Chesapeake Woodworking

The top is flattened using a hand plane.  This short sentence represents a lot of work; a commercial cabinet shop would run the top through a huge drum sander.  My advantage is I can listen to bluegrass (Ricky Skaggs) while I work.

I ebonized the legs using a concoction of vinegar and steel wool.  To deepen the color I added two coats of ebony oil stain.

Even though I was careful to test my finishing process on scrap boards before finished the top, I still had major problems with streaking.  The problem was the tinted shellac, it was drying too fast in the hot summertime temps.  Lesson learned, don’t try to use shellac on large tops in hot temps.

I planed off the finish and tried again.  Sometimes you have to eat humble pie.

After several practice runs on scrap pieces, I was finally able to get a good finish on the top.

I don’t normally like using much color in my finishes, but I have to admit the effect is pleasing to the eye.

The finish dried glossier than I anticipated so I dulled it by rubbing it down with 600 grit sandpaper (I forgot to get pictures afterward).

The legs are connected to the table supports (table rails) with mortise and tenons.

The legs are rounded over utilizing a handheld router.  The roundover bit will not cut where the legs intersect with each other or the rails due to the diameter of the router bit bearing.  These areas are rounded over by hand using a chisel.

The top is glued up incrementally two boards at a time, run through the planer, then the sections are glued up to make the top.

Prior to trimming the top to size I could not resist the temptation to dry assemble the table and set the top on it to see how it looks.  Unfortunately woodworking is not my full time job; it takes a long time to go from drawn plan to completed piece, so this first glimpse of how a project will look is very satisfying.

Use the piece representative of the tenon to help you layout and mill the actual tenons.  I used a dado blade on the table saw to rough the tenons to size, then a rabbet plane to help fine tune the fit.

Once the through tenons fit to your satisfaction, create the mortise for the wedges.  The wedges and corresponding mortises are key to the whole structure of the table.  The wedges draw everything tight.

I penciled out layout lines on the tenon and drilled out as much waste as I could on the drill press.  Next I defined the boundaries of the mortise with a marking gauge and knife lines.  These lines are cut rather than marked so that a chisel may be registered in them in the next step.

The angled wall of the mortise does not have to be any exact angle.  I just chop it with a chisel, eyeballing the chisel in reference to an angled pencil line.  Whatever angle you chop with the chisel will be matched by the key later, so the actual number is not important.

I used a Narex mortise chisel for most of the work, and then switched to paring chisels to refine the side walls (not shown).

I’m building a sawbuck table similar to this one for some friends.  I start with a scaled drawing.

The purpose of the scaled drawing is to rough out the proportions.  It is almost like solving an equation: always start with your givens.  In this case your givens are 1) the height of the table using the widely used standard of approximately 29″, and 2) the length and width of the table top.  The length and width of the top was derived by taking a large piece of cardboard (representing the top) to the space where the table will be used, setting it upon a small table, and progressively trimming it until the dimensions looked right and fit the space requirements.

Next, start with your easiest decision first, in my case the thickness of the top.  3/4″ seemed right for this size table, but 3/4″ is such an overused dimension that I chose 13/16 just to be little different.  I used dividers to find the right porportion for the rail supporting the top.  First I tried twice the thickness of the top, but it looked too small.  Three times the thickness of the top looked just right.  Then on to the thickness of the legs.  Four times the thickness of the top looked good.

(Use dividers for this.  If you have never used dividers before; you are really missing out.  They help transfer dimensions, find the midpoint of objects, and figure your proportions.)

Then using pictures of sawbuck tables derived from a Google image search to help guide you, sketch in the curves on the legs.  The point of this is to just get the style down in your head; don’t worry about getting the drawing perfect.

Once you are happy with the scaled drawing; proceed to a full size drawing using plywood (I apologize for the poor picture).

Here you do want to get it as close to perfect as possible.  Don’t be afraid to deviate from your scaled drawing if it doesn’t translate well full size.  I changed the length of the rail.

The full size drawing is when I work out my joinery details; a floating tenon (shown below in dashed lines) will work great for joining the legs to the rail.

Using the full scale drawing as a guide, mill the lumber.  Jointing a leg . . .

. . . and trimming it on the tablesaw.

From the full size drawing I cut out a leg template and traced it on the leg stock . . .

. . . and cut it out on the bandsaw.  Repeat three more times and temporary clamp a couple together to see how it looks.