This is the table I built for the FWW contest, build a piece of furniture from a 2" x 10" x 10' maple board or the equavilent of 17bd/ft. I chose curly maple.
For those interested here's my build description that went with the entry:
Floating Top Hall Table
14 ¼”W x 41”L x 31 ¾”H
I've admired this style of table for quite some time. Your contest was the perfect opportunity to give it a try.
The first task was to draw out my design to full scale. I taped together some poster board and began laying out the design. The most difficult part was figuring out the radius for the arc on the aprons, which ended up being 47” and 43".
Next was to find a 2" x 10" x 10' curly maple board, I wasn't able to find a board of those dimensions in my area, so I had to make due with the equivalent of 17bd/ft., fortunately the 2 boards were from the same tree. I then skip planed the boards to pick out best part layout, I was able to get all the parts except the top from one board. I rough cut all my stock. What was really cool about building the project from 8/4 material was that all the parts except the legs are book matched, they were cut sequentially across the width of the board.
I needed to make a plywood template for the aprons, this was done with Baltic birch plywood and a router circle cutting jig. The aprons needed to be laid out for tennons and sliding dovetails, these were cut before the shape was done. The template was used to trace out the shape of the aprons, then rough cut on the band saw. Then the template was fastened to the aprons with 2-way tape and final dimensioning was done on the router table with pattern cutting router bit.
On to the legs, they had been rough cut during layout, now the mortises were cut with a bench top mortising machine. The tapers were then cut using a tapering jig on the table saw, the legs were tapered on three sides. The legs were rounded over on all sides with a 3/8" round over router bit on the router table. The cross braces were previously rough cut, final dimensions were done, and then the pins for the male end of the sliding dovetail were cut as well as the female sliding dovetail for the top supports. The remaining parts received a 45* bevel on the router table. At this point the base was ready for the first dry fit, all was good.
On to the top, the 8/4 board had previously been rough cut to 7 3/4" x 43", it was resawn on the band saw, flattened and planned to rough thickness of 7/8". The top was then book matched and laminated together. When the glue dried the top was run through a thickness drum sander to its final 3/4" thickness. The top was then cut to its final dimensions of 14 1/4" x 41" on the table saw, and then a 15* bevel was cut on all edges.
Now was the most stressful part of the project, I'd never done inlay before, so I cut a piece of plywood to the same dimensions as the top, laid out my inlay pattern and cut the grooves using an 1/8" straight cutting router bit, a plunge router and a router fence. The depth of the inlay grooves was 3/16". All was good with my trail run on the plywood. I laid out the pattern on the top and cut the grooves. While cutting the inlay pattern, it was constantly in the back of my mind, that if I messed this cut up, I didn't have enough material left to cut another top, fortunately I didn't make any mistakes. The inlay groove corners then were squared off using a chisel, and then sealed with shellac to help prevent the dye from bleeding into the inlay.
All parts were sanded to 180 grit. The legs were dyed using amber dye, 50% water and 50% alcohol. The top was dyed using 50% amber dye, 50% Van Dyk Brown dye, 50% water and 50% alcohol. When the dye was dry, all parts were sanded with 220 grit sandpaper, removing the raised grain and all dye except what remained in the figure (popping the grain). The top was recoated with same mixture but not sanded back this time. The base was now glued and clamped. When the glue dried the base and the top received 2 coats of BLO.
Now to the inlay on the top. The grooves on the top were all taped off using blue painters tape, the inlay was cut 1/8" x 1/8" using an off cut from the top stock. The inlays were then glued into the 3/16" grooves. Once the glue dried the inlay was planed back using a low angle block plane to just proud of the masking tape, then finish sanded by hand to 220 grit. When the tape was removed the inlay sat proud of the table top by the thickness of the masking tape, that would be dealt with in the final coats of finish. The top was then recoated with BLO to help seal the inlay.
Both the base and the top received a sprayed on tack coat and a wet coat of shellac to seal the project. Once the shellac was dry, both the top and base were rubbed down using a fine 3M pad. The base received 3 coats of Deft Brushing Lacquer sprayed on. The top received many coats of lacquer, until it appeared that there was enough finish thickness that the finish could be sanded back until the inlay and the table top felt flush. Then one final coat of lacquer was applied.
The project was allowed to dry for several days then wet sanded to 2000 grit, a coat of wax was applied and the top fastened to the base.
I'm quite pleased with results and I was able to apply some new techniques I haven't tried in the past.
Thank You for considering my Floating Top Hall Table.
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