Kitchen Table - Part 1 - Legs and Apron

After finishing off the Craftsman Ottoman, I wanted to do another 'quick' project before starting on Lauren's bed. I chose to replace our $50 kitchen table that we bought when we first got married with a bigger version of the kids table I build for Joshua earlier this year. It'll be a simple solid red oak top, walnut apron and red oak legs.

I started with the apron boards, milling the walnut to 3" x 7/8" x 46+". I left the pieces a little long so that I could have extra for testing the tenons. After milling the wood I stacked them and set them aside until I was ready to cut the tenons.

For the legs I decided to go with 2 1/2" square legs, made up of 4 mitre pieces. To keep waste to a minimum I made them up from boards that were around 8" in width, flipping them over after every mitre cut on the tablesaw. I used my planer sled to flatten the boards before cutting the mitres on the tablesaw.

I don't have a picture of the glue-up but it wasn't particularly tricky. Just use painter's tape to hold them together and a few clamps if the pieces need a little help lining up (mine did).

After the legs were all glued up, I moved over to the router table to cut the mortises in the top of the legs. I used a 3/8" spiral upcut bit for the mortises, so ripped a piece of scrap to 1 1/16" (2 1/2" - 3/8" = 2 1/8" divided by 2) to set the fence to center to mortise in the leg.

To cut the mortise I slide the leg in to the bit along the fence, which blasts the wood chips away from the leg. I setup my shop vac to catch the chips as the regular vac port on the fence doesn't catch any of these chips. A stop block clamped to the fence makes sure I don't cut the mortise to far down the leg.

The finished leg with mortises cut in two sides of each leg. The mortises cut right through the solid part of the leg into the hollow center. The tenons will be cut next and they'll be 7/8" thick to match the thickness of the leg parts.

Planer Sled

While I am in between 'big' projects, I decided to make a 'quick' kitchen table to replace our cheap table that we bought for $60 when we first got married 7 years ago. The top will be made up of solid panels, and the lumber I had for the top is not flat, so I need to flatten it before gluing up the top.

The boards are wide enough that I don't want to rip them all done to 6" to send them through the jointer for flattening. Since I lack any hand tools to flatten them the next easiest solution is the planer. I decided to make up a quick planer sled to run the boards through the planer and flatten them.

A planer sled supports the board you want to flatten as you pass it through the planer, causing the planer to only take off the 'high' spots on the board and flatten it out. If you send a cupped board through a planer, the planer will compress the 'cupping' of the board as it planes, taking off the 'high' and 'low' spots and not flattening the board, only reducing it's thickness. A planer sled will prevent the planer from compressing the 'cup' and force the planer to correctly flatten the board.

First - dig around the workshop and find a flat board that is wider and longer than the boards you want to flatten. I found a piece of melamine shelving that fit the bill. You will be fastening your boards to flatten to this flat piece and running them through the planer, so it has to be narrow enough to fit through your planer.

Next, glue, nail, screw or otherwise fasten a back onto one end of your flat board - this piece will keep the board you are flattening from sliding off the back of the sled.

Your sled is now complete - let's put it to use.

Now, place the board you want to flatten onto the sled and determine where you need to add support to the board. In the board below you can see I need support in the middle and on the left hand edge.

Now, flip the board over and add some gobs of glue from a hot glue gun. I made the gobs about 3/4" in diameter. Too much glue is better than not enough.

Flip the board back over before the glue dries and press it down in place on the planer sled. Wait a minute or two for the glue to dry, then you are ready to send the board through the planer. In the picture below you can see a bit of glue sticking out the side of the board.

Now, send the board through the planer. You can see in the picture below the planer is only removing material from the 'high' points on the board - the center of the board in this case. If I did not use a planer sled, the board would have been smooshed flat as it was sent through the planer, but then bounced back up when it came out the other end. Afterwards I would have a thinner, but still cupped board.

After a number of passes through the planer I have one side of the board flat. I can now flip the board over and run it through the planer to flatten the other side.

To separate the board from the sled, use a old chisel to pry it off, then use that same old chisel to pop off the gobs of glue. Obviously you'll want to remove that glue before sending your board back through the planer.

Wood Delivery

Christmas came early for me this year.

Rosemary has requested a bed for Lauren and we decided that maple would be a good look for the bed. I called my lumber guy and he didn't have any hard maple, but his supplier had some kiln dried curly maple that he was going to pick up in a week or two, so I ordered up 100bf of the curly maple for the bed.

My lumber guy doesn't normally stock Quarter Sawn White Oak, but he had picked some up from his supplier and offered it to me for $0.25 more per foot than I was paying for the Red Oak. I jumped at the deal and ordered 120bf. I also asked him to bring along about $100 worth of Walnut and Poplar.

Before he came I spent a few hours cleaning and organizing the shop and making room in my wood pile. Turns out I hadn't made enough room, and had to clear out even more after he left to make room for all of it.

It was a piece of cake moving the lumber from his truck straight into the wood rack. It's great having a garage workshop with no cars in it!

On the ground is the is QWSO, 1st shelf is scraps, 2nd shelf KD curly maple, 3rd shelf QSWO and poplar, 4th shelf KD curly maple, 5th shelf red oak, top shelf walnut, cherry, poplar and scraps.

I randomly picked a QSWO board and curly maple and ran them through the jointer/planer to see what they looked like. The QSWO looks great and the curly maple will be perfect for Lauren's bed.

• 100bf of KD curly maple, $300
• 120bf of QSWO $450
• 3 walnut boards, and 6 poplar $100

The QSWO is beautiful wood - air dried and very flat, average width 7 1/4". The curly maple is kiln dried and not as flat, so it will require a bit more work - average width 6".

Craftsman Ottoman - Complete

It's good to be done another project. The ottoman is off to the upholstery shop for them to complete the cushion - it'll be awhile but I'm in no hurry to try sewing it myself.

I used the same finish schedule that I've used on most of my red oak furniture. I apply one coat of Minwax Provincial Oil stain with a foam brush, wait 10-15 minutes then wipe off the excess with a clean cotton cloth (old t-shirt). Let it dry overnight, then wipe it down with another clean shirt the next day before applying the next coat, waiting 10-15 minutes and wiping it off.

Let it dry overnight, wipe it down again with a clean cloth, then apply Minwax Quick-drying oil polyurethane. Let it dry overnight, sand lightly with a synthetic wool pad, wipe it down with a clean cloth lightly dampened with mineral spirits. Apply one more coat of poly and it's done.

Here's a shot of my upstairs 'finishing room' over the workshop.

Here's the end product, next to the original.

Craftsman Ottoman - Part 8

And.... it's done. Pretty much.

The last bit of cutting was to finish up the tenons on the lower stretchers. Once those were complete, a tiny bit more sanding then glue up the project.

Here is the completed chair, minus the plywood bottom for the cushion. On to the 'finishing room'. It'll get two coats of Minwax Provincial, then a few coats of Satin Polyurethane.

Start to 'before finishing' this project took somewhere between 8-10 hours. I used the following tools :

• mitre saw
• table saw
• jointer
• planer
• router table and 3/8" spiral up cutting bit
• drill press, 3/8" and 1/2" brad point bits
  
• drum sander (could have also used random orbital sander)
• random orbital sander
• 1/2" chisel

The project used less than 10 bd feet of red oak which I already had. With all the straight cuts this is pretty easy project to do. The mortise and tenon joints are good practice for larger, more complex projects.