Thread: Side table with a twist

Nice one! I can see how you were puzzled for a while there whilst making it!

Nicely done, Kuff, and a refreshing change from boring, straight lines. I reckon I would still be scratching my head about how to get those legs shaped to fit the shelves properly!

I was wondering if it might look even better with a bigger diameter top? Viewed from the side, it looks a bit too 'attenuated' as it is now, to my eyes. I have a rule of thumb for small tripod tables that for stability, the diameter of the top can't exceed the diameter of floor contact by very much, if at all. A top the same diameter as the bottom shelf would still fit that 'rule', & you'd have room for the whisky glass and the bottle, to save you from having to bend down for a top-up.

OK, I'll go back to my corner & keep quiet, now......

Cheers,

Thanks guys. Ian I didn't really put much thought into the size of the top. I just wanted it to be big enough for my phone and that was good enough for me. I honestly didn't even mock it up some MDF circles which I have sitting beside/below/behind my lathe, but perhaps I should have. And I actually find it quite weird that I didn't. Laziness or old age I guess. Too late now though, it is glued on good and proper. But your comment about the glass AND the bottle has me intrigued. If you plan to drink the entire bottle....save the dishes and drink from the bottle

Originally Posted by Kuffy

..... I honestly didn't even mock it up some MDF circles which I have sitting beside/below/behind my lathe, but perhaps I should have. And I actually find it quite weird that I didn't. Laziness or old age I guess. Too late now though, it is glued on good and proper.....

Hmmm, I guess I've been down enough dusty roads that I nearly always do a mock-up of a new design. Drawing them out to scale gives me a rough idea, but I usually need to see something in the flesh (wood?), and better still, take it indoors where it's going to live. Something seems to happen to proportions between the shed & arriving inside! And last but not least, I like to get the nod of approval from 'er indoors before wasting my time making something that gets rejected.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

..... If you plan to drink the entire bottle....save the dishes and drink from the bottle ....

Ah no, Kuff, been down that road a few too may times too! Just a top-up, maybe, if it's a cold night, the fire's alight, & I'm feeling very comfortable......

Cheers,

Kuffy, I agree with Ian about the top being a little small. How would it go if you made up another top with the same thickness, as the original top, and glued it on top. It would give the eye a little more "bulk" to please the eye.

We can all make squares but the talent comes when you start to make curves. Great example

I was thinking about this a moment ago and I figured out why I didn't even bother to mock up bigger/smaller tops. I had already shaped the legs and tops before I could even roughly assemble to get a sense of scale. And timber doesn't grow on trees (it comes in packs wrapped in plastic) so I wasn't about to waste a good circle, and so there was no need to even think about any other possible option.

Originally Posted by IanW

Something seems to happen to proportions between the shed & arriving inside!

I don't know if you watched the video or not, but if you skip to the end when I reveal the table in its resting position, it surely did look a little too small for the room. It seemed like there was nothing but empty space all around it

Originally Posted by chambezio

Kuffy, I agree with Ian about the top being a little small. How would it go if you made up another top with the same thickness, as the original top, and glued it on top. It would give the eye a little more "bulk" to please the eye.

Thanks. I can shave about 3/16" off the top so it has a nice square crisp edge (currently rounded), and glue on another bigger top. That would be quite acceptable. Though I am not entirely sure it will be better or worse. If I didn't live like an animal, I would have enough stuff around the place to be able to mock up the side table functioning as a side table, but I only have it dumped in a corner upstairs all by itself so it will always look wrong regardless.

I won't be modifying this table in any way. I hate having wasted planing/scraping/sanding/finishing of a piece, better to make a new one from scratch most times. If I do a small production run of these tables, I will make the top bigger as it caters for a greater clientele. But for me, that table will sit upstairs all alone in the corner with a home phone sitting on top of it which will never be picked up by me because I don't know it's number, and anyone that does know the number isn't worth answering for

Don't take the criticism too much to heart, Kuffy - it's your table after all!

Your mentioning a 'production run' got me thinking. It's a nice little table, & different, as is, but the design could be varied in a few minor ways to serve a number of potential uses. With the small top as at present, and just the middle shelf (I'm guessing you need at least one for the structure to hang together) it could be a plant-stand. Or the middle shelf could be dropped & that would give it a different look again.

Just a small royalty cheque from your first million sales will do me, thanks, Kuff......

Cheers,

I didn't take any criticism to heart. You guys are simply suggesting changes to allow for different/greater functional use, and those changes also align with your own sense of preferred design/scale etc. Now if you had of said something DUMB like "your design is wrong", then I probably would have ripped into you and made a 10 page essay response outlining that design is design, it is neither correct or wrong, but it is liked or disliked

The elements of the table can be changed up easily enough (within a new build, because the current one is fully glued together and only a saw or sledge hammer can separate). The middle shelf is there because I was actually planning on putting my modem on that shelf, with a phonebook on the lower shelf. I don't actually use a phone book, but I figured if I had a place for one, I wouldn't leave the phone book on my front porch for a few years before removing it. But because I just eyeballed the size of both my phone and modem, the modem didn't fit. The shelf has a big enough diameter, but the legs close in too much at the top and the modem didn't really fit nicely in there. So I ended up with an extra shelf, but the good news is that my phone book went out with the trash on Tuesday. I can remove the middle shelf and use the same construction method, dowel into the side of the bottom shelf and dowel the top of the legs to the underside of the top. That would work. You could probably break it with a fat butt sitting on it, but don't sit on it, simple!

I reckon the table as currently designed will sell easily, partly because it would be cheap given that it only took about 6 hours to make and it will look nice to those that watch too many reno shows on TV and think they are style queens/kings without worrying too much about long term function. It would look nice with a plant or vase on top, and other "girly type crap" (thats a technical term btw) on the lower shelves.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

.......I reckon the table as currently designed will sell easily, partly because it would be cheap given that it only took about 6 hours to make and it will look nice to those that watch too many reno shows on TV and think they are style queens/kings without worrying too much about long term function.....

Well I think you've got a pretty good design there, & I don't often say that, 'cos I rarely see something new & fresh & different that doesn't look like it's trying too hard to be different! And yep, my suggestion to make a few variants & let the buyers decide what suits their tastes & needs was because it's so hard to divine what is going to induce them to get out their wallets/purses!

But I'm no oracle when it comes to knowing what will sell! Years ago, before the advent of 'Mens' Sheds', I was a member of a local woody group, & we used be invited to do demos at various fairs. The blokes would usually mount a table or two of small stuff we thought were good for 'impulse buys', which made us a few bob for our troubles. One year, I was doing a couple of Cedar occasional tables as my demo, I had one at the dry-fit stage so the audience could see how the parts I was shaping ended up. So many people wanted to buy those two tables, I could've easily sold ten, if I'd had them, but the two I was making were already spoken for (& both 'love' jobs, to boot ). So I comes up with this cunning plan, and worked my butt off in every spare minute I could manage before the next show, to come up with 3 similar tables. All three tables came home with me - didn't even get an offer on a single one! I was glad I still had my day job......

Cheers,

lol so true. cunning plans are usually the most expensive. It is usually better to stick to tried and tested plans