A couple of new pieces - Coffee Table & Desk 1/2

[Kmucha16]

Hey all, I posted previously about a nice haul of white oak wood that I was able to get from a client site a couple years ago. Well, with this Covid and working from home, I've found that without kid sports consuming every waking moment of our lives I actually have some free time. Everyone has different ways of dealing with stress and these days that is even more important. I've gotten a lot more time in the shop these past several months, which has been really nice.  Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out, so here we go.

Project #1. Wife had wanted 2 coffee tables, one for each of our living spaces. The first was completed a year or so ago. The second, she had purchased the legs a couple years ago and I finally got to it. She really wanted the hairpin legs and there was a requirement it was thin and airy looking.

Started here: (note boards are 5.5" wide, 1.5" thick and 11 feet long)

   

Jointed, planed, ripped, and finally resawed to get these small planks, just under 0.5" thick.

   

Glued them to 0.5" plywood for structure and added some supports on the bottom to prevent flexing. (I have 3 kids, one is bound to sit on this)

   

Final pics

   

   

Stained with minwax special walnut and finished with 6 coats of minwax clear satin poly.

As I mentioned in other posts, resawing this with my 12" craftsman bandsaw was successful, albeit slow and tedious. The wife was so happy with the table that she didn't hesitate to approve the purchase of a new Laguna 14Bx, which will hopefully arrive before Christmas.

To keep this from being too long, Keep an eye out for the next post with a matching (sort of) desk.

Kevin

[jteneyck]

Veneer is commonly limited to 1/8" and both sides of the substrate are veneered to keep things balanced.  Sorry to point this out, but I'm not optimistic about the survival of your table if the RH changes much in your house.  

John

[fredhargis]

That herring bone look is really attractive (IMHO). Looks like you got a nice bonus out of it as well.

[Willyou]

As John points out. I would be very concerned about the possibility of expansion/contraction issues. Please keep us posted as to how well it holds up over time.
It is a very nice looking table.

[JohnnyEgo]

Looks very nice. I have found expansion to be a funny thing. When I lived in Florida, we had only two seasons; humid and really, really humid. Consequently, expansion wasn't much of a problem, because the material was usually already expanded when you worked it. Conversely, in Colorado, it's pretty dry year round, so wood movement hasn't been much of an issue here, either. So you might get lucky. And even if you don't, enjoy it while it lasts and file this away as a thing to know about for the next one. John's advice is good advice, and would have saved me some panel warp if I had finished or glued both sides at the same time in previous works. However, there is something to be said for being bold that older, much more cautious me misses about my earlier, though often questionably constructed work. Which is to say again that I like what you've done.

[Kmucha16]

Thought I'd do a quick update on this post. It's been almost a year, and no discernable warping, expansion, cracking, or otherwise deformation. I did catch a kid standing on it one day and no flex, so I must have done something right. I will admit that we didn't get much rain last winter, but the temp has certainly fluctuated from 40's to 110+ over the year. House temp stays pretty constant, and I would estimate outside humidity ranged from 0-40% or higher on the couple days it did rain.

The Laguna bandsaw didn't show up until late May this year, taking almost 6 months from the order date. Boy is that a nice saw. I got busy again with work and life getting back to normal, so haven't been able to use it much, but when I have, it's a dream.

Kevin

[fredhargis]

Thought I'd do a quick update on this post. It's been almost a year, and no discernable warping, expansion, cracking, or otherwise deformation.

The Laguna bandsaw didn't show up until late May this year, taking almost 6 months from the order date.
Kevin

Thank you for the update. I was wondering how that would work out. As for the bandsaw, be happy you got it at all. Everything still seems to be choked up (still).