cool dining room tables
- the wood whisperer is brought to you by powermatic and titebond. today, we're gonna build this mid-century modern style dining table inspired by my buddy, jory brigham. (bell rings) i'm gonna start by making a leg template out of 1/4-inch plywood. a 15-degree miter on each end,
let's the legs sit at 15 degrees. a taper is added to the inside of the leg increasing the angle by five degrees. (saw buzzes) the template is then usedto select the leg stock. while i'm at it, i'll also cut my shortand long rail pieces, trying my best to avoid the sapwood. i mean, i like sapwood on occasion
but i'm just not looking for a permanent relationshipwith it on this piece. each component istrimmed up at the bandsaw and cut to rough length at the chop saw. (high pitched sawing) let's focus on the legs first. we'll mill them flat and square. (engine droning) the foot is trimmed to 15 degrees.
then we can use thetemplate to set up the stop. and this allows us totrim the top of the leg to the same 15-degree angle. the inside tapered edgeof the leg is still rough and to trim those perfectly, i'll make up a simple tapering jig. using a template for referenceon a piece of 1/2 inch stock, i'll attach some plywood strips as stops. (nail gun pounding)
the leg blanks shoulddrop right into place. and to further secure the legs, i'll use the ca glue blue tape trick. now, i can easily rip the tapers. let's turn our attention to the aprons. we'll mill them flat and square and then plane them to thickness. (engine humming) the aprons will actually be
a little bit thinner than the legs, allowing for a 1/4-inch reveal. the long aprons are rippedto 3 1/2 inches wide. the short aprons areripped a little bit wider to account for the factthat they'll sit at an angle and will receive two bevel cuts. that'll make sense later. the ends of the longaprons need a miter cut that matches the inside angle of the legs.
so that's 20 degrees. the short aprons get astandard 90-degree cut. i'm gonna use dominoes toput this thing together so i use some marks on my template to transfer the joint locations to the legs and long aprons. the legs and long apronsare flush on the inside with a 1/4-inch reveal on the outside. so, we'll reference thedomino from the inside faces.
(drilling) (loud tap) let's do a little dry assembly, just to make sure there wereno inadvertent brain farts. (tapping) now the short aprons arejust a little bit trickier. i'll line one of the apronsup at the proper angle with a 1/4-inch reveal that we want and strike a pencil line at the top
to remind me of the bevel direction. i can then use my bevel gaugeto lock in the exact angle. that angle is transferred to the table saw and the bevels are cut onthe top and bottom edges of the short aprons. by the way, this is why the short aprons were initially cut widerthan the long aprons. the bevel cuts reduce the width. with a center line drawn on the apron
and the aprons set backwith the 1/4-inch reveal, i can transfer the center line to the leg. that's the line that i need for setting the fence on the domino. the other lines will come from two little layout guides that i made, one for the legs and one for the aprons. usually, i just use an adjustable square for this kinda thing but whenyou're working with bevels,
things can get wonky. i know lots of people get uptight when they see someone use the domino. after all, it's woodworking on easy mode. but there's nothing thatyou can do with a domino that you can't do with a routerand a little forethought. the domino just saves me aday or two of additional work and gets this table in jason'shouse that much faster. the fence on the domino israised for the cuts on the legs.
we just used that pencil line that we drew earlier to line things up. so, let's see how we did. it's not too shabby. now, let's jazz up the legs a bit. we'll add a tapered bevelon all four corners. they start wide at the bottom and then taper off to nothing at the top. with the bandsaw table at 45 degrees,
which is a little scary, i'll freehand a roughcut to remove the bulk. then i can use a blockplane to clean it up and work back to the lines. i get a lot of questionsabout why i skew my planes. when planing a rough surface like this, skewing the plane allows me to work faster and be more aggressive byreducing the amount of the sole that's in contact with the wood.
the skew angle also tendsto leave a cleaner cut. i've also been getting a lot of questions about my fancy wrist decoration. no i don't have abowling match after work. i actually have a touch of the tendonitis. i'm supposed to be resting my wrist but you can see how well i'mobeying the doctor's request. (scraping) since the short aprons sit atan angle and the bevel we cut
creates an even sharper corner than usual, i decided to add an additional chamfer to lessen the chance that one of my nieces will smack one of their cutelittle heads right into it. now for some sanding. i'll take all surfaces to 180-grit while easing all of the exposed edges. (humming) for the glue up,
i'll need some angled cauls to offset the angle of the legs, so i'll cut some out of scrap wood. the glue up itself ispretty straightforward. glue in the mortices and on the tenons and a little clamping pressureto bring it all together. after the long aprons are glued up, we can add the short apronsto complete the base. look ma, i made a thing!
(birds singing) now we have a rare look attwo males of the species deciding whether the brown-coloredstuff is good for eating. it's not good for eating but it's great for making a tabletop. we're selecting the best72-inch sections of each board and trying to avoid sapwood, if possible. (maniacal laugh in background) each board is jointed ona face and on an edge.
we can then send theboards through the planer. (engine drones) we have a lot of extra width here, which is good becausethere's a lot of flaws that need to be cut away. after a round of edge cuts, we can bring the boardstogether to see where we're at. i still wanna joint all of the edges one more time before glue up,
so i like to have at least a1/4-inch overage at this point. now with the boardsbudded up and in order, i mark lines for some dominoes. we don't really need thedominoes for strength but they will make life easierwhen it comes to alignment. sometimes, i put glue on both edges. sometimes, i put it on one. if you only put glue on one edge, make sure you're generous about it.
you still wanna see some squeeze out when the clamping pressure is applied. to help balance the pressureand keep the top flat, we'll run a few clamps inthe opposite orientation. check out that sweet line of squeeze out. we have a few cracks and knots to fill, so i'll squirt out some epoxyand add dark brown dye to it. for the crack, we'll use blue tape to reduce the amount of staining.
heating the epoxy makes it less viscous and more likely to seepdown further into the crack. we can also encourage it to go deeper with a little bit ofsuction from underneath. and that my friends ismy only contribution to the world of epoxy river tables. once the epoxy is dry, we can scrape the bulk away and the surface is ready for finish prep.
we'll use a cabinet scraper to knock down the glueand any major high spots and then proceed to a thorough sanding. (buzzing) the ends of the table top are squared up using the track saw. the top is too thick as is. so to give it the appearanceof a slightly thinner top, while retaining the thickness we want,
we'll add a 1/2-inch deep byfive-inch wide shallow bevel to the entire perimeter. if i had an electric handplaner, i'd use that. but i don't, so i'm using an angle grinder with a carving disc to remove the bulk. (rhythmic humming) next, i'll use a jack planeto knock down the high stuff and bring the edge right down to the line. now i can use a belt sander to clean up
the rest of the bevel. after that, the random orbitsander refines the surface. this is a lot of work for a minor detail but it's one of thosethings people really like when they encounter it. is it worth the effort? i don't know. we'll finish off the topwith an 1/8-inch round over. (high pitched grinding)
even though i plan onusing an oil-based finish and oil doesn't reallyraise the grain very much, i'm water popping the top just to ensure that it'sas smooth as possible. (rubbing) and finally, we'll apply the hard wax oil. i always admire howpeople can apply the stuff with such smooth and graceful motions. my method looks a lot morelike a drunk guy in a bar
trying to mop up his own vomit. but hey, i gets the schmootz on the wood and that's all that matters. we're actually usingwalnut-colored finish here. normally, i wouldn't add color to walnut but i had a bunch of the stuff left over from a flooring project inside my house, so this was a goodopportunity to use it up. and it really isn't going tochange the color that much
but perhaps, maybeit'll prevent the walnut from lightening up a lot which is something that happens over time. (rattling) for the base, we'llapply the finish by hand. to attach the top to the base, i'll use some izzy skirt washers. these things are great. just use a forstner bit to embed them
in the rails with a screw, (drill whines) then drive another screwup into the tabletop. the shape of the washers allows the top to expand and contract while being held securely to the base. we'll spend a few minutesgetting the top centered and then attach it to the base. (soft guitar music)
and that, my friends, is a dining table. it stands 30 inches tall andhas lots of fun little details and lines you can discover,if you just look for them. i think jay and his family arereally going to enjoy this. by the way, if you're a fan of mid-century modern furniture and jory brigham, you might want to checkout his hank chair build in the wood whisperer guild. jory has a wonderful eye for design
and he shows us all of his tips and tricks for making this gorgeous chair. available now in the wood whisperer guild. toodles. (soft music)