Nakashima Inspired Table (pt. 1)

With Ian running around our glass top coffee table was destined for a short life.  In September we took a drive out to Dunlap Woodcrafts.  This is not your typical lumber store.  You will not find piles of 4/4 FAS boards.  What they do have is thousands of bdft of flitches burls, and big unique lumber.  While Ian played with the proprietors I was looking for the right slab to take home.  We found one, and it spent a couple months leaning on a wall in our living room.  For those of you following along, I have been busy building other things most recently the Woodworkers Fighting Cancer table and chair set, and a growth chart.  More information on WFC can be found here.

While he didn't know what to think at first now he loves his chairs.

I carved then painted the numbers.  Used a plane after to remove the sloppy paint.  Pine with a coat of shellac.

Part of the delay was necessity and part(most) was not knowing what I was going to do with the legs.  Last weekend I decided to grab some 2x and mock up some ideas:

Classic Nakashima style with slanted leg.

More modern, waterfall leg, and open trapezoid for the other leg

Once we set up the slab and looked, the waterfall/trapezoid won.  Those legs made the slab look lighter and seemed to flow with the room.  The waterfall leg will be a challenge.  After going back and forth I think the best way to reinforce the miter is to make "Full-Blind Multiple Splines".  This provides the most face/edge grain glue surface.

From "Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking: Joinery"

The miter requires that the piece be jointed and thicknessed prior to layout.  Even if I had a jointer, it wouldn't help me on this one.  So time to get out the jack plane and go to town.  Using my bench as a reference surface it had maybe a 1/8" of twist.  A few hours later it was trued up,

Start by marking the high spots.  

Almost there...

After I got the the board planed it was time to commit and make some cuts.  These were done with a circular saw out in the garage.  First I made 90* cuts to separate the top from the leg, then cut the 45* angle.  With the blade tilted it didn't cut all the way through, so I finished them off with a hand saw.

Double check everything.

No going back now

I finished this with a handsaw

This is the way it sat for a few weeks while I made my 45* table saw sled, (tested it on some picture frames) and a reference jig for truing the miter.