Harlequin side table

[derekcohen]

My wife requested a side table for the family room. This will be situated between two arm chairs, and replace the small table (which is too high and dominating) ...

Not just a side table, but it also needed to house her needlework thingies. In other words, shallow drawers for cotton reels and sewing kit. I played around with several ideas, and eventually came up with a design that borrows a little from a piece I recently made.

Lynndy liked the softness of the rounded dovetails and overall dimension of this coffee table I built some months back for a nephew ...

The plan (looking down) would be to create a curved front and back, with round, splayed legs to the outside (an alternative is a straight, tapered round leg) ...

In contrast to the Jarrah in that piece, the carcase will be built in Hard Maple, dovetailed and mitred at each corner. It will feature 8 drawers. All drawer fronts will curve as well. The reason for "Harlequin" in the title is that the drawers will be a mix of woods, as depicted in the elevation of the drawer section ...

A harlequin design is often thought of as a diamond pattern, but does also include a rectangular checkerboard. Anyway, it's just a name, and I like giving my pieces a name

At this stage I have chosen for the drawer fronts Black Walnut and Blue Gum. I may also add in Hard Maple. Always interested in your thoughts here. The Blue Gum is lighter than the Black Walnut and is a good foil against the Hard Maple …

The legs will taper and curve from the carcase, attached with a loose mortice and tenon ...

The sides and top were arranged so that the grain flowed continuously. The carcase is 20mm thick, 800mm long and 350 at the wide, centre point ..

The initial dovetail plan was to keep the boards parallel and saw the curves later. It became apparent when joining the first set that this would not work ...

.. there would be too much at the sides to mitre, and so I decided to shape the top and bottom panels at this stage rather than later.

This was the first opportunity to use the modification I made to my Moxon vise (see article:http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/NewMoxonMods.html). It now enables the pin- and tail boards to be clamped together to aid in marking out (see earlier photo).

In marking out for mitred corners, the side tails are not sawn out from the front ...

... the board is reversed, and the mitres are marked ...

... and sawn ...

The reason I had wanted to retain square carcase sides was that it would make it easier to square the chisel guide for the mitres. I got around this by squaring them to the front of the carcase ...

The pin board is seen here ...

One of the difficulties in fitting this many tails and pins is that any slight errors are magnified. The fit below illustrates that the left side is too tight ...

To deal with this, the tails were given a pencil scribbling ...

Fitting the board together left this behind ...

This process needed to be done once more, before the fit was satisfactory ...

The four sides were dry fitted together, and the front and rear upper and lower panels planed to shape (this was close but not enough)  …

All is coplanar …

 

Where we are up to at the end of today …

 

One set of mitred corners …

… and the other …

   

Next up is building the internal dividers for the drawers.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[sancho57]

very nice work. Ive always wanted to learn how to do hand cut dovetails.

 

[Jiggy Joiner]

I love seeing real craftsmanship, and this is a lovely example.
I remember doing my apprenticeship, we spent weeks learning dovetails, I still find them beautiful, even more so when hand cut.
Superb work  [thumbs up]

 

[nclemmons]

Derek - your work is definitely 'next level' in design and craftsmanship.

Great design.  My wife does a lot of needlework, so I'm paying attention!

neil

 

[RKA]

“Next level” was exactly the phrase that popped into my mind as I scrolled through the pictures.  I love how unique your projects are! 

 

[wakyct]

I really appreciate the effort you put into photojournaling your work. Looks great.

 

[derekcohen]

George, these photos were taken hand held with a iPhone 6. Then cropped with Photoshop Elements 12. Really basic stuff.

Thanks all for the kind words. Lots more to come.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[derekcohen]

With the carcase completed, it is time to turn to the internal dividers for the drawers.

I took the time first to plane the rebate for the rear panel. Knowing my spatial weakness of getting parts back-to-front and upside-down, I marked these when the carcase was a dry fit  (and later briefly thought I had screwed this up!) ...

One of the benefits of mitred corners is that the rebate can be planed across without fear of it showing ...

The rebate is 6mm deep as the rear panel will be 5mm thick to bend it around the curved rear. The carcase is 20mm thick, and the rebate extends halfway into this.

I was curious to see how rebating on a curve would turn out. No problem ...

Here is the rear of the carcase with the rebate ...

Moving to the stopped dados/housings ... the centre panel is solid rather than a frame. I decided that this would be less work, plus there will be a series of stopped dados to be made. The panel is 10mm thick. This was made first, that is, the dados were sized to fit the panel thickness.

I made up a couple of templates. One was the height of the dado, and the other was the height of the dado plus the width of the dado. The inside of the carcase is marked on both sides using the same templates to ensure that they are exactly the same height from the base.

The lines are deepened with a knife, and then a chisel wall is created to register a saw cut ...

The end of the stopped dado is defined ...

A Japanese azebiki was used along a guide to ensure it cut on the vertical ...

Now that the sides are defined by the kerf, this could be deepened with a chisel (this is my favourite chisel - a 1" Kiyohisa. Sublime!) ..

The waste is removed with a router plane ...

Check that the side walls are square ...

Completed side panels ...

I was so confident that the dados were perfect that I dry fitted the carcase once more ... and then found that one dado was a smidgeon too tight for the test piece. It turned out that a small section of a side wall was not as square as I thought (probably the saw did not cut deeply enough at that spot). The best too to clear this is a side rebate plane. Set for a very light cut to clear the waste, not the dado width ...

Perfect fit this time ...

Time to fit the centre panel. This has been shaped to size, but will need a little fine tuning at a later time. Note that the rear section is secondary wood (Merbau) ...

I had just enough time to slide the panel in. Nice tight fit. Not enough time to saw the rebates for the stopped dados. This will be done next time ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Jamie_MA]

As always, beautiful work Derek! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Cheese]

Nice stuff Derek...I'll be watching this build for sure. [big grin]

Was also very interested in your Moxon vise modifications. The hinged rear ledge is a clever solution to a common problem.
http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/NewMoxonMods.html

I also liked the removable alignment fence. What adhesive did you use to join the steel angle and the wood?

 

[derekcohen]

Hi Cheese ... thanks.

The steel angle and wood were joined with a little epoxy.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Birdhunter]

Wonderful work!

Question. How does the design accommodate seasonal wood movement?

 

[derekcohen]

BH, wood moves across the grain. This means that the dividing panels will move towards the rear of the cabinet. No harm done

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[derekcohen]

The Harlequin side table will have 8 drawers. The drawer case sides and the central drawer blade are panels and run in dados or housings (depending on which side of the pond you live). Positioning of these dados is critical since any misalignment will affect the aesthetic. It goes without saying (but I shall) that the alignment also determines that the side panels will be square ... and drawers need to run against square sides. All this is done here with hand tools.

Some of the finer points in getting it precise ...

First of all, templates (or story sticks) are created to position the dados. There are two for each side panel: the second is 10mm longer than the first. Scoring each creates an exact 10mm dado. There is a series of templates to position all the dados. This ensures that the upper and the lower dado are position exactly the same distance from the reference wall ...

A chisel wall is created for the marked outlines. This wall enables the fence to be lined up using a wide chisel ...

The sidewalls are sawn with a azebiki saw. This have two curved sides, one with coarse rip teeth and the other with fine crosscut teeth. I begin with the fine teeth and use them to establish the kerf, and then switch to to the coarse teeth for speedier sawing.

With a compass, I check that the kerf is parallel and to the desired width (10mm) ...

The sawn side wall is now chopped away close to full depth ...

This is done across the dados on one board at a time ...

The waste in the centre of each dado is removed with a router plane. The dados are done at the same time to save have to reset the depth of cut (one stroke on dado #1, one on dado #2, and one on dado #3 ... then back to #1 ...) ...

Keep an eye on the depth ...

Fine tune the dado should theoretically be unnecessary if they were marked accurately. In practice, I find that there is usually some waste in the corners, or a slightly sloped wall. For this reason I run a side rebate plane (here a Veritas), the length of each wall. This is not held vertically, since that with remove some of the width. Instead it is run at an angle away from the side wall, as it it was undercutting the side wall ...

The fit is now checked with an offcut from the side panel ...

The side rebate plane can take a smidgeon off the sidewall if the fit is too tight. Some will argue that it is preferable to plane the panel instead. In this situation that is not advisable since the panel is to slide along the dado, and a tight point will impede all points of the panel.

The carcase is Hard Maple, with Merbau as the secondary wood. Locally, Merbau is used for decking. It is cheap and hard, both qualities valued. But is a really brittle wood, and awful to work with. The number of splinters I have had ... and they are sharp and lodge deeply. Ugh!

It can look like this ...

... and then a section breaks away ...

At least it will be far inside the carcase and not be seen.

A panel is made up for the interior dividers ...

The pieces are fitted.

Will the careful planning and neurotic execution pay off?

I was holding my breath. This is a dry fit ....

(sound of breathing again)

Then I pulled it apart and glued up the carcase ...

More after the coming weekend.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[ear3]

Truly inspiring build, and really excellent discussion of the process of cutting the dadoes.  Side rabbet plane proved to be a secret weapon here I see.

 

[derekcohen]

We left off with the drawer dividers a dry fit in the case ...

And then this was pulled apart and the case glued up. After a clean up, the ends were looking a little tidier ...

Now we've been through this together with the Jarrah coffee table, but for those who want to know how ...

The ends are marked (with a washer) ..

The aim is the remove the waste progressively to the lines ...

This is quick to do with a low angle jack ...

.. and finish with a block plane ...

Now finish with sandpaper - 80/120/240 grit ...

The completed case ...

I spent a few hours today turning a few legs. Rather than show the prototypes, I am hoping that I may have enough time to complete them tomorrow - I have the afternoon off! - and then I will post more photos.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Jiggy Joiner]

Stunning!

 

[derekcohen]

The case was completed last time ...

... but before the drawer dividers can be permanently installed, the legs need to be made and attached.

This was the original drawing ...

Some has been retained and some has been changed.

Instead of curved legs, which I later decided did not match the overall style, I decided on round, tapered legs that will splay out from the case.

Before turning the legs, the splay was created by tapering the top of the legs on the table saw. The slider uses a Fritz and Frans jig to rip the end at the chosen angle (8 degrees). This ensured that the splay angle would be the same for all legs.

The blanks were then turned to shape. Here I am checking that the near-to-finished legs are the same dimensions and have the same taper angle ...

The ends were then cut off and the top was shaped with rasps and sandpaper ...

How to attach the legs? Well, that had given me a real headache. I was thinking along the lines of a loose tenon ... overcomplicating matters (as usual). A number suggested simply glueing and screwing. I was skeptical, but of course, a glue joint alone is generally stronger than the wood ... and reason prevailed

There are three screws per leg, which were countersunk for the drawers. The glue chosen was Titebond III.

All cleaned up, this is what we have (drumroll) ...

The splay to the side is 8 degree, and from the sides, the legs are aligned with the front and rear of the case.

Drawers next

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Jiggy Joiner]

Oooh I really love this piece  [thumbs up]
I know that it’s not what this thread is about but, I started thinking about the price of this would be to a customer, and I worked out that the total, would, or rather should be, a lot of money!

It really is a stunning and bespoke example, thanks for sharing the build, and look forward to the next stage  [thumbs up]

 

[Koamolly]

Always love reading your posts.  Amazing craftsmanship.  I detect a little War of the Worlds vibe going on there.