Thread: Low table for a pre-schooler

Very nice mate- it’s great when a project gives good learnings and good results...
just one thought, from personal and 5 children experience: a toddler standing against that table will be more than capable of crushing/breaking a finger or two in the drawer if it slams under his/her weight. Might want to think about a robust soft close or toddler-proof solution.
I’m no H&S fetishist, but I speak as someone who somehow amputated the tip of one of his fingers in the hinge of a playpen over half a century ago, and still have the faded scar as a memento...

Originally Posted by jpdv

Very nice mate- it’s great when a project gives good learnings and good results...
just one thought, from personal and 5 children experience: a toddler standing against that table will be more than capable of crushing/breaking a finger or two in the drawer if it slams under his/her weight. Might want to think about a robust soft close or toddler-proof solution.
I’m no H&S fetishist, but I speak as someone who somehow amputated the tip of one of his fingers in the hinge of a playpen over half a century ago, and still have the faded scar as a memento...

Thanks JPDV. Sorry to hear that happened all those years ago. Ouch!
I didn't intentionally design it to be toddler proof, but I think it somewhat is. The table overhang is 40mm, and the apron above the drawer is only 15mm, so it'd have to be the perfect angle to get a finger in there. Also, the drawer has a hardwood rail that tracks in between two hardwood runners attached to a stretcher under the drawer. It's not shown in the picture, but there'll be 2 small knobs to operate the drawer. It's not perfectly smooth like a ball bearing slide.

All those things together I think will make it relatively toddler proof!

I'm tickled pink that you are so happy with the result because I remember the feeling so well from when I first started.

That's a very nice piece for a first attempt. I look forward to watching you develop into a craftsman over the years.

Have fun!

Originally Posted by John Samuel

That's a very nice piece for a first attempt.

Nice back-hander! I know you didn't mean it that way

Speaking of first attempts though, there's a few things I'd improve if doing this again.

1. One mistake I didn't recover, is the continuous grain apron. I'd do that properly next time. On this project, I did it twice. First time, I'd picked the board with the best grain and executed it really well. But I didn't label the drawer front, and later mistook it for a free board, and chopped it up to become a stretcher that no-one will ever see. I ended up remaking the entire apron, but I got the size wrong on the second try, and ended up using the 1st apron part, and doing my best to get a half-decent grain match with the new drawer front from a different board.

2. I don't like the edge profile on the top. It's very plain. I considered something else, but decided against it. Next time I'll experiment with something more interesting, like an asymetric profile for something more interesting.

3. Sanding laminated boards sucks. I got a reasonably flat top, that looks and feels fine. But it's not flat. The glue up was pretty good, and the boards were milled well, but I could improve my sanding technique. I was methodical with the pencil method, and worked in a systematic way. But I was sanding along the length the boards. It would've been better to work across the glue lines. By the time I went through all the grits from 80 - 240 which took an hour or two, I'd created a few valleys. It's not really noticeable looking at, but I know it could be better.

4. Finishing. This is 5 wash coats of blond shellac sprayed with a conventional suction gun and scuff sanded with 240 between coats, then 3 light coats of Mirocat clear. But I've got a lot to learn with gun setup, spray technique, and things would also go better if it wasn't 12 degrees. I got away with it, but this can definitely be improved. I'm also gonna try a different product for sealer next time as well.

What else?

I feel like the proportions are pretty good. I was winging it. Reduced the apron to get a better visual balance. Leg tapers were gut feel. I don't think I'd change anything there.

What might you change?
Don't be shy, I love critiques!

Cheers, -RW

It is a lovely piece ... perhaps too nice for a pre-schooler who is likely to give it buggery.

I made a table and chairs for my granddaughter about four and a half years ago. If you could see it now you would not be the least bit concerned about the minor imperfections in your piece. It has been given a terrible workover by two little girls (now 4 and 6). If I am still vertical when they are grown up I'll bring the table and chairs back to the shop and refinish them.

One of my early pieces was a 1550 X 1550 mm table. I was concerned about getting the top flat. As luck would have it, my sister's father in law was a cabinet maker. He gave me a 330 mm X 150 mm X 30 mm lump of steel sitting on a piece of conveyor belt rubber. A piece of sanding belt was clamped to the lump of steel and conveyor belt. A rope was attached to either end and my wife and i dragged that lump of steel back and forth across the table from about 60 grit to 120 grit. It took us about 3 hours to flatten it, but flatten it we did. I scribbled all over the top in pencil, and continued to drag on that rope until all the pencil marks were gone.

I recall the hours spent getting cabinet tops flat by blocking them ... until my elbows began to suffer. At that time I spat the dummy and bought a drum sander. Problem solved and elbows cured. As a rule, we should sand such panels at 45 degrees in alternating directions with a block or a belt sander until we get it flat. Then sand along the grain only enough to remove the transverse sanding marks. Better still, get a drum sander as soon as you can afford it. They are truly magic.

I always sketch the job first, to ensure the design and proportions are OK. Design is critical. An ugly piece that is made skilfully is still ugly. A beautiful piece with a few minor flaws is nearly always preferred. Twenty years ago I was in an antiques warehouse in New Orleans. As I walked in I was struck by a most beautiful piece on the far side of the warehouse, and I marched directly to it. An examination revealed a few flaws, but it was a beautiful piece. The cost took my breath away. I was about to walk away when I noticed an ugly squat piece beside the nice piece. The craftsmanship was perfect. It was flawless, but it will forever be ugly. When someone walks into a room and notices one of your better pieces, they are likely to wax lyrical about it's beauty. Unless the person raving about your piece is a woodie, they will almost never notice the flaws you know are there. Woodies have a tendency to look at the detail, but they are a tiny minority. I no longer get excited about minor flaws, which can be found in all my pieces. I have discovered that if I don't reveal the flaws, nobody (except woodies) notices them.

One final piece of unsolicited advice. When people ask me for a piece these days a common response is, "Sure. The queue starts at the Redcliffe jetty". Then they are told that if they ever pressure me to finish the job I'll kick it out of the workshop and start something else. The point, at least for me, is that making furniture is my hobby. I do it for enjoyment and for the pleasure of delivering it to a delighted customer. As soon as deadlines are introduced, it becomes work, and I refuse to allow that to happen. The job will start when it starts. It will get finished when I finish. This applies to gifts like wedding presents as well as paid jobs like the gianormous chest of drawers currently underway. You make the rules in your shop. Those are mine.

Some good shop rules you’ve got there John.

I have a few of those two, along similar lines. It’s my hobby, and I do it mostly for me. So I won’t make a piece unless it’s something I want to make. That doesn’t mean it has to be my style, it just means it has to be something I’m interested in doing! Most of the things that people ask for, I’m not interested in making.

Very true about not revealing the mistakes too. I stopped doing that a while ago. It’s kind of pointless. What is a poor on-looker ‘sposed to say after you’ve just told them about all the crinkles? I don’t mind telling the woodies though, because they often have good advice on how to handle it next time.

Agree with every word you said about something beautiful will win over perfect execution every time. I don’t want to get all romantic about it, but I also believe that mistakes and responding to them is a fundamentally where good design comes from. There isn’t a designer of any kind (I know of) that puts their best idea on paper the first time, executes it precisely as intended the first time, and then never changes it ever. It just doesn’t go like that.

I did have a sketch for this, to figure out what goes where, rough dimensions, proportions, and materials needed. But it wasn’t until I was holding a 60x60 square leg in my hand that I could see the visual weight of it being out of proportion. Tapers were the solution. Same for the apron. In sketch they were 140, but looked too heavy, and were adjusted, which also meant the drawer needed to be reconsidered. Just about every operation had adjustments in this way. For me, that’s what the hobby is about. I really, really don’t enjoy following precise instructions of someone else ‘plan’. That just feels like a job to me.

But to each their own I say. Lotta guys seem to love things I think are revolting. But whatever floats their total boat - it’s their hobby after all!