The first coat, a tongue oil varnish, is brushed on. This finish sinks into the wood and brings out the natural beauty. I don’t let the finish dry but rater wipe it off when it is still wet. This makes sure that the coat is even and not on the surface of the wood.

I set up the table top in the spray booth and prepare to spray on the water based finish. The product is very durable and as a bonus it is much better for the environment because it is not solvent based and made to very strict standards.

I use this spray gun to apply the first coat of the top coat.

It was hard to get an action shot but this gives the idea. I spray an even layer on the whole surface.

I use the reflection from this light to help see what I am doing. The light helps highlight the wet edge as I try to get an even layer of finish.

When the finish dries I sand it with fine sand paper. This begins the process of leveling the finish.

I spray it again and again and again. For the final sheen I rub out the finish with steel wool and a bit of wax to help give the table a fantastically smooth feel.

I always like to photograph the finished piece as it heads out the door. I am very happy with the way this table turned out so I will definitely want to add it to my Tables section of my website.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow I deliver the table. I cant wait to see how it looks in its new home!

Coffee Table Commission
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I am going to use a router with a collar to blast out the channel for the cross pieces. The collar rides in the rectangular cut out below.

I trim and then drill the cross pieces on the drill press. I make some of the holes oversized to allow the table top to expand and contract. You cant stop wood from moving so I must allow for it.

The under structure is attached to the table top. I have added the two additional curves in the front of the photo. They allow me to add extra support to the legs. As a bonus I like the way they add to the composition.

I flip the table over and I can now concentrate on composing the top of the table.

I use a router to rough out the facets on the table top. Then I use hand tools to clean them up.

I sand the table top with a power sander.

I follow that up with a thorough hand sanding.

The under structure gets treated to the same hand sanding. There is nothing left to do but put on the finish! Well there is one more thing to do…

Sign the piece!

Coffee Table Commission
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I begin with a flexible curve, a straight edge and my pencil.

Off to the bandsaw and then the edge sander to clean them up.

The curved stretchers go through a similar process. I sketch on them with a pencil then its off to the bandsaw. These pieces will require some hand work to clean up. Hand tools are amazing if you know how to use them.

All of the parts get sanded by hand. Now I can figure out how to glue this all together.

This stage needs to be carefully planned out. There is nothing worse than a glue up gone awry.

I feel comfortable so I spread glue on both parts of the joint. Clock is ticking as the glue starts to set up.

So far so good! I will wait for the glue to dry and then glue on the other three legs.

Again I will have to plan out every detail. I think I am ready to go.

Done! Everything went together perfectly.

Coffee Table Commission
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I am now going to focus on the classic woodworking joint- the mortise and tenon. Evidence of this joint dates back to the furniture in the Great Pyramids in Egypt. I am quite sure that every woodworking culture has developed the same or similar joint. The reason is twofold. First the joint is strong. One piece of wood slips into the other. The result is a piece of furniture can take volume without glue. The second great advantage of the joint is that it creates a perfect situation for glue. Wood is a strange material in that it can be glued together successfully except for the end of a board. Glue does not work there. The beauty of the mortise and tenon joint is that it takes a situation where you would have one of those end grain joints and creates long grain to long grain glue surface.

Here we go.

As usual this sort of precision work begins with having a clear plan and lots of pencil lines.

Off to a modern machine, The Multi-Router, to help create this classic joint.

The work is clamped to the table and the router bit cuts the slot, also known as the mortise.

Here are two of the legs.

This intersection is going to be tricky.

I have to prop the leg up to accommodate the various angles of this intersection.

All done with the mortises!

Here is where this machine really shines. I can cut integral tenons with it. This adds another level of quality to my woodworking arsenal.

There is a stylus that will follow a pattern. The result is that the router bit will copy the tenon shape to the end of this curved stretcher.

It is quite the operation.

Ready to go together.

This is a good example of the mechanical advantage of this sort of joinery. The structure can stand without glue.

The first look at the table!

Coffee Table Commission
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On the way to my workbench I have rough cut the angles on the bandsaw. My style allows for spontaneous composition as the piece of furniture is made. It is fast and it is fun. The finished furniture is a visual record of the decisions that i have made along the way.

The final leg is more of a challenge. It is comprised of three pieces of wood that need to add up to a specific angle. This is a major intersection in the joinery of the table. I use the bandsaw to make the first angle cut.

I position the parts on the actual table so there is no guesswork. This helps me visualize and measure the third piece that makes up the leg.

The first three legs are carefully glued up.

The final leg is more of a gluing challenge. I need to make sure that the wedged pieces don’t slip out of alignment.

I need to refine the legs by bringing them to the jointer. I will flatten one face.

Next stop is the Hammond Glide Saw this saw is being repurposed by me. The saw was originally designed for the printing industry. It was used to cut lead type for letterpress printing.

The great feature is the ability to raise the blade to a height of almost 5 inches and the super accurate sliding table.

I trim the other end of the leg in the table saw with the help of the cross cut jig. I clamp a stop to the fence so that all of the legs end up the same exact length. Woodworking is a precise exercise. This is why the freedom that my style allows is so important to me. I ned it as an antidote to this sort of multi step pre planning.

Its time to see how well everything is fitting. I butt the stretchers up to the legs and make sure that the angles were cut correctly. Once I am happy it is time to cut the joints that will hold everything together.

Coffee Table Commission
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I put the lamination on my workbench and draw a line that I will follow on the bandsaw

This is advanced stuff so no one should attempt to do this sort of acrobatic cutting.

Off to the jointer to clean up the bandsaw marks. I have cut off the excess glue so it should be much nicer to the knives in the jointer.

To the table saw for the final acrobatics. To make the other edge glue free and parallel to the band sawed and jointed edge

The bent lamination will always be open at the ends. I make sure to leave lots of material to be cut off. That way the part I need is perfect.

Here you can see that the lamination lines are almost invisible.

I need to prepare the other curve and I will be able to shift gears to the joinery of the legs and stretchers.

The ends of the stretchers need to be cut to length. I am leaving enough room to cut integral tenons on either end. this will be explained in detail in a later post.

Now the other end needs to be cut to length.

Time to start to think about making the legs! I love this stage of the project. Soon, very soon, I will be able to flip the table over and see it for the first time.

Coffee Table Commission
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Next stop is the table saw to rip the one remaining rough edge parallel.

I am using a marking gauge to draw a parallel line just less than a 1/4″ thick. I am targeting a size that will be able to bend over the form without breaking.

I set the fence on the big bandsaw to that dimension.

I start to peel off layers of the wood.

After each pass I go back to the planer to smooth out the bandsaw marks before the next pass

The pile of laminates is not quite ready. Each piece has one rough side from the bandsaw.

The pieces are too thin to go through the planer so I use a piece of plywood to support them.

Ready for lots of glue and a tremendous amount of clamp pressure.

Here we go. The laminates are covered with a few layers of thin plywood to help even out the clamp pressure.

A bit further. By now I am wondering why I haven’t figured out a way to do this without having to use me hands? They hurt and there are so many more clamps to go on.

All done!

I always complain while I am doing a bent lamination. Once it is over and I have the curved wood to work with it all seams like a distant memory. The benefit to my furniture is that I now have an element that will accentuate the movement that is central to my style. Bent lamination is the technique best suited to a shop of my size making one of a kind pieces of furniture. That said I have been inventorying steam bent curves that I have been buying from a company in the Mid West. The quality has blown me away. I think it is time for me to order a variety of curves in a variety of woods. Working with them is not an option for this piece because it takes 6 weeks for the curves to arrive. If I had them in inventory I could augment those curves with the occasional bent lamination. The quality of the piece would not suffer, the cost of the materials would not be different but my hands would be a lot happier. Plus I need to take a long hard look at the amount of waste involved in the bent lamination process and compare it to the amount of energy needed to steam bend and ship from the Mid West. I have made a number of improvements to my environmental footprint since opening my doors in 1995. I think this is one more place that I can choose the “green” solution without compromising a thing. I have to pay attentions since my shop stands at about 35 feet above sea level. Such are the concerns of life in the Hamptons.

Coffee Table Commission
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The glue is water soluble so i go in with a brush and water to clean up the joint. There will be a lot of sanding needed to clean up the watery residue but it is easier than dealing with dried glue.

Last glue up for the table top.

I unclamp the table and set it out of the way. It is upside down so that i can scrape the glue off the bottom.

I am shifting gears now to the rest of the under structure. The blue tape represents where the legs will go. The cardboard curve will serve as a template to help make the form that the stretcher will be bent over.

I transfer the curve to a piece of particle board. I then use the edge sander to fair out the curve. This one piece will serve as a template for the other layers that will make up the bending form. It occurs to me that this might not be all that clear since most people are not familiar with the process of making a bent lamination. I will explain in greater detal in the next post. The quick version is a board is cut into thin strips and glued together over a form. The glue dries and the board is one piece and bent! The steps below detail building the form.

I transfer the shape to the rest of the sheet.

Here are all of the layers before the assembly.

The process to put the form together will involve staples, glue and the router to follow that first piece that i refined on the edge sander.

The finished form.

I need to build a foot to stabilize the form and cover it in brown packing tape so the glue will not stick.

Coffee Table Commission
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I start by using my hand plane to flatten the bottom of each section. This will help when I move on to the next operation.

I run each board over the jointer to make sure that each joint is perfect. There is no margin for error. The size of the table top will magnify any error.

Things are so sensitive that i test each joint to make sure that they will close without clamp pressure. I also make sure that the two sections will be lie flat. If either half of the joint is off by the smallest degree it will result in a table top that resembles a Pringle potato chip.

Perfect! Now I take out the biscuit jointer to cut pairs of matched slots to aid in aligning the sections.

When I press the two sections together the biscuits will not allow the boards to misalign. Very helpful.

I can now mark out he final shape of the table top. Then it is off to the bandsaw to rough cut the shapes.

I am going to use a router with a pattern bit to follow templates with the exact curve that i want.

I make the templates from a consistent material called MDF. I am able to shape the 1/2″ thick material with ease. To do this directly on the Mahogany would be exponentially harder.

Before

After

Here is a shot of the router and the pattern bit in action. The bit has a bearing that rides on the pattern.

Now I can pull back and see the whole top for the first time.

I have one more thing to do before I am ready to glue the top into one piece.

I want to add two diving facets that will serve to accentuate the movement of the boards that makeup the top. This is the sort of detail that is characteristic of my work. These moments keep me engaged in the piece as I build it. The result is that the table becomes a record of my decision making along the way. If I make good choices and balance the composition well the resulting table will stand up as a functional table and as a work of Art.

I am going to need to work to high tolerance because each moment is made from matching facets. I break out my combination squares and put a chamfer bit in my big router.

I clamp a straight edge to each section of the table on the carefully calculated marks. This time the base of the router will follow the guide, not the bearing.

Before

After

This is the fun part. When the piece shifts from executing the design to composition!

One more thing to do before the glue-up. I need some help cleaning up.

Coffee Table Commission
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Here we go. The rough Mahogany boards that will form the table top.

They then get chopped to the rough size.

Off to the jointer to flatten one side of the boards. It takes two passes per board to get them perfectly flat.

Next stop is the Planer. The newly flattened side faces down and rides on the precision table. The cutter-head makes the top face as flat and parallel to the jointed face.

The processed lumber goes back together and the model comes out for reference.

I want each board in the table top to have a wedge shape. This is an integral part of the design so I mark each board and head off to the bandsaw to rough cut the shapes

Here is the fan shape. I have run the edges over the Jointer so they are perfectly flat and ready to glue together

I will break the table top up into a number of different glue-ups. This will give me an opportunity to shape and detail the table as it evolves.

I coat each joint with aliphatic resin glue AKA Yellow woodworking glue.

Then the joint gets clamped together. Even pressure will close the joint that was prepared earlier on the Jointer.

Coffee Table Commission
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