Thursday, May 08, 2014

Plan C... the original Plan A

It would be fair to say that building this table is taking longer than I thought it would take.  Still - I like a challenge.

The top is finished, and I trimmed the edges flush, 


 then applied a piece of plywood to hold petrified slab in place. I'll eventually round these corners over, so that no shins will suffer future abuse.


I couldn't persuade them into letting me use these dovetailed legs, which I really love. So we went to Plan C, which was the original Plan A. 


 I traced the plywood, and then made a mock-up of what I needed to cut. I'm going to be making two ends of solid wood, forming an abstract "U" on each end.



 These will be put together with staved panel construction. That's similar to how a barrel is built - creating curves in wood by angling the edges, so that they created curved panels. David Marks explains it well here.




I started by cutting some scrap plywood, establishing the angles that I wanted to cut. (I didn't realize that I was doing it virtually the same way that David lays out his angles - Great minds think alike!)



All I had to do was set my table saw blade at the various angles and rip the strips of wood. This might look complicated, but it was really quite easy.  Everything was Dominoe'd  together, so gluing the pieces together wasn't too difficult.

(Who ever thought that Domino would become a verb?)


 Notice the notch at the bottom of the plywood. 


That allows the table top to sit flush on the base. Sweet. 


I'm almost finished - one side is done, and I'm just waiting for glue to dry on the other. With a little luck, this table will be done soon. You have no idea how happy that will make me!


No comments: