| Blog series by rfusca | updated 08-14-2013 05:24 AM | 5 parts | 8547 reads | 15 comments total |
Part 1: My wife's legs ;)
Making a play table for my daughter and my wife recently ‘took up’ the lathe. She turned these mighty fine legs (but terrible picture, sorry). She got them all nearly identical on the first try! It’s going to be a super cheap play table out of pine that rests over her open top toy box and has a back ‘lip’ to prevent her figurines from falling off. Also, she needed a good place to put her lathe tools while working, so I roughed up a little side rest out ...
Part 2: First mortise and tenons
So, we’ve done a kid’s play table for the living room, but it was one of our first projects and did the whole thing with pocket screws. Now, I’m not anti-pocket screw, but one of our next projects is the dining room table…and I just don’t think that PS are appropriate there. So, I started trying out mortise and tenon. These are the first mortise and tenon joints I’ve done for a project. I think they turned out pretty well – the shoulders are rea...
Part 3: Glue up and clamps that are juuuuuussst barely too short
So, I went to glue up the long apron to the legs and realize my clamps were just barely too short – by about 1-2 inches. So, after some careful experimenting, I combined by 1ft and 3 ft clamps: Overall the glue up went pretty easy after that. I think the table is going to end up looking really well. Unfortunately, I realized the wood I had for the top just really wouldn’t work well and the only other suitable wood in the shop would require a six board top glue up…...
Part 4: Table top jointing and glueup
Well, due to some illness it’s been a bit since I could get back to to keep working on the table – but it’s coming along!I opted for just two wider boards. It’s not really ‘fine furniture’ – it’s just a pine and poplar kids play table – and the wood has been in the environment it will be in (in the house) for a few weeks now. So…I’m not that worried about warping. I put the two ~12 inch wide poplar board face-to-face and w...
Part 5: Rounded table top and back edge
Well, I got the table top glued up. So next I fired up the router with a half inch roundover bit and gave the table a nice edge.The last piece before finishing is a little back edge to keep toys from rolling off the back. Just something slightly decorative and functional.If I was redesigning, I’d make the table legs a little thicker. I’m learning some sketchup, so hopefully I can avoid some regrets like that in the future. The top isn’t attached (or centered on the apron...
