Dining Table

[bandit571]

Looks good from here!

My Sofa Table has been delivered, BTW...

[Tapper]

To explain "grain run out" ...

Take the example of making dowels:

Riven wood is wood that is carefully split along the grain. This creates a piece with greater stability.

What one does not want is to choose a board that looks like this! Use one that is straight grained.




Ideally you want straight grain, that is, where there is no grain run out ...



The tenons in the first chair were vulnerable to breaking as the grain had excessive run out. Making loose tenons, it was possible to choose stock which was quarter sawn and straight grained.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for the explanation and photos - always understood the technique, just not the terminology.

Doug

[stav]

Thanks from me as well. That is new terminology for me.

[Derek Cohen]

Quick review - we left off with then posts shaped into an ellipse ..








Time to turn that thick blocky base into a shapely, organic foot for the post.

It needs to be said that I binned the first feet I shaped as they ended up too thick looking. I want slim. I realised that a reason for this was that the blocky base was not wide enough (at 80mm), and so I built new ones, this time 110mm wide. In the photo below, the first is being shaped with a scrub plane into a half-ellipse to match the posts ...



This was followed up with a trying plane ...



Prior to shaping the base, it was drilled for the dowels which will later be used to draw-bore the mortise-and-tenon joint ...



The feet are too thick, and this will be reduced with a taper. Below the beginning and end is marked out ...



A succession of woodies are used (as was done in shaping the curves). First a scrub plane removed the bulk of the waste. This produces a rough finish ...



This is followed by a jack plane, which has a less aggressive radius to its blade ...



A trying plane now smooths out the surface ...



Finally, a smoother is used for the finish ...



It is relevant at this point to recall that the table top with be curved at the sides and ends, similar to this Nakashima ...



The ends are marked with a slight taper, about 8mm each side ...



This time I used a Stanley #604 with a close chipbreaker since it handles reversing grain best of all ...



The end curves were marked ..



... and the waste removed with a block plane.

This is combination after sanding to 400 grit ...



Hopefully, tomorrow may see the trestle table base completed.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[bandit571]

Looks good from here!

[grwold]

So you first radiused the top of the feet, then tapered their sides. Did you go back & re-radius the tops to maintain a consistent vertical edge height?


You do a great job, Derek, thinking through your process before you begin. Thanks for sharing all the details as you go through. Putting the radius on the ends of the feet is a nice touch.

[Derek Cohen]

So you first radiused the top of the feet, then tapered their sides.  Did you go back & re-radius the tops to maintain a consistent vertical edge height?


You do a great job, Derek, thinking through your process before you begin.  Thanks for sharing all the details as you go through.  Putting the radius on the ends of the feet is a nice touch.

Well spotted. Yes, I returned to the radius after the sides were tapered. If you look at the final photo, you can see that the edge flat is consustent the entire length. It would otherwise angle up, become wider, at the ends if the radius was not "re-radiused".

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Tapper]

Very nice, as usual Derek. Love the curves and ellipses; feels and looks like contemporary and/or mid-modern. Noticed you've used quite a few wooden planes so far. Those ones you made? Any advantage or disadvantage over their metal counterparts?

Doug

[Derek Cohen]

Very nice, as usual Derek. Love the curves and ellipses; feels and looks like contemporary and/or mid-modern. Noticed you've used quite a few wooden planes so far. Those ones you made? Any advantage or disadvantage over their metal counterparts?

Doug

Hi Doug

The contemporary/MC aesthetic is what I am after.

Of the woodies, I made the jack from scratch. The scrub was retreaded from a smoother. It is not a plane which gets a lot of use - the jack tends to be more so - but can be very useful, as here. The trying plane is HNT Gordon, however modified to have a handle - lots of experimentation to get the ideal balance - and uses a Chinese laminated blade I got from Steve Knight many years ago. the smoother is HNT Gordon.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Derek Cohen]

The last two structural areas for the base were the central rail, which was also planed into an ellipse ...



... and the upper, support rails ...



These also required tapering, which I shall not go through again here. Instead, I will move to the completed - but dry and unfinished - trestle base. I would have preferred to have it all done, but the weekend came to an end. Rats.





These will provide some idea of the curves and, hopefully, organic feel I was aiming for ...








Regards from Perth

Derek