" hinges. They're flush to the table top when open, but can fold 180 degrees like you need. http://www.hardwaresource.com/Store_ViewCatLevel3.asp?Cat=17 (Actually, some of them are designed to close only 90 degrees, not 180. You don't want them in this design.)

The vertical slats at the end look a little sparse to my eye. I'd put more of them in. Look at some of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs. He's famous for this design touch.

[Dave Shawley]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback. I think that my design is better for it and I didn't even have to screw up the table and find out that I messed it all up in a few years. That's why I posted in the first place ;)

Here are some new renders from SU with a bunch of the ideas worked in:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/3162206974_c44036c412.jpg
I widened up the vertical rails and changes the apron/drawer height to balance everything out. I also added a bunch of missing pins and fixed the leg tapers. I think that they looked strange before because they were on the inside instead of the outside and they were pretty steep.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3261/3162207034_e937b03e0a.jpg
I redesigned the drawer supports after doing some reading and investigation into how this is supposed to be done. I also reworked how the apron was attached. In my last model, the front and rear aprons were through tenons and the side aprons were stopped mortises. I switched all of them to stopped mortises and split the tenons since the new height was greater than 3 inches.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3116/3162207274_cf6ba679f0.jpg

This is my new leg joinery. It should be a lot easier to execute than what I had previously. All four legs are nicely symmetric now - two stopped mortises with a little haunch in the middle and four pins.

I attached the SU file for anyone that is interested and there are some additional pictures on my flickr site with the tag "tableredesign": http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveshawley/tags/tableredesign/

Now I still have to figure out exactly how I am going to do the top. My original thought was to make them breadboard edges but as John pointed out, this probably won't work with the folding top. I'm trying to figure out exactly how to "make the edges of the table stationary". I'm probably starting on this in a week or so... I still have to collect some lumber.

Thanks again everyone and happy new year too.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Dave, you have an interesting design.

The tops of A&C furniture often were plain ended, you can see the end grain.

Most furniture was made of QSWO so width changes of the top were pretty minimal. You may want to calculate it and decide if you want or need bread board ends.

I will admit to not liking the leg tapers, I'd leave them straight, and add corbels on the outside ends of the legs.

I normally attach them with two dowels and glue.

Regards, Rod.