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28th November 2020, 11:00 PM #1Senior Member
- Join Date
- Nov 2018
- Location
- Brisbane AU
- Posts
- 119
First furniture project...and some important lessons
Well, time to finally get around to posting on my first minor piece of furniture. We were in need of a coffee table and to be honest I was disappointed with what is available in the shops at reasonable prices. Looking for something on the mid century spectrum, but after months of looking I couldn’t find anything with the right timber / shape combination. A lot of what was available from the shops was blonde and we were looking for something in the red spectrum. So......brilliant excuse to try my hand at making something.
I had purchased some western Australian sheoak from auction near Harvey. Beautiful timber, but it took me a while to get up the confidence to use it, hoping that I wouldn’t ruin the timber.
Once I settled on the design, I got to work finding boards for the top.Top was sourced from some book matches boards, that started life at a good thickness in excess of 40mm but only came to 24mm one flattened. Thick enough for the project given the support under the top...
From here, is was a matter of planing the top flat, and then I wanted to cut a 30 degree champher on either end. Wasn’t sure how to do this at the time, so made up a jig for the job. Screwed a piece of timber underneath that located into the track in my sliding table, took a deep breath making sure my fingers were clear and pushed it through the blade....
It was at this point, I forgot to take any photos of the assembly of the base.....constructed out of 30mm thick sheoak, with all joints Slotted and glued.
Once glued up, I finished it with hard burnishing oil, which did a good job of bringing out the grain in the sheoak.
I finished the coffee table in December 2018, and promptly started to use it. So far, it has held up very well. The finish isn’t as tough as I had hoped, but strength wise it has been good. There are 2 stretchers running along under the base plus a third directly under the top which has held it together pretty well.
If I made another one, I’d attempt sliding dovetail construction rather than dadoe and probably spend a little more time easing the edges......
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1st December 2020, 12:20 PM #2... and this too shall pass away ...
- Join Date
- May 2012
- Location
- Brisbane (Chermside)
- Age
- 71
- Posts
- 2,084
A very long time ago I was in New Orleans looking at antique furniture. I spotted a piece from across the room. It was gorgeous. When I walked up to it I could see that the craftsmanship was not quite spot on ... not bad, but not brilliant. Beside it sat a piece where the craftsmanship was indeed excellent, but it was ugly.
It seems to me that good design is essential in cabinetmaking, and I really like the design of this piece. It is simple but elegant, bold, a bit different to what one normally finds and I'll bet it draws plenty of comments. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but that matters not at all if you like it, and I hope you love it to death.
That, sir, is a great start to your cabinetmaking career. Well done.
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