Tiny Table - WIP (Pictures...!)

[Wood Monkey]

Hi All

My mum came round last sunday and said "can you make me a lamp table? The measurements are 22 inches high and 9 inches square and I'd like a shelf to put the phone on.". The first word that entered my head was 'topple'.

Basically, there is a small gap next to her sofa and she wants to put a lamp on it with room for her reading glasses and a shelf for the phone. She already has some Oak furniture. As design briefs go, I guess it's sufficient - topple- sorry, I can't get it out of my head.

I came up with this. I scaled it on sketchup and it looks OK on the screen so I guess I'll make it. Topple, sorry.

The small size means I can raid the scraps bin. Step 1 was to make the legs and after a quick Google I decided to make them on the jointer (any excuse, it's new). One softwood practice and then straight in to 4 legs ripped out of a 30mm thick piece of Oak and dimensioned down to 25x25mm and then tapered by affixing a small spacer to one end and then passing over the blades (6 times to be exact. The small end of the taper now measured 10mm sq.

Another rummage in the scraps bin and a nice piece of quarter sawn was dimensioned down to 15mm using the jointer and the thicknesser and this will then be ripped down to make the rails (is this the correct terminology?).

I thought about biscuit joints but the rails would need to be too deep so I decided that I'll go with either some cut down biscuits (loose tenons) or real tenons. First cut for the mortices was made using a portion of the biscuit jointer blade. (The first person who tells me I need a Domino wins a bag of sawdust as I already know I 'need' one ;-)

..... and finished with my smallest LN chisel and my Blue Spruce dovetail chisels as they have such a slim profile the full length of the steel. They are cut all the way to the top to maximise glue area.

Blue Spruce 12mm on the left and LN 12mm on the right.

So this is as far as i've got (mortice clean-up not completed). About 2 hours work so far.

More to follow shortly, but let's finish with a quiz.
Q1. Will it topple over (I've a plan to stop it, bonus point if you can guess what that is)?
Q2. Will the joints be strong enough or do i 'need' a Domino, really, really, really 'need' a Domino (actually, I've a plan to make them stronger)?

Jon

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

A1. If you whack it hard enough
A2. Yes there more then enough and no you don't need a domino, you just want one

 

[paultnl]

Are you planning on adding some weight to the bottom shelf to avoid the topple.

 

[DonJohnson]

As paultnl suggests - a great big lump of lead at the centre of the underside of the - as low down as possible - bottom shelf ?

Mind you, your mum might not be able to move the table ! LOL

 

[Wood Monkey]

Paul and Don get the bonus point. ;-)

I'm thinking of making the lower shelf hollow and filling it with lead shot. I'll see what the table is like once it's dry fitted.

The alternative was to gripfill it to my Mums lounge floor.

 

[DonJohnson]

Alternatively, pop over and I'll fire my 12-bore, loaded with - say - some 4 shot, at the underside of the shelf! :shock:

 

[Wood Monkey]

Managed to get an hour in the workshop so finished cutting the mortices and set to work on the rails.

I cut the rails on my small cross cut sled and then used it again with the blade lowered to nibble away the tenons.

Then cleaned up the tenon cheeks...

And then mitred the ends of the tenons using my mitre sled.

Some fine tuning needed.

And finally a quick dry fit. The table is actually going to be far more stable than I expected.

Tomorrow I should hopefully get some sanding done, some glueing and start figuring out how to attach the shelf (but I kind of like it without a shelf).

Jon

 

[MickCheese]

That does look good without the shelf.

Very elegant. Thanks for the WIP, interesting.

You have some nice tools.

Mick

 

[Doug B]

Looking very good Jon, a domino is nice but not essential

I made this a while ago

Never had a problem with tipping.

Cheers

 

[brianhabby]

No reason why it should topple, without weighing it down. Think about an old fashioned plant stand, they were similar area but a lot taller.

regards

Brian

 

[woodbloke]

Some fine tuning needed.

Jon

A common misconception is that the mitres should meet as in your pic...they shouldn't! There should be a gap between them to allow for possible shrinkage in the leg. As shown, any shrinkage in the leg will cause a gap to open up at the shoulder Tenons also ought follow the 'rule of thirds' so if the leg is say 25mm square, the tenon should be 8mm thick...a biscuit slot at 4mm is a bit on the narrow side - Rob

 

[Wood Monkey]

Thanks Rob.

Part of the fine tuning was to knock a bit more off the end of the tenon so there is a gap. I have to admit I did it to leave somewhere for the excess blue to go, expansion/shrinkage across the leg didn't dawn on me.

I've also added some strength as I was conscious that the mortice and tenon were a little narrow. I used the biscuit jointer to cut the slot for convenience and speed as I was trying to get finished within the weekend..... but failed (as you will see shortly).

Jon

 

[Wood Monkey]

After the dry fit I decided to add some additional structure. Woodbloke previously pointed out that I hadn't allowed for expansion across the leg when cutting the tenons to length. Whilst I did trim them down it wasn't because I thought of expansion. When adding some structure I didn't consider movement either mainly because the cross grain proportion is very small. I've had very few issues with movement in small projects which I've always put down to my workshop being very dry and the wood I use has generally been lying around on the rack for a long time. Anyway, fingers crossed and thanks for the insight Rob..

MDF filler added to the top to add structure and provide options for fitting the top.

Sanded the parts down to 320 grit.

Air dusted the joints before starting the glue up.

And this is as far as I got.

Back to the day job so no more likely before next weekend.

Jon

 

[Chems]

Very very nice, those tapered legs are hard to make but yours look lovely.

 

[mike s]

very elegant looking table
pretty cheap too i imagine!

 

[Wood Monkey]

Yes Mike, very cheap. So far everything except the glue and a few biscuits have come out of the scraps bin. Of course the price of all the tools to turn scrap wood into useful stuff doesn't count coz is a hobby and hobby's are exempt from cost justification... ;-)