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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    15

    Default Making Coffee table....Timber?

    Key attributes:Simple (given skillset), rugged (given kids) but hopefully good looking (given wife)..

    Have used pine on all my previous projects, ie TV cabinet, simple bookshelf. Cheap. If I stuff up, then no huge drama. Bung on some Gel and clear laquer, done. But wanting to "step up". Can you suggest a wood thats the next level up, is reasonably inexpensive, easy to work with? The finish...something thats sort of darkish...Dont know how to get that, but thats the hope...

    Thanks all..

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Brisbane
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    464

    Default

    Welcome,
    Work out how much you need in lineal metres. Go to a few timber places and see what they have got. You could find a batch of something interesting.

    New floor boards might also be the go. They are available in various widths and varieties.

    Take a tape measure and calculator.

    have fun.
    conwood

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Brisbane (western suburbs)
    Age
    77
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    12,093

    Default

    XtremeNewb,
    As I'm sure a flood of replies is going to advise you, just get the wood you really want, and use it! A good-sized coffee table (900 x 1200?) doesn't take that much wood (20-25 super feet, in the old lingo). The difference in cost between Pinus crapiata and Blackwood (you wanted a 'darkish' wood) is not all that much in actual $$s. And if divided by the number of years you might like to posses a decent bit of furniture, the annual payments look rediculously small!

    Though your skills may be limited at this stage, it is actually easier to work with good quality wood than knotty junk cut for maximum yield, and nothing else. Bowing, twisting, cupping and great ugly knots don't make for ease of construction!

    I remember how anxious I felt, taking a saw to my first really 'nice' bit of wood. I'd just spent several months' worth of disposable income on it, and there was exactly enough for the job, (a hall table with turned legs and a drawer) and not a splinter more. I got the job finished, with no major mishaps other than a redesign of the legs necessitated by a particularly vicious dig-in (on the last one of the 4!! :eek: ).
    An interesting footnote: I was pretty damn pleased with myself and the table at the time, but about 10 years ago, my skills and critical eye had changed a little, and the very mawkish turning on those legs really annoyed me. I eventually had to pull it to bits, & re-turn the damn things. Fortunately, there was plenty of wood to work with, thanks to the timid little amateurish cuts of my first effort! I also rebuilt the drawer-runners (which I'd made a right dog's breakfast of, since I was working solely from a front-on photo, and had no idea of how to do it properly, then).

    So, even though you could say I'd stuffed up here and there, there was excelent wood in it, which made it worthwhile to do a little 'renovation'. Had it been pine, I would have just checked it out, and been out of pocket for that, plus the wood to make a new one!
    Cheers,
    IW

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    15

    Default

    Thanks for your timely replies. Yes, re Pine, have found it not that good to work with-its been a case of hmmmmm, that doesnt appear to be cut square, bowed etc. So my efforts thus far have been daggy to say the least. Dont look too close at my efforts thus far. Though my family seems happy enough. Still feeling my way -looking at my stuff, and thinking, coulda done that better. End of the day, whatever I have done can be "recycled" to kids stuff anyway.

    Can you reccomend a finish that would be mahogany like? Goes with our house, its interior, ie dark piano in room, Moran furniture etc.

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Buderim
    Age
    52
    Posts
    100

    Default

    Dark woods:

    Tasmanian blackwood
    Blackbean (need really sharp tools)
    Jarrah (bit redish for my liking)

    Visiting timber yards is a good idea but if you find this daunting there are some excellent books and web sites showing colour slides of each wood.

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Tasmania
    Posts
    597

    Default

    Fiddleback myrtle, finished with danish oil. Not too dark and not too red. I made one for myself and boss.
    If you can do it - Do it! If you can't do it - Try it!
    Do both well!

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Near Bodgy, AlexS, Wongo & CraigB
    Age
    18
    Posts
    2,666

    Default

    what about some oregon / douglas fir? i've made tables from it and its:
    easy to work,
    cheap,
    comes DAR from structural timbers merchants,
    has lovely figures,
    Knots
    striking grain patterns (the summer and winter bands of the growth is a lovely dark red/orange contrast).

    a very underrated timber if you ask me. dont let these hardwood bigots blight all softwoods. mind you radiata pine is very ordinary.... I dont like it much either.... Its quite light so you wont have to be a he man to lift it either.
    Zed

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Canberra
    Age
    47
    Posts
    1,484

    Default

    Hey Newb

    I reckon, if it is your first time using hardwood, that tassie oak from bunnings etc is hard to go past. It is easy to get in a rnage of sizes and you can get into it easily and quickly. Then move into the more exotic timbers later on.

    Trav
    Some days we are the flies; some days we are the windscreen

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Melbourne, Aus.
    Age
    71
    Posts
    12,746

    Default

    Check out any timber recyclers in your area ... jarrah, brushbox and redgum may be available and some guys will machine to your specs.

    House wreckers often turn up oregon in good sizes but in my view this doesn't wear well as furniture.
    Cheers, Ern

  11. #10
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Eden Hills, South Australia
    Age
    62
    Posts
    3,458

    Default

    My local Bunnings sell a timber by the name "durian". It's reasonably inexpensive, straight and easy to work, and could be considered the next step up from radiata.
    Those are my principles, and if you don't like them . . . well, I have others.

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Towradgi
    Posts
    4,835

    Smile

    X, for my first real attempt at furniture, a "coffee table", I brought a Redgum Slab (E. camaldulensis), some 700x500x60, with a pair of Scot's Pine Legs (P. sylvestris), carved via Chainsaw. Cleaned everything up with a handplane, palm sander and circular saw. Solid, it's a two man lift! Thus kid resistant. How many times are you going to move it anyway.

    Follow the advise of my more experienced bretheren above, find some timber that you like wherever, and have a go!

    I found the above lot at Lithgow, whilst on a "romantic" weekend away with the MBGitW!
    Pat
    Work is a necessary evil to be avoided. Mark Twain

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