Craftsman Style Coffee Table Build Thread- Part 2 Complete

[Mike Allen1010]

This is part 2/completion of build thread for a poplar Craftsman// Greene & Greene style coffee table 22” wide x 41” long x 21” tall. Open shelving on both sides with the central nest of 3 drawers. Part 1 for initial construction that is separate posts.

Rationale for this build is twofold: using up accumulated shop lumber too small for larger projects and also an attempt at redemption. I built a similar, slightly larger version of this table out of QSWO with an attempted a “Stickley” finish. Turned out bad! The finishing regimen was way over my head with multiple stains followed by surface topcoats etc. Resulted in a terrible, muddy finish-obscuring the compass inlay on the tabletop, in addition to my many other mistakes. My plan is to die the Poplar black, to hopefully hide the green color in the Poplar, while still allowing the figure to show through. Sounds like a very iffy strategy, but I guess we’ll just have to see!

Here’s some pictures of building the 6 drawers that fit in the central portion of the coffee table. Nothing particularly insightful other than dividers and 90° clamping squares are helpful.











Creating the breadboard ends for the tabletop using shop built rabbit plane (probably one of my most useful shop built tools), and small shoulder plane for trimming shoulders of the breadboard rabbit right to the layout line established with marking gauge.






Here’s the layout for tennons and corresponding mortises for breadboard ends. No pics, but I find simple story stick super helpful for transferring width of tennons from one side of the tabletop to the other.

[Mike Allen1010]

Mortising breadboard ends. As a hand tool person I find chopping mortises fun but time-consuming. I can see why in a production shop mortising machine would be very efficient. For me, key success factors are: large, old style “pig sticker” mortise chisels for crying out chips and shop vac for clearing chips during the multiple “chop, check fit, trim mortise again, repeat “steps in the process.




I probably didn’t take any pictures, but used oak dowels to pin the breadboard ends through tennons to tabletop. The LOML suggested I should make similar “light colored wood” drawer pulls. Bought commercial pulls from local BORG and turned them on the lathe to add a bit of character.



Turning for me is largely unsatisfying as my lathe tools are never sharp enough to produce the beautiful spiraling shavings I see from lathe turning on the Internet and since most of my turnings are knob/pulls I hold is a chuck attached to the lathe, dull tools = me applying lots of force, which results in the work piece inevitably flying out of the Chuck. I have zero trading in late turning and I’m sure my poor results are 100% caused by my lack of experience/expertise.

Here’s some pictures of the completed project. I died the Poplar with black Trans Tint liquid dye in 50/50 ratio of alcohol and lacquer thinner (at least I think it was lacquer thinner?). Super easy to apply, but be sure you make more than you think you’re gonna need because if you run out, really hard to match same color on 2^nd attempt. Idea was to hide the green color of the Poplar yet reveal the underlying grain/figure. Not sure if that really worked out. Topcoat was oil-based polyurethane varnish followed by paste wax.














I started this project because I was looking to use up some of the lumber in the shop but knowing we had nowhere to put this in the house. My half-baked thought was I might try and sell it for cost of lumber on Craigslist or something. Turns out our youngest wants it for his first post college/real job apartment, which is great. I’m glad he can use it – but expect it will have a limited life expectancy in this “high mileage” environment.

Thanks for looking,

Mike

[David Eisenhauer]

I like that Mike. Nice, clean looking work and cloud-lifts forever I say.

[David Myers]

Very nice, Mike.

And you know it'll last forever because you built it.

There just may be some pizza boxes on it when you see it in its new home.

[Frederick Skelly]

Another really nice piece Mike. Thanks for posting! I'm not too handy with my lathe either, but I think it's because I haven't practiced sufficiently. (I prefer flatwork.) I think your knobs came out well!

FYI, another good way I found to dye poplar black is with india ink. Just straight ink, no dilution. Two coats gives me an even (not blotchy) dark coat. I liked the ink better than transtint for getting it really black.

Fred

[Tom Blank]

Mike,

I think that worked well.

I did a similar dye treatment on some Ash trying to make speaker stands for a grandson that matched grain pattern and color on his speakers. I used TransTint in a 1:16 ratio with a 50/50 mix of DNA and lacquer thinner. Guess that makes it 1:8:8. I was not quite where I wanted to be after several applications of the TransTint mix so added a coat of Minwax Ebony stain. That made the difference. Topped it off with lacquer.

Tom

[Matt Lau]

Looks nice!

Hopefully, your kid will think of you when they use this piece.

[Steve Kaminska]

Nice work!

Do you recommend the Stone IPA just for dovetailing, or does it help with chopping mortises also?

[Tom Bender]

A few years ago I took a turning class at a woodworking club. It was a revelation! This little coven of turners has 2 band saws, a few benches and a dozen lathes. Mostly they turn green wood into bowls. I had not turned green wood and was amazed. Hot knife thru butter! Anyone can send big curls flying. I don't need any bowls but might just mount a big chunk of green wood and make shavings for the fun of it.