Side Table "Teasers"

I finished the side tables a little while ago but finally took a couple quick crappy shots of them for your viewing non-pleasure heh. I will be trying more "serious" photography when all the tables are done.
I'm pretty happy with the end product. I might tweak some of the reveals a little bit but nothing major. Also the thing about making furniture to go with furniture is that there are often no absolute standards to go by. These will be a bit tall for low sitting sofas but will fit the taller ones fine and in my opinion the side table is just about perfect to match a "proper" chair. By the way I did NOT make that chair. It belongs to the dinning set in the house.


Shedua and White Oak. I see this one fitting into a more "executive" setting possible with lower lighting.


Kwila and Narra. This one I like to think of a more casual and brighter setting. I do hope that the Kwila darkens more than the Narra as it was my intention to have a bit stronger contrast. Though when the sun hits the Narra panel it really pops and ads to the contrast.


Finishing up getting new stock to size, cross cut, square and all to start some mortising on 3 Pedestals. I decided to not build a fourth which would have been Narra, because it requires so much sanding. Also I would like to get this whole table family done sooner than later as I have said I'm waiting to finish to head out to the galleries. So none of this really has a chance to get sold or grab any public's attention until all the planed tables are done. In addition I have a wall hung cabinet in mind I would love to finish before Summer as there is a show or two I might like to enter.
Anyway fewer tables to build = finishing sooner. If anyone wants a table of Narra I would gladly do it, but I will hold off for now.

I may not be making as many updates as the Pedestals go on because they are really "exactly" the same as the side tables with different dimensions. We'll see ;)

Wrapping tables up

So many glue ups! It took some time but the bases and the frames are all glued up.
I glued the frames first so that while I was waiting for the base glue ups to set I could...


Fit the panels in the frames. I have been waiting for this for a long time ha. Logistically it's the trickiest joint of the piece as it is loaded from the top and I want to get a tight fit all the way around the panels. They went pretty well though.
After the bases were set I planed off the last remaining "breath" of the aprons over the tops of the legs.


Then moved on to finishing the panels and the parts of the frames that hadn't been finished yet.
For the for the frames I used some Clapman's wax on top of Shellac, the same as the base. For the panels I wanted to add more protection because this is the main surface that will be used. I tried some floor wax but didn't like the out come... it was too shiny. I opted for a paste wax from Liberon which seemed to produce the finish I was looking for.
The bottoms of the panels are taped off for the glue up to come.


This is just that. It would be easier with a vacuum press or something. I think that went I get to the coffee table I'll try to borrow one.
In between some of these steps I also cleaned up the brass brackets and did the drilling for all the little #4 screws. Basically I'm just waiting on these panel glue ups, one at a time. Then I'll have some side tables yay... I certainly hope all goes according to plan!

Sanding & details

Alright, I'm back. I took a couple days off to visit friends in Milwaukee and catch a "concert" outside of Chicago. I have still been working mainly sanding though. Not too exciting to talk about or show. The Kwila I could plane then just hit with 1000 grit, the Shedua I needed to scrape then start at 400 grit on up to 1000.
After these sets of tables I don't think I'm going to do any "speculative production" in feature woods I can't plane. Sanding takes so long, around 3 times longer! It's not just the surfaces that need to be sanded. I had to scrape and sand all the edge treatments (except end grain with files). There are a lot of edges on these tables!
If some one asks for a couple tables in, lets say Orange Doussie, sure awesome! As long as they understand it takes extra labor hours and are will to pay for them, that's great.


After sanding all the surfaces I was finally able to work on some edge details like these. These connection points of the frames really float my boat heh. I think they are interesting while being simple.


It's been a long time coming, pre-finishing. I'm using orange shellac on the Kwila and for the Shedua I have used orange for the first coat to help the brown out a bit and the rest will be bleached shellac as I don't want it to get too dark.
There is still work to do after I get these pieces assembled but I'm over the hill.

Aprons

Ok things are coming along. I've done most of the surface prep on all sides of all the components. Now I've come back to that bit of breathing room I've mentioned before. The aprons sit a little high of the legs. This hasn't been touch besides a little flattening before the mortises were made a long time ago. I'd rather plane down the apron tops than trying to work the end grain of the legs while maintaining a "perfectly" square and level top.


Here is the set up. I gave my jointer plane a fresh modification for comfort... that Jatoba really changes color over time! Anyway... clamped the side with both apron and stretcher and put in in the front vise. The pieces of tape are there for two reasons. To protect the top of the leg and to leave a final breath of room. I will finish the job after the base is all glued up. As it is said "glue changes everything". Glue will sometimes magically alter positions of things slightly so I'm plaing is safe.


The long aprons is where the brackets will be attached. I'm using a trim router with an 1/8" bit to do most of the cutting for these mortises. The MDF guide there is made slightly under sized of the brackets. I just measured lines corresponding to the guide on the aprons to let me know where to clamp the work piece.


The mortises are cut to fit and cleaned up with chisels. After which I started some edge treatment. I felt with its relatively porous grain the Kwila pieces might do well with greater softening of the edges. I think the Shedua will get less.
Although these are meant to be "production" type pieces some aspects I just don't write down. Mainly the details. I like the idea that these details may change from piece to piece to correspond with different species or my mood at the time. Things like the amount of pillowing in the legs, the size of steps in the frame, edge treatments and so on can be personal to each piece. They can also be the different between a quite refined piece and a more casual one, both of which I could see working in the "design" I've come to. Though I don't see the details changing a lot, some questions marks are good and interesting to have.

Veneer and Hardware

So many little pieces of veneer to edge joint! Out of the 6" wide veneers I cut I only used pieces that around 3" wide due to the color gradation I mentioned earlier. I don't think it's ideal but I'm doing what I see fit with what I have.
Oh tape! I don't know how I got along without it before. Before going to IP the many uses of tape in the shop hardly even crossed my mind. I mean this is real work we were doing right? We don't use tape! Ha well The right tape for the right job makes things easier. I've used painter's tape for "clamping" the veneer edge joints. It works quite well. The tape has a medium tack... enough to hold on well but not enough to warrant thick sticky adhesives. The tape also is relatively elastic and this is the key. You put the tape on one side of the joint then stretch it over to the other, the "spring-back" in the tape "clamps" the joint! You HAVE to tape both sides for it to work properly... or use weights on one side... but I've found tape on both more to my liking this time around.


I don't have a vacuum press nor a veneer press yet. but this little clamp up seemed to work well.
Some 8/4 Ash cut, jointed, and planed 3/4" Baltic Birch, framing backer board, and wax paper. You may also notice the blue tape again. Because I don't have a set up where I can get clamps in the center of the "press" I need to compensate. Any wood clamped as such is going to bend so you build up the middle to even it out. There's one layer of blue tape then the wax paper is strategically overlapped to "fare out" the added arc. That doesn't sound like much, well it's the same on top and bottom so each layer is actually two. As the results suggest, it doesn't take much :)


While waiting for the veneering to be done I turned my attention to some hardware as I need to put some mortise in the aprons for them before moving on with the bases.
Hardware is yet another thing that is lacking "these days" (ha I'm not old enough to experience the "old days" but this is what I'm told). Nice simple hardware is hard to come by. Luckily there are nice little knife hinges being made by a couple makers, namely Sanderson Hardware and Brusso. Robert Sanderson is a graduate of CR and makes very nice hardware that can't be found just any where. His hinges are a little more spendy than Brusso's but they are made on a small scale and now Brusso has been stamping their name into the show side of the hinge... I can understand wanting some credit for your work but I really don't want to see branding placed about my work.
I had thought about getting some L/90 degree/corner brackets to simplify and speed things up, alas I don't know if nice little one exist anywhere. Instead of using glue/screw blocks, or buttons I decided to bite the bullet and continue the path of "all out" and make my own brackets.


I say bite the bullet because as I've found I'm not the biggest fan of working with metal in this way. However I'm a bigger fan of making what I want then paying for something I don't like ha.
I went to a local metal supply; they were out of brass bar (sigh shouldn't be a surprise by now) but they had a very small amount of 1/8" brass sheet. They cut me a couple 1" strips free of cut charge though. I knew I didn't want 1" wide brackets but didn't know exactly what size I wanted, also it's probably an odd size which no one carries in bar stock anyway. As is the case I felt 7/8" would be nice and ripped the brass on the band saw with a 6 tpi blade... I would like a finer blade next time. Cross cut on the table saw, then clean up the edges and faces. As long as the metal is non-ferrous you can use many of your wood working machines, though you may want dedicated blades.


Here they are cut, drilled, counter sunk for #4 screws and cleaned to a 400 grit sanding. They aren't completely finished but will only take a couple of minutes to get them where I can work with them. They wont get a final sanding until they are ready to be installed.
These little guys are quite nice in use. Very simple looking, non-obtrusive, a nice matte finish makes the brass relatively warm looking, and they have a nice weight to them physically and visually.


Back to wood yay!
So after trying to cut up the Oak and organize it to steer clear of conflicting prismatics I wasn't completely happy with what I was getting. I decided to go ahead and book match it, well I think I used flipped book matching. The Oak doesn't seem to have an overly strong prismatic difference. I'm sure I'll spot it but I have a feeling it's the "lesser of two evils". It also has some naturally ocurring darker lines which I think people will guess is where the joints are, but they aren't!
Well since I've been working with some moderately less friendly woods I was looking forward to the surface prep on these Oak tops. To my chagrin nasty tear out! Short in length maybe 3/8 or 1/2" long but a good 64th-32nd" deep! In BOTH directions on the same cut of veneer! GAH! While I was working it earlier I thought that this Oak seemed a bit brittle for Oak. It is a darker color that I normally see it, maybe it's an odd plank but it also gives me the impression that it was dried too much... I don't know know, it just feels dry under my tools.
So I'm left scraping the White Oak, it doesn't even scrape that well! So I have to start sanding with 320 grit (hopefully not 220). I knew I was going to have to scrape that Narra, but Oak? come on! Well like I said, next batch is going to include some walnut, cherry, and maple. Hopefully there will be less surprises heh.

jumping around

More shaping! Yes this time the aprons and stretchers.


Here's one of the stretchers. They're getting a concave curve at the bottom and convex on the top. The bottom on the long side has about a 1/8 - 3/16" amplitude... maybe 5/32" heh and the top curve about 1/16". People should be able to see the bottom curve. From that and the grain graphics the top one is sort of inferred or exaggerated but there is a little curve there to be found upon a closer look.


This is one of the aprons that go above the stretcher and directly below the top. The bottom has a slliiight concave curve. This is the one that I'm really interested if anyone will pick up. I can just pick it out when it's not against a straight object... maybe because I know it's there? eh.

I'm kind of playing around here having a bit of fun with it. It's a little odd in that normally when I think of playful things they are more exaggerated, bold, or dynamic. In the past I've done a couple "bold" pieces; now I'm doing almost the opposite and quite enjoy it. How subtle can one get? Where are the lines between sight, presence, perception, and something being unacknowledgable? Maybe I'll learn something, maybe not. Whatever, I like it.

Moved on to clean up the rebates of the frames. Oh, I meant to share the shoulder plane(s) earlier. Hmm Well this is the 2.0 version. The first one I made I figured that the wedging force was too far from the Point of Operation (PO for some POO for others). So, I just made the shaving hole so that there would be more body material over the blade on the new one.
I got workable results with the Shedua and satisfactory results with the Kwila. Perhaps I'm not adjusted to this plane 100% or perhaps there's some room for improvement or maybe there's a reason there are mostly brass bodied shoulder planes out there. Whatever the case may be I couldn't find much useful information on the web. If you're interested in making one of these don't be afraid to ask about it though I wouldn't consider myself an expert just yet.


Well now over to the veneer I cut a little while ago. In both narrow planks I cut there was a slight color gradation to slightly lighter in the Oak and from a slightly darker, redder in the Nara. This is kind of annoying as I don't have both sides of the tree because flitch cutting isn't very popular. Book matching gives you fighting prismatic effects. I have become kind of paranoid of this because I start noticing it everywhere and it's bothersome to me. Maybe I'll get over it some day but for now I'm making things more difficult. After a quick call to my classmate Craig I decided I wanted to place the darker parts at the outsides of the top where it meets the frame. On one side I can use a wider piece and utilize the natural gradation the other side is the tricky part. It's mainly luck to find a darker streak on one of the light portions (or other way around) that's thick and straight enough to make a joint with. I got one with one of the oak pieces but I'm even harder pressed with the Nara due to it's irregular grain.
I only needed two joints with the width of the veneer but now I have 4 in the one Nara panel I got to and six in the one Oak I got to! I hope it turns out well! I'm not biggest fan of the idea of cutting up bigger pieces to re-assemble them, I kind of have a little Nakashima "syndrome". In this case I don't really have the "luxury"... even if I did my machines are on the small side.

Enough yakkin for now, till next time.

quiet time pillowing

After getting all 16 legs refined in shape on all four sides I started on "pillowing" the faces. This is the first shaping detail I've gotten to on these pieces and I'm happy to be here.
Some might ask me why I have "so many" spoke shaves. If you count all of them I have 9 with space for more. Some have rounded bottoms, then there's low angle and spoke scrape, and some of different sizes for scale of work. Basically I would like to have the right tool for the job... and for some reason I just really like spoke shaves. So I can have multiple tools set for different stages of the same job. When I was working on the Cherry legs of a cabinet I had 3 tools set for rougher to finer shaping. Because these woods aren't the friendliest cut-depths need to be kept quite light so I'm using "just" two :)


The spoke-scrape in action. Different material calls for different tools. This is the first time I've really put this tool to work. It needs to be sharpened more often than the spoke shave but it's a simple process and quite easy to set up once you get a hang of it. I'm so glad I have this tool around I have a feeling there would be some headaches and more time sanding with out it.


The legs are getting just a subtle pillowing. One can hardly see it but put one of these legs next to a flat one and you know something is different. I have just finished the two outside faces of each leg. The backs will be pillowed too but with a tapering increase of pillowing towards the bottom of the leg which will likely end up even less pillowed than the outside faces.

It is a simple process but it takes a long time to do, just to get that little curve of just about 1/16". That's ok, I enjoy this time. Turn on some good music, put on a pot of tea, get comfortable as consciousness fades into a light rock and sway.
Perhaps one of my problems is that my brain wonders and ponders during these times. Those that might know me may agree that I think too much. Sorry? heh

As I sway back and forth feeling the tools getting warm from running across these legs I start to think about the work I'm doing. Taking so much time to add these little details. Beyond a sophisticated CNC machine I don't think there's any machine that can do this. The legs are curved with varying intensity, the front and back with different curves, and the thickness of the legs vary through their flow. A seemingly simple task that only the hand can accomplish.
Is this the way it was done before me? Was it important to the craftsmen gone by or was it done just because? Why have these details been all but lost? What kind of things have been lost? Has the majorety of people lost sensitivity to these kinds of things? Will this be appreciated? Is anyone willing or wanting to see or touch this? How many people have never seen a thing being made let alone understand it?
Why am I feeling a sense of hopelessness combined with the affirmation of process and meaning in craft? Am I going nuts? Hey, was I nuts before?

Like I said, it could be a problem.