Team Savoy

Without legs, the table is just a slab of wood. Not much fun to eat a deep fried turkey at. If you recall from the drawing, one of the main design features is the legs and the flare they have. I’m not super proficient at SketchUp, so I was unable to show how the legs curve in the drawing where they only curve along one axis. But in reality, they curve on two axes.

In prior tables I’ve made, the legs simply taper which is perfectly fine. But, I was looking for something with a little more interest and complexity. One of my influences was a display table by David Marks, and so I set out to make a leg along those lines, but appropriate for supporting a very heavy dining table.

Let’s show a picture to get a better idea of what’s going on:

On the far left is a template made from 1/8” hardboard. I drew out the curve using some simple guides and tweaked it as needed. After honing it with sandpaper, I made a master template out of 1/2” MDF (2nd from left). This master is what was used to trace all of the legs. Each template is a projection of the curve in one dimension.

In the middle is a sample leg made out of cheap pine. This makes it easier to visualize what the leg will look like and it’s a very valuable step. In fact, this set of legs is the 2nd set I made. I had an earlier design, but once I got to the sample stage, I decided that it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. So, I started over without wasting any good lumber.

To make the leg, you take a block of wood that the leg can be cut from (2nd from right). Now, finding a block of walnut 3” x 3” would cost a fortune (if it could be found). This blank is actually 3 1” thick pieces of walnut face glued together. Even so, each leg cost about $40 in raw materials (whereas the pine leg in the middle cost about $2).

To curve the leg in two directions, you first trace the template on one face. Then on an adjacent face, you flip the template and trace it again. Then, you cut along both traces and when you’re done, you get a leg that curves in two directions (far right). After some scraping and sanding, the leg is ready for joinery.

I’m sure that many of you have heard us talk about the mythical dining table. Some of you may have wondered how that project is going. I am finally ready to start a series of updates of the dining table as it goes from raw wood to finished product.

The goal is simple: create a table for the dining room that facilitates eating and gathering - not just holding junk. We’ve currently got a card table that is excellent at holding said junk. Not so good at the eating, though. Ideally we’d like to seat 8 comfortably and 10 under duress. It must have a design which sets it apart from the typical items you’d purchase at a furniture store. Oh, and it must be awesome. Here is a drawing of what the table should look like once it is complete:

So how far along are we? We’re doing great for the timeline given (it must be done by Thanksgiving). The table boards are cut, leg templates are cut, aprons are cut, and we’re getting close to putting things together.

The main design points are the ratio of width to length, the under bevel, and the curved legs. The ratio is similar to a foyer table I built that we really like. The under bevel is meant to help keep the table feeling light (too many tables out there feel too “heavy” in my opinion). The curved legs are meant to give the table a feminine quality and aid in the lightness. It also shows a growth in my skills as a woodworker (or that I bought more tools) as compared to earlier pieces.

Here’s where it all started.

Picking out boards at Owl Hardwoods in Lombard.

Old trees become new furniture.

Stay Tuned!

Since I am using maple for the edge of the curved desk, I have to curve the wood - something it doesn’t really want to do. I chose to use a steam box to actually bend the wood. It’s not the easiest way, but it will look awesome when it’s done. To accomplish this, I had to first build the steam box and start filling it with steam:

Then, I suspended the piece of maple inside the steam box to let steam circulate all around it.

Then, I just let it steep (cool, huh?)

at about 212 degrees…

After an hour or so, I took it out of the box:

and started bending it around the desk:

I added lots of clamps and used curved blocks to hold the banding in place:

Then, I just let it cool down overnight.

The next day I took the clamps off and voila! A curved piece of wood:

As with most bending processes, there was a little bit of “springback.” Springback is like wood memory. Since it doesn’t really want to curve, it tries to retaliate by bending back a little. I was a little dissapointed at how much springback there was. Oh, well. I guess it doesn’t matter too much in this case since I’m just going to reclamp this to the desk. Next step: glue this piece on…

After finishing the inlay, I focused my attention on the curve of the desk. The desk couldn’t be a simple rectangle unless it was 24 inches wide. I want the desk to be 30 inches wide, but because of the layout of my office, I would run the risk of stabbing myself in the leg every time I walked into the room. So, I decided to make the right side of the desk only 24 inches wide and then curve the rest out to the full 30 inches. This will make more sense when you see it installed. So, how did I make said curve? I’m glad you asked.

I drew a curve on some MDF and rough cut it. And I mean really rough. Then, I used a file and my sander to smooth things out. Once I was satisfied, I traced the curve onto the desk and rough-cut it there. Then, using the template as a guide, I flushed the desk curve with the aid of a flush-trim router bit. At this point, I was left with a solid slab of plywood with a curve cut on one end. Unfortunately, a plywood edge is ugly and so it needs to be banded.

Sometimes it’s enough to just get the heat-activated edging material and iron it onto the edge of your plywood. That isn’t going to work in this case because I want the underside of the desk to have a bevel, mostly for asthetic purposes. So, I’ve got a 5/8″ x 1.5″ piece of maple hardwood that I’m going to edge the desk with. This is easier said than done.

I started out by clamping the piece of hardwood to see if it would even bend around the curve. And for the most part, it did. However, I can’t settle for “mostly” right. Plus, I’m concerned about the wood ripping itself apart once I take the clamps off. Luckily, I have some tricks up my woodworker’s sleeve. Stay Tuned!

 I took a week off of woodworking because I felt I was getting too obsessed with it and not giving other things I like (cooking, my wife) as much attention as I’d like. Last Saturday marked the end of that woodworking hiatus (ok I cheated once) and we drove off to Bloomington to pick up some wood. I needed some 2 inch thick birch or maple to band the edges of my desk (since it’s made of plywood).

After a frantic glue up (thanks for the help K), I’ve got two sheets of plywood laminated together to make a 1.5″ thick desk. Since the plywood was 8 feet long and the desk span is more like 10 feet, I had to “extend” the plywood by gluing some additional material to the end. If it were a perfect world, that’d be the end, but it’s not. Since the plywood butt-joint created a seam where they met, I routed out a slot and inlayed it with some solid birch. After planing this inlay down, it’s as smooth as it gets. I’m hoping a dark stain will cover the fact that none of the grain matches. Here’s what it looks like.

On Saturday we took a drive over to Bloomington so D could buy some wood for the desk he is building. It’s a good thing the back seat folds down in my awesome Chevy Cavalier or we would have had to throw the wood on top of the car and one-arm it the whole way home. In your face, BMW.

After leaving the wood store, we met up with Christa & Kent for lunch at the restaurant formerly known as Delgado’s. It was great to see them since it had been a few months and those two are always good for a laugh. We’ll definitely have to meet up again sometime soon, maybe after the release of the Aerosmith edition of Guitar Hero! After lunch, we checked out the new (to me, anyway) Shoppes at College Hills. I’m glad to see they have done something with that area since it was pretty vacant when I was at ISU.

I would also like to brag that in a fit of spring cleaning, I eliminated 3 garbage bags full of clothes from my closet yesterday. Seeing all that empty closet space makes me want to go shopping. I wonder what Christian would think of my remaining wardrobe…

The wintertime is traditionally woodworking season for those of us not lucky enough to live in a warm climate that supports outdoor activities year round. Like any other hobbyist woodworker worth his salt, I have way too many projects going on at once. For the past two months, I’ve been working on an outfeed/assembly table for my shop. It looks pretty much like this one. Once I finish attaching the doors, it’ll be almost completely done and I will finally have a good place to put a lot of my tools. Hopefully my efficiency in the shop will improve. You wouldn’t believe how long I used spend walking around looking for different tools.  I bet my dad would believe it.

In addition to that, I’ve got a desk that I’m building for the home office. It’s been in pieces for awhile now and with the new assembly table, I’ve got a good shot at getting it done. We’ve also been in the planning stages for a new dining room table in time for Thanksgiving. But, as a rule of woodworking, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need some new tools before I can get that one cranked out. I’m really looking forward to eating on a proper dining room table. So is K since the only thing occupying the dining room when she moved in was a poker table.