Thread: A Coffee Table With A Twist

Would anyone recommend piston fit drawers on this?.

I've discovered that planning is always a good thing, especially if you're abit like me tending to change your mind on idea's alot. I keep telling myself, have you thought it through correctly and done things in the correct order?. Despite all this oh so sound self advice, I still manage to bugger some things up!..

A good example of this was installing the casters first without thoroughly planning ahead. I soon realised they had to be removed in order to make room for the base moulding corner brackets!.The triangle things in the photo are the corner brackets by the way, to hold the moulding in place at the erm... corners.

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I was running low on White Oak for the base moulding so I had to figure out a way to make my White Oak go further until I bought some more. So I decided to veneer the top and sides of some plywood. The side veneers are aprox. 6-7mm thick and the top tongue & groove is about 25-30mm:

White Oak veneer on plywood glue up:

23running low on white oak.jpg 24glueup.jpg

Base moulding after veneering and routing:

25completed molding.JPG 26completed.jpg

To keep things within the theme of a board game/card table I settled on a design based on a classical poker card boarder for the base moulding:

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The base moulding is not only attched at the corners but also screwed in at intervals along the length aswell. I don't forsee any wood movement from the molding as its plywood. I'm pretty pleased with how it all came together in the end and I owe most of the accuracy of the mitres to my tablesaw sled setup.

Now I was able to attach the casters!:

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The "bugger" factor is something that you learn to live with, unless you've previously made a few items of similar design. Preplanning and test fits certainly reduce the painful moments but it's easy to make a seemingly simple "minor improvement" that tends to bite you in the rear further down the line.

Originally Posted by EagerBeaver71

Would anyone recommend piston fit drawers on this?.

Personally, I wouldn't. While they make for a nice "show-off" feature, they tend to complicate construction and are more susceptible to later issues with timber movement.

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

The "bugger" factor is something that you learn to live with, unless you've previously made a few items of similar design

Good point. I know if I was to build this again I would go about certain things differently.

Tomorrow I'll be posting the Drawer saga...

Having taken ownership of some new RS white & red oak I set about milling it and making the inset drawers. I didn't want to use metal runners as this is a piece of furniture so I first had to make some 2mm shims for the sides and bottoms of the drawer openings. This would leave a gap around the edge of the drawer fronts.

Red & white oak in the rough:

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The bottom and side runners ready to be glued into the carcass....

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Having glued all the shims in place I took a look at it and realised I could have made life alot easier if I'd gone with false drawer fronts in which case I could have just screwed thicker 6mm shims/runners in place without having to glue the bloody things!. This in turn would have made it oh so easier when it came to fitting the drawers aswell, as I would only need to adjust the depth of the shim rather than the drawer itself for a perfect fit!. Mmmmeh!.

One thing for sure, I wasn't happy. I had to make a decision, do I leave it as is, or some how remove the already glued on shims?... Time for a cup of tea, in my favorite cup.

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to be continued...

After much consideration I decided to plane the runners off and go with false drawer fronts. Planing the things off took quite a while to do and wasn't exactly fun, however, I got there in the end plus it gave me an excuse to buy a new block plane!:

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I made some 6mm runners this time, beveled the ends and screwed them into place apart from the bottom runners which needed gluing due to the lack of room. They looked much better than the 1.5mm glued on runners I had on previously, I know what you're thinking, 'they're only runners no one will see them!', yep true, however I will know they're there and how ugly they look!.

Here are the fitted runners, second photo shows the bottom runners being glued and held down by mini cauls until the glue set:

35fitting new runnersaIMG_0145.jpg 35fitting new runnersIMG_0145.jpg

Finally I was now able to get the measurements of the drawer openings and make the box jointed drawers, something I was quite looking forward to doing as I had just bought myself a nice new Incra jig to do just that!. Having milled more white oak and cut it to size I set about using the new jig on the tablesaw to make the box joints. You can use the Incra Ibox on a router table however I haven't built one yet, that will be my next project.

White oak all cut to size:

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With the instructions of the Incra Ibox Jig read and re-read I set it up to make some test cuts. I soon realised I would have to be very careful as there was alot of cutting to be done and I would have to take things slowly, concentration & consistency was required with every step.

I took no notice of this advice of course and my first cut was bloody buggered. When you first setup the Incra Ibox you're meant to adjust the pin plates to fit the test cut you had just made. Me in my 'eagerness', used the wrong end of the test piece which also had a test cut in it but slightly wider, so when I adjusted the pin plates to that size it was too wide by about a milimeter. Idiot.

Here's the offending test piece with two different sized test cuts in it:

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Fortunately I spotted the mistake early so I only had to fill one hole. I cut some oak to size and glued it in place:

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This was the only mistake made fortunately and I took my time butchering through all the box joint until finally I had this lot, a rather large jigsaw puzzle:

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At least I had the gumption to number everything I thought. As it happened, everything fitted together nicely, dry fitted of course, glue up would take place tomorrow first thing as it was nearly knock off time and my mouth was as dry as a nuns you know what through working in a extremely hot garage!.

I love everything to do with woodworking, even sanding, but waiting for glue to dry really does my head in at times. I always try and find something to do while its drying however there's only so much polishing my table saw can withstand. That being said I decided to go with captured drawer bottoms so I proceeded to cut rebates in the drawer sides. After that it was just a matter of the glue up:

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I was very impressed with how easy every drawer assembled, there were no moments of panic which is what I sometimes get when a joint is too tight after glue is applied, after clamping everything was checked for square.

After the glue had dried I sanded the drawer edge pegs flush. Notice the sides of the drawers are clean and without a rebate notch, inevitably there's always a notch (hole) where one side of the box or drawer has this, unless you decide to fill it or use a router to make the tongue & groove and fall short of going through the ends. The reason I mentioned this is because I had to make sure the sides would not show the holes, this was done by careful measurement of the joint and making sure the rebate groove falls within a gap and not a peg.

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Originally Posted by EagerBeaver71

I love everything to do with woodworking, even sanding, but waiting for glue to dry really does my head in at times. I always try and find something to do while its drying however there's only so much polishing my table saw can withstand. That being said I decided to go with captured drawer bottoms so I proceeded to cut rebates in the drawer sides. After that it was just a matter of the glue up:

38IMG_E0169.jpg 39IMG_E0170.jpg

I was very impressed with how easy every drawer assembled, there were no moments of panic which is what I sometimes get when a joint is too tight after glue is applied, after clamping everything was checked for square.

looks good Sam.
I remember a time when I would clamp newly made drawers together something like that. Nobody ever told me how to do it better or that it may have been done different in the old days when making new stuff. When you get to the stage of traditional DT's helped out with routing the waste if you like, you will find you can knock drawers together with glue and check for square and use no clamps. Just carefully place each drawer to one side as its glued up. Usually drawer front down. And come back to them when dry. You could do the same with those finger jointed pieces if the joints are tight enough and the pieces stay straight before assembly. Which is all about looking after and storing the parts correctly as they are made . With restoration jobs and warped parts clamps are often needed for drawers. Not very often on new jobs though.
Its pretty satisfying to see a row of freshly glued up drawers sitting there out of the way, all true and not a clamp in sight of them so you can continue on with the next step in the build.
Clamping drawers, the weight of them and the twist or bow that they give the parts while needing to check for square. The workshop space they take up while drying, is something to avoid if possible. Even though getting them square works well going from internal corner to corner.

Hopefully a bit of advice like this can steer you in the direction of other ways to do things and keep you from the evil ways of the internet new Youtube builders. Like that info you offered a while back of using drinking straws to clean up excess glue. I was thinking "Where does he spit out the glue? "



Rob.

Originally Posted by auscab

When you get to the stage of traditional DT's helped out with routing the waste if you like, you will find you can knock drawers together with glue and check for square and use no clamps. Just carefully place each drawer to one side as its glued up. Usually drawer front down. And come back to them when dry. You could do the same with those finger jointed pieces if the joints are tight enough and the pieces stay straight before assembly. Which is all about looking after and storing the parts correctly as they are made .

Thanks for the excellent advice Rob. I always wondered If I could get away without clamping the things. I found out the hard way when I built that red oak cabinet, I was over clamping everything when all that was needed was a slight tighten to hold bits together if anything. With the finger jointed drawers, I think I could quite easily have just not clamped them as you say, as soon as the joints had been pushed together there was no way of pulling them apart anyway.

Originally Posted by auscab

Hopefully a bit of advice like this can steer you in the direction of other ways to do things and keep you from the evil ways of the internet new Youtube builders. Like that info you offered a while back of using drinking straws to clean up excess glue. I was thinking "Where does he spit out the glue? " .

Like everyone on the forums your advice is always appreciated because of your experience so I'm always grateful to be steered by the best!.

Originally Posted by auscab

I was thinking "Where does he spit out the glue? " .

He doesn't, he swallows.

Originally Posted by eagerbeaver71

he doesn't, he swallows.

lol .

Instead of just having plain drawer fronts I decided to glue some delicate mitred beading around the edge which I hoped would make them more interesting. I think I over estimated how much beading I'd need somewhere and made too much!:

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Once again all the mitres were done using my tablesaw sled:

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I was originally going to glue the faces to the drawers first as suggested by my good friend Rob (auscab) but then realised I would have problems clamping the beading after the fact. So I came up with another solution which was clamping the beading to the faces first using my tablesaw sled like this:

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The wooden cauls to hold down the beading:

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After abit of sanding they came out quite nice:

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All that was left to do was glue them to the drawer fronts, and that would be the coffee table base pretty much completed:

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And this is where I'm currently at folks, the top tray wont get secured until the inside has fabric applied, the top completed and everything has been stained a similar colour to my clock (a warm dark Walnut colour). I have alot of decisions to make regarding the top, mostly thickness and opening mechanism, oh and abit of geometry to boot!.

Quick question:
I plan to veneer my own panels for the coffee table top instead of buying the ready made veneered stuff. What substrate is recommend, I imagine its plywood. Also the two table tops need to be 15mm thick each so what thickness substrate should I buy, be it plywood or other?.

Put another way, how thick should I make the veneers and what thickness should the substrate be to make it 15mm
thick in total.

One of the nicest ply for veneering onto I used to use was from Tait timber in glen Iris . Im not sure if it was Gaboon Ply or what it was. It was a warm colured asian timber but it had some weight and rang when You knocked on it. It was reasonably hard. Not hollow or soft sounding. And many laminations. I haven't been back there for any more for some time. Birch ply would be nice. 12mm thick would do wouldn't it? The more soft and cheaper stuff the more flex you will get. Are you going to press sliced Oak veneer or sawn from your own wood?