This was a very fun and interesting build. I found myself with a bit of time to spare between other clients projects so I decided to make something for myself for once. I like to have a hall table in the front of my home for a few reasons. Firstly it is a great place to leave my car keys on when I get home, and it is also a “pretty good” place to keep mail and bills. I say “pretty good” because I much prefer to put the bills in the bin! Don’t we all? 🙂 I went a little overboard on the chosen construction methods because this way, I can use the hall table to clearly illustrate certain joinery methods for clients on future projects.
The design of this hall table was largely based around the use of a Myrtle live edge slab I had in my shop. It was approximately 1500mm long x 38mm thick and roughly 280mm at its widest point. But it had also been left outside at the timber mill on top of a drying stack of timber for many months. Because of the extended exposure to the direct sun, the top surface of the slab had checked (cracked) heavily as the surface dried out faster than the core. This surface drying also caused the slab to bow A LOT! Approximately 50-60mm of between over 1500mm. The decision was made to cut the slab in half to make two slabs approximately 700mm long. And from there I sketched up a few concept drawings and was happy with how it looked and so I was off and racing!
Be sure to check out the video of how I made this hall table, and please feel free to leave a comment and click the thumbs up for the video. Thanks.
Initial concept drawing
Initial concept drawing
Initial concept drawing
Some of the parts awaiting final dimensions and joinery.
Twin mortises in the legs to accept the upper and lower rails
And the twin tenons which fit into the previous mortises.
The front and rear frame dry assembly to get an initial sense of size and scale. I like it.
The drawer dividers. With breadboard ends and sliding dovetail joinery.
The sliding dovetail socket in the upper and lower rails to accept the drawer dividers.
There is a fair amount of work gone into just these 4 upper and lower rails.
Another dry assembly with the top panels roughly positioned. I am still liking the design, nothing to change yet.
To give the legs a lighter and more elegant look. I tapered them from ~42mm square at the top down to approx 30mm square at the bottom.
Because of the now tapered inside face of the leg, I needed to cut the mortise for the lower cross rail by hand using mallet and chisel.
A close up of my handy work hand chopping a mortise 🙂
The lower cross rails dry fit to the legs. Fits like a glove!
The drawer runners and kickers have been added to the drawer guides/dividers/
That is a lot of components for a single hall table, and it doesn’t even include the parts for the two drawers yet!
The legs and rails being smoothed by my trusty Stanley #4 smoothing hand plane.
Because of the complex glueup that awaits me. I decided to break it down as much as I could and here you can see that I have glued the drawer runners and kickers to the guides to make three separate components become one. Much easier for later.
And this was after I had finished adding the last clamp for the main glue up. This was a VERY INTENSIVE 20minute glue up. Probably the most awkward glue up I have ever set myself to.
Blue masking tape was used around all of the joints so that any glue squeeze out was easily cleaned up.
And the blue tape removed. I’d like to say it only took me a minute or two to remove the tape….but it took much longer 🙁
A closeup of the sliding dovetail connection between drawer guide and upper/lower rails.
The connection between lower cross rail and leg.
Just admiring my handy work.
From this angle, I am thinking the piece looks a little flat on the front face. I feel a design change coming on.
The live edge slab has a nasty looking black’ish layer on the edge. This will have to be removed before final polishing.
I setup my bandsaw to quicken up the speed of making “hand cut dovetails”. Technically these dovetails are only “hand finished dovetails” but they all look the same in less than half the time. WIN WIN!
After bandsawing the dovetails.
And now I have cleaned up the edges by hand using a chisel. It is delicate work, patience makes perfect.
And a finished dovetail joint. Looking pretty fine to me!
Although I love the figured Redgum chosen for the drawer fronts. The front of this hall table is still looking too flat. So it is at this time I decided to pull the drawer fronts out a little way and curve the fronts of them. A decision which turned out to be a master stroke if I do say so myself 🙂
Just check out that figured Redgum. WOW!
The basic drawer construction. you can see the back of the drawer is raised from the bench. This will allow the space needed to slide in a ply drawer bottom later.
Love the contrast between the Tassie Oak drawer side and the Redgum drawer front.
I made a quick template to trace a line top and bottom of the drawer front so I could then shape the curved front.
After gluing up the drawers and shaping the curved drawer fronts I am now positioning some butterfly keys to help stabilise some cracks in the top panels. They are both structural and aestetic.
A better shot of the curved drawer fronts.
You can see the dark line running left to right in the middle of the top panels. Those Redgum butterfly keys will help to “stitch” the panels back together.
Roughing out the butterfly mortises using my Trimmer router.
All of the keys installed and glued in.
A Redgum butterfly has been installed. I deliberately left them sitting proud of the surface so that I could flush them later.
I used my sportscar hand plane which I made myself to flush the keys down to the surface. I sure do love my sportscar, boys never grow up 🙂
Puurrfect!
The ends of the top panels look a little too bulky.
So I planed an undercut chamfer to lighten the look of the tops. It is hard work doing this by hand, I am only half way done in this image.
Both undercut chamfers finished!
All done with construction. Now I just need to smooth and sand all surfaces before finishing.
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
The final shots. 1350mm wide x 300mm deep x 850mm high
