Thread: WIP Curved Coffee Table

Wouldn't worry too much about the plain Tassie Oak as it will highlight the Jarrah nicely, rather than compete withit for attention.

With those dimensions, thats gona be a massive coffee table or a small dining table.
Maybe making it about 1200 x 600 x 400 would make it a more desirable sized coffee table. IMHO 620 is way too high.

Hey all. thanks for all the suggestions and they have been taken aboard. The reason why I made it such a large coffee table is because it's got a lot of space to fill! Not to mention the couches it will be sitting by are quite high seated, hence the 620. Also I drew the table to scale and it looks all in proportion and not toooo big. Also, the flat section of the coffee table is 880 long so I mean i think that is a good amount of flat table top.

I've got a couple flicks for you today,

they are of the jarrah which I ripped up yesterday and machined to final sizes, a couple of the beasts I used to machine them and the clamped up top for the top section of the table.

Tomorrow I have to put a 3.2 degree angle on a butt load of tasi oak for the rounded ends. Hopefully I can sweet talk the machinist to grind me up a very special 3.2 degree cutter for the spindle moulder, fingers crossed!

Appologies for not having a photo of a detailed sketch of the table I am making, I'll be sure to have one for you by tomorrow and also the picture quality I took the photos on my phone, sorry lol.

Thanks for having a peek.

Spence.

Keep it coming.

Spencer,

where are you doing your course?? Just that I'm interested in a career change

Cheers

Nik

following this one with interest. Lovely looking jarrah.

I can't picture the table in my head yet, and it does sound very big, but I guess we'll see it as it progresses.

Oh, and is there a label on the saw called "friggen big ass ripping saw"? If not, sounds like there needs to be. Conveys everything that is needed to be known about the saw

Cheers,
Dave

Ok Spencer is about to explode! Just typed out my entire day for you all to enjoy (or not) and my internet screws up! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!


Now that I've vented that out allow me to re-type what i can remember.

Today my brain seemed to not want to work very well, if not at all! Had a few mess ups here and there but thankfully they were easy mistakes/forgotten pieces to fix. I spent a big portion of the morning trying to get an exact 8.2 degree angle onto my tasi oak for the half round ends. After a lot of frustration and hair loss we finally got the angle! Success (so far)... All i can say is thank fonzi for the spindle moulder with a tilting spindle head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If it weren't for him, i'd say this project would be in the fire wood bin by now.

I also machined up a whole heap of 2mm jarrah veneer to put in between every second piece of tasi on the half round, so it has the continued look of the top. Putting the jarrah through the thicknesser was pretty interesting, a fair few exploded veneers of jarrah but i got just enough. My lecturer suggested that i glue and clamp the veneer on, which i did with a fair bit of mucking around and glue all over the place! Tomorrow i'm going to ditch that idea, i'm going to glue and staple them on and thn once the glue has set i will remove the staples.

What else did i do today?

After reading all this through again it actually seems as though i didnt really get much done. But the next few days should be fun/not fun assembling the ends and magazine tray. Bring on the stress i say!


Hey Nik, i am doing my course at Swan Tafe Balga (now know as Polytechnique west or some wank), it is a 3.5 year apprenticeship. Cabinet making is a fantastic choice for a change on career, there are so many options for work once you have completed the apprenticeship. I work in kitchen making, but tafe revolves around furniture construction, which is what i really love to do (make furniture). Let us know if you chose to go with the apprenticeship.

Pictures for today:

Theres some attempted photos of my scale drawing, a end view of my half round end, some shavings, a horrible side view drawing of my table design which i did on paint and the jarrah veneer.

Till next time,

Spence.

Just a quick one for today.

Got all the veneers stuck down to the tasi oak thank god and am in the process of getting it all flushed off.. Also got the angles cut for the sides of the table which was a success. Was thinking about how to join the angled pieces and thought i'd do splines running through the ends made out of jarrah, so there is a photo of all those cut up and ready to be used..

And i gave the stapling of the veneer to the tasi a flick because it just didnt work, so i opted for the packing tape instead.. Thank god for packing tape!

Photos today:

Marking out the timber for the sides of the table, trying to get some order to my pieces for the half round hence the half windmill on the ground and a couple of others.

Have a great weekend and till next time..

Spence.

This is really great Spencer, the plans loo really interesting and I can't get over the colour in that Jarrah, so far so good.

An interesting design there Spencer and you have made a good start.

Some really nice looking Jarrah too.

Hey guys, its been a busy couple days. I've planed down the veneers to be flush with the tasi oak and was about to glue and tape half of each end but decided to join them in pairs and then biscuit them together for extra strength. When I was gluing them together my lecturer suggested a way to clamp them together with string and wedges. Unfortunatly this failed so I went with my idea and used packing tape which worked a charm. There were some uneven joins so I had to plane some of the angles by hand, which was frustrating to say the least.

I then put them together and thank god it formed an almost perfect semi circle...

Pretty exhausted now but tomorrow should be awesome and should have the sides done by tomorrow..

Have a look at the photo's, i think these ones are self explanitory..

till next time,

spence.

Nice tunnel there for the model train mate. Just needs some paint and a few artificial tress and some grass.

hahaha most time consuming tunnel i've ever made!!

Looking good

I've found the tape idea works pretty well on irregular shapes when I've used it (exactly once!)

Cheers,
Dave