Oak end table

New guy here. Google keeps sending me here whenever I have problems, so I figured I'd sign up. Was a union carpenter in NYC for thirty years, installed office furniture, cubicles if you will. Retired now and moved down south. Decided to make furniture for the house, though design was never really my strong suit.

When it comes to carpentry I consider myself a hack, know little about woods, grains, different cuts and even less about finishing. Joinery is a joke. My short term memory is in the crapper, so anything I learn is usually forgotten if I don't use it at least on a weekly basis. It does keep me busy and I do lose sleep when I start problem solving my dreams and can't turn it off

Made some platform beds and end tables and ended up with blocks from the mitered corners. Loved playing with blocks when I was a kid.Anyway it evolved into tabletops, just some fun stuff to keep me busy. This is a red oak and plywood end table, 3'X3' Like most of my projects I tend to wing it and the top was sitting around for awhile without a base. Saw something simple in a TV ad made one change and added a shelf

Apologize for the sideways pics, I have no clue how to turn them around

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Originally Posted by STEVE BARRY

...Apologize for the sideways pics, I have no clue how to turn them around

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Welcome to the Creek Steve! That's some top! Amazing job coordinating all those pieces to keep the pattern consistent.

Regarding the pics, it is a common complaint. A moderator might rotate them for you. I've found that if you take the pics with the camera in the landscape position, SMC won't try to rotate when you upload.

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Originally Posted by Brian Tymchak

Welcome to the Creek Steve! That's some top! Amazing job coordinating all those pieces to keep the pattern consistent.

Regarding the pics, it is a common complaint. A moderator might rotate them for you. I've found that if you take the pics with the camera in the landscape position, SMC won't try to rotate when you upload.

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Biggest issues with my table projects I believe were the thin kerf blades on the miter saw and keeping the angles consistent, both the 45s and the perpendicular. I have a dealt 12 inch compound miter with the slide and you have to be real careful bringing the blade down. If it's off you don't always notice it until the glue up when everything stars moving.

Working with plywood sucks. I thought it was kind of interesting, but slight variations in thickness makes keeping tight seams difficult. Most people don't nit pick, so if things aren't perfect I'm the only one who suffers

Keeping the points intact on the plywood was an issue, not as much on this one as some of the later models.

Didn't have a drum sander so it was hand scraping and sanding. Used my Bosch jobsite table saw. It was okay, but down the road I invested my stimulus money in a saw stop. I think the fence alone was worth the extra money. ;) I've gone to full kerf blades. for most of the work I've been doing. Eats up wood, but cleaner cuts

Might try some tables like this with decent wood. At the time I did these it was a lot of trial and error and wasn't sure if I could pull them off. Originally I was just going to do borders. Some of the tops would look really nice with walnut and maple or cherry. The designs I worked with I ended up using dark MDF with the plywood to save money. The darker wood offered more contrast and looked really nice, just wasn't ready to drop the extra coin on decent hardwoods

I really like that top! Did you make it from a zillion individual pieces, or did you glue up long blocks and then slice off square cookies and glue them together?

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Originally Posted by Paul F Franklin

I really like that top! Did you make it from a zillion individual pieces, or did you glue up long blocks and then slice off square cookies and glue them together?

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Thanks. No magic! :eek:

I started out with the triangular blocks I cut off from my platform bed. I laminated the plywood and oak for added thickness on the rails. I started playing around with the blocks and came up with some cool designs. Thought that if I glued them up and cut ff strips I could make borders around table tops or cabinets. IIt kind of grew from there. When I was younger I was always pretty good at problem solving, but now my cognitive abilities are diminished, or in the crapper, but every now and then come up with a decent idea.

First step is to glue up lengths of wood, 2 1/2 to 3 inches works pretty well for me, don't have one of this vacuum gizmos for wider pieces. Think I used four foot lengths. Cut the blocks on a chop saw. Set the stop, cut and flip, cut and flip. Once you have all your blocks time to glue up.

Had some 2x3 aluminum tubing laying around, layed up the blocks in between two lengths, clamped the aluminum, and then clamped the wood along the length. After that sliced thin strips off the glued up blocks and glued them down to substrate. Thats the abbreviated version.