Journal of a Furniture Maker

Like all projects, this one begins with a pile of wood. I used three boards of Mahogany and one of Sepele. I labeled the pieces from each board so I could keep track of which board I was using and therefore the individual color and grain from them.

Somehow I missed photos of the step where I milled all that wood into thinner pieces. Here I am gluing some of those together to create a few two toned boards to work with.

And here it all begins. This is the first of many pieces I will glue together to create a series of rings. You can see the outline of the ring I have marked out on this piece of plywood. I will continue to cut and fit pieces to these lines.

You might want to click through to speed things up. And just like that times five.

I made a total of five rings of different thicknesses for the table. The whole stack is three inches tall.

This picture lets you see the different layers as well as the “two toned” pieces I made earlier.

I have marked out the shape on the rings to get ready for the next step which is to glue the rings together.

You will see that process in the next post…

This is a piece I did for show at the Northwest Fine Woodworking Gallery in Seattle. The theme was “Pattern”. It was time for me to break from my usual, my comfort zone.

I liked this general form and originally had planned to veneer the outside and incorporate a pattern on the top. While designing I realized that the brick-layed form I planned to veneer would actually be very interesting in the raw. This caused me to take a whole new direction, one that I feel turned out very nice. Even though the pattern appears random, I spent plenty of time making specific choices about the color and sized of each piece.

In this and future posts I will lead you through the process of making this table. There are more pictures of the finished product at my website. Enjoy.

After a few sketches I did a quick 3-D model to get an idea of scale and color. I knew I wanted to use Mahogony, and it would have still made a nice pattern with just one wood, but I decided to also use Sepele which made the pattern more pronounced. Still think it would be an interesting experiment with using just one wood. The grain and color variation even in the same board would show through.

The offset glass top is for artistic tension if you will. This combined with the leg placement keeps the view as you walk around it ever changing.

Next I will begin showing you how I made this table…

All done and finished. You can see more photos at my website. I have had a great response to this piece so far, and I want to thank everyone for their kind words. Positive feedback keeps me moving. Documenting the making of this table has been a fun experience and will most certainly do it again with my next piece. Until then, I will be posting sketches and inspiration to give everyone a better idea of my creative process.

If you haven’t yet, see this piece from the beginning and follow the posts to see the entire process.

Thanks again everyone. I hope you are all well.

I was playing around with one of my gouges and carving grooves in a piece of wood, seeing what kind of textures I could create, when I looked over and saw what else I was making at the same time. These little wood coils were all over my bench. I just became fascinated by them. It is simply a beautiful shape.

[Read more →]

This next step is where I finally cut and apply all the small walnut pieces to the top. This is particularly enjoyable for me because I get to be free and creative. My intention is to work with the grain and color of the individual pieces arranging them around the top so they transition from active grain to subtle then back. Also, the pieces I am working with are different thicknesses so there is a play in the heights as well. This gives the final look a very nice texture.

[Read more →]

As I work on any piece of furniture I am thinking about where I am at, where I am headed and what the finished product will be. While shaping the legs for this table and thinking of what the top was to be, I started to become unsettled. With so much energy and detail in the top I decided the legs had become a bit of an afterthought. They needed a little more detail and some way to have more of a foot and connection to the ground. This post will show where I decided to go with this and how I did it.

After playing around a bit and doing a few sketches I came up with this shape which will become a relief in the leg. This will play off of what will happen on the top while creating a foot in the leg that connects it to the floor. This shows a plywood jig I have made that I will use a router to create the rough shape with.

[Read more →]

As you move through this post you will see the shaping of the legs. As you saw before they were fit to the top while still solid blocks so that cutting the joinery would be easier. Now it is time to put the curves in and also a taper from front to back.

[Read more →]

This what we will have at the end of this post. I wanted to show you where we were headed so the descriptions make sense as I go along. I will cut the joinery to fit the legs to the top. They are left as blocks so I have a flat square reference for machining. The final shaping will take place after the fitting is done.

The top is left as one piece and the legs are made to look like they are cutting into it. This will be the strongest way to put it together. This way the weight of the ring is resting on top of the legs.

[Read more →]

It’s been a few days, but now it’s time to catch you up on what I have been doing. Last post I had the rail (top) for the coffee table glued together and ready for shaping. The rail is a 61/4″ ring two inches tall. I want to slope the rail toward the middle so it will be 1/2″ on the inside edge, and still two on the outside. I did some fancy footwork with a router jig and got really good results.

[Read more →]

With the core of the rail made I’ll band the inside and outside edges with walnut. I take solid 1/8″ thick strips, bend and glue them to the edges.

I used a series of clamps and backing strips of plywood to glue the band to the rail. I used four pieces to band the outside edge. Each seam will eventually be covered by the legs. By using four pieces cut in series there will be a pattern created as they move around the top. First I glued the two opposite pieces, then came back in with the other two.

[Read more →]