Thursday, March 17, 2016

Nakashima Inspired Table (pt. 3)

Its been a while.  I've been pretty busy with work, but I have finally finished the table.  After cleaning up the epoxy from the miter joint it looked pretty good.  Leaving the second new thing in this project; butterfly keys.  These were surprisingly easy.  The hardest part was cutting a shape I liked.  After that its just tracing and chiseling.
Dry fit of the butterflies on the underside.
Then I got distracted and started a sharpening station...
It has since switched side with the tool chest, but remains unfinished.
Back to the table.  I didn't take many pictures because it was just a lot of planing and sanding to get the top to its finished state.  The only thing that remained was the other leg.  My initial plan was to cut angled bridle joints.  I cut them on the top of the frame, but they weren't quite as perfect as I would like, so I switched to mortise and tenons on the bottom.  Because (at least in woodworking) I'm a belt and suspenders guy I drawbored the joints, which I think looks nice, and made the shoulders really tight.

The extra length is trimmed after glue up
The finish was a coat of boiled linseed oil, then a few coats of satin Arm-R-Seal.
After the oil

Waterfall leg (harder to photograph than I thought)
End view
Top view
Overall I am pretty happy with the way it turned out.  I wish I could have figured out a way to attach the other leg without screws, but given the width, I couldn't think of another way to allow for some movement.

Once that was done, I made a kitchen helper for Ian....who was a bit impatient.
Didn't even need to wait for the platform.
The kitchen helper was directly from the WoodWhisperer plans, though I decided not to use break-down hardware, and instead glued all the joints.  It was a fun little project.  Now it's back to finishing the sharpening station while Ian lays out the kitchen buffet thing.
Measure twice.
Okay...he wasn't really doing the layout, but after he saw me doing the layout, he climbed on my sawbench and did a near perfect imitation.