www.bobgiven.com

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Chairside Table
(Click on any picture to view the larger detailed picture.)

During a recent visit with my Dad, I noticed a small table next to his chair where he
spends a good deal of his time. It was completely covered with newspapers, books,
magazines, cups, pens, telephones, radio, etc. You could not see the top and if you
wanted something you probably had to dig for it. I decided to design and build him
something he could "potentially" use to better organize and access his things. This is
that project...

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Here's my preliminary drawings, hand drawn scale drawing,
and a computer generated drawing I created using a trial version
of SketchList 3D. It's a very nice program but I'm not ready to pay
the $200 price tag. I plan for the table to be 28 inches wide, 20 inches
deep, and 38 inches high.

After looking around and browsing a few trade magazines I
decided to use 3/4 inch and 1/2 inch oak as my choice of wood,
besides everything else my Dad has in that room is oak. If you
look closely you can see four table legs in this 2 inch thick
slab of oak.

 

There they are... the finished dimensions for the legs will be 1 3/4
square by 20 inches high.

 

 

It took me awhile to build the jig for putting a taper on the legs
but they came out good.

 

 

Getting ready to rough cut the boards for the rails, sides, back,
and three levels of tables.

 

 

Rough cut to length, ready to run through the jointer.

 

 

 

Two sides have straight edges, now ready to plane.

 

 

 

The rails have been edged, planed, and cut to length.
I made an extra long and short rail so I can make
test cuts on the router table without ruining the good
pieces trying to get the proper depth of the router bit
and guide fence distance.

Rough cut table and side boards.

 

 

 

Table and side boards ready to be glue up. I need one
20x28 inch table and two 10x28 table. Also need two
18 3/4x 20 inch sides. I only have a 6 1/8 inch jointer
so I need to glue multiple boards together.

 

Here is the entire stack of rough cut and rough finished
boards that I will use to build the table. The 1/2 inch boards
will be used for the sectional dividers.

 

 

Before I glued up the boards I first needed to make a couple
of jigs to help keep the glued up boards flat. I found plans for
these 2x2 hardwood edge board gluing jigs on
www.woodworkingtips.com.

 

To prevent the glue from sticking to the jigs I applied Turtle Wax
paste wax to the inside surfaces of the jigs. Once it dried I wiped
off the excess. It worked like a charm...

 

 

The boards are in place and ready to be glued and clamped, a moist
cloth ready to wipe up the squeezed out glue. I don't have a workbench
yet, so I laid a 4x8 sheet of plywood down on sawhorses and covered it
with wax paper to protect the surface from dripped glue.

 

Clamped in place. I found I had to use small hand clamps on the sides
to help keep the edges lined up. I need more clamps - you can never
have too many clamps...

 

 

After the glue set, I removed the clamps. I have a really flat board with
very close edges. I bit of sanding and cut to dimension and this will
become the table top.

 

 

This is the set up to glue up the back. I fudged a bit on the width of
the pieces for the back since I needed it to be 18 3/4 high. So I used
three boards of 6 1/2 inches instead of four 5 1/2 boards. They were
a bit wide for my jointer, but my planer is 10 inches wide so I
trimmed it there.

 

The back is glued and clamped. I did the same procedure for the
other table tops and the sides.

 

 

I spent considerable time adjusting the router table to cut the
dovetails into the legs. I decided to use a dovetail joint so I
wouldn't have to use any fasteners other than glue.

 

 

The sanding operation on the makeshift workbench.

 

 

 

The doctor ready to perform the operation.

 

 

 

The legs and rails laid out ready to be glued after sanding
and dry fitting. You can see the dovetail pin on the rails.

 

 

Glued, fitted, and clamped. Funny thing - as I measured the base
base for squareness I also measured the total width and depth and
found I was one inch short on both dimensions. I was puzzled until
I checked my plans and found that when I figured the length of the
rails, I subtracted a half inch instead of adding it to allow for the pins
on the dovetail joints. I'll just adjust the other dimensions accordingly.

New pictures as of Nov 4, 2009

After figuring the adjusted dimensions, I drew a full size pattern of
what I wanted for the sides. I had several ideas of form and shape
and settled on this, partially for simplicity and functionality.

 

 

Using a razor knife I cut the pattern out and traced it on the
two sides. I used a band saw to cut along the lines.

 

 

Clamping the two sides together I used 80 grit sand paper
in my belt sander to shape and smooth the edges. Then I smoothed
it further with 120 grit.

 

 

I have a cheap router table that only takes a 1/4 inch shank router bit. The table itself
is small and too light to stay in place on it's own. Setting the fence and depth of bit was
hit or miss because precision can not be found on cheap equipment. Then within a few
test cuts the fence moved and the bit started sliding out - completely unacceptable.
I abandoned further attempts to use this piece of equipment.

I then spent considerable time preparing my table saw with a dado blade. I first had
to perform preventive maintenance on the table saw to get it ready for the dado blade.
This style of dado blade was a single blade with a tapered mounting plate. By loosening
the tightening screws and turning the plate in varying distances, you can determine the
angle the blade sits on the plate. The greater the angle, the wider the dado cut. However,
with this method of adjusting the width, it's impossible to get a square dado cut. The
bottom of the dado is rounded - not preferable, not acceptable.

My final option was to use my good hand-held router. This precision machine takes
both 1/4 and 1/2 inch shanks and has greater control on the depth. Using a hand-held
router takes longer to make the cuts because it's necessary to mark you work and
clamp in place a fence for every cut - and in this case twice because I needed to make
two passes to get the width I want. However, with a good router the dado cut was
sharpe and square with a flat bottom.

I used my Workmate bench so I could clamp the work pieces
to it. I had to use stop boards to help keep the fence from moving
while cutting the dado. In the lower left corner you can see where
my router "traveled" when the fence moved before. Luckily I saw
the movement and stopped in time. The error was covered by the
second cut to finish the width.

To determine where to clamp the fence, I placed the actual piece,
in this case the bottom, in place and used two different widths of
spacers, one was 3 1/4 wide and the other was 3 5/8 wide. By
keeping the stopper clamped in place I could first make a cut
with the narrow spacer and then replace it with the wider spacer
and make the second cut. This gave me the 3/4 wide dado cut.

Here you can see the two spacer boards giving me the proper
distance from the edge of the router guide to the cutting edge of
the bit.

 

 

The end results - two dado grooves on the back piece.

 

 

 

Once the back, the two sides, and the top, middle and bottom desk
pieces were cut, I dry fitted them to check sizing. I used my table saw
to cut the rabbits which fasten the sides, bottom and back. I wasn't
really too happy with the results even though it was better than the
crappy router table I tried first. Next time I use the hand-held router
for that too.

This photo shows how the back piece does not fit well because of
the sloppy rabbit cut. I'll cut a little here or sand a little here until
it fits flush.

 

 

A few hours later, 18 dado cuts and several more pieces cut
to size, the complete set of parts ready to dry fit.

 

 

Dry fit without the back. You might notice that the dividers
are not flush to the front. I haven't yet shaped and fitted each
piece as it lies in the dado groove. For the dividers, I stopped
the dado cut 3/4 inch from the front and cut a 3/4 inch notch
on the divider. When I trim them they'll be flush. These won't
be glued in but will be held in place by the back.

You also might notice that I cut the dado groove all the way through the front edge
on the side pieces where the top and middle shelf attach. I wanted to stop these 1 inch
from the front. But I was a bonehead and wasn't paying attention. I'll repair them and
hope they don't show too much. Gives it character right!

Back view. Now that I think about it, I'll have to trim 3/8 inch
off the back of all the divider pieces as the back has dado cuts
to accept the top and middle shelves. I designed it that way to
help prevent the shelves from sagging since there is no other
structural support along the length.

 

New pictures as of Dec 16, 2009

After moving the project indoors because the temperature was
below 50 degrees in the garage I dry fit the upper desk before
gluing.

 

 

Using 90 degree angle braces to ensure squareness, I glued up
the two top shelves with the bottom shelf in place to maintain
proper spacing.

 

 

Once set, I flipped it over using my custom made dart-board box
supports I glued up the bottom shelf. The top shelves are fixed
with only glue while the bottom and back will have finish nails.

 

 

I don't have pictures of the back in place, but it took a bit more
fine tune trimming to slide into place, glued and nailed. Of course
I remembered to slide the shelf dividers in place first, they will
not be glued or nailed. Here the base is being clamped into
position for fastening.

I decided to join the top desk and bottom base with screws using
pocket holes cut with a KREG pocket hole jig. On the test piece
I found that the Irwin Quick-Grip clamps did not hold the jig securely
so had to use a C clamp. This one is too large but it was the only size
I had.

 

The finished holes. The KREG jig only allowed the drill bit to cut into
the side pieces. Then using self-tapping pocket hole screws I secured
the base to the desk, 3 along the length, 2 along the sides. It actually
worked pretty well, easily giving me clean pocket holes. However,
I did snap off one screwhead by trying to tighten it too much.

Assembled. Needs final cleaning and sanding prior to finishing. In my
original design I had the base the same size as the desk top. But due to
a calculation flaw on my part the rails ended up being shorter than planned.
I'm okay with the design outcome because it doesn't look bad. And I'm
okay with the sides support as they are joined with the bottom shelf and
back with rabbit joints.

The next set of pictures will show the finished product. I will use golden oak stain followed by
a clear semi-gloss polycrylic finish.

New pictures as of Dec 22, 2009

Final sanding completed. I must admit at this point that I failed to inspect
the piece in detail. There were a couple spots of glue that should have been
removed prior to staining.

 

I only need one coat of Golden Oak stain. I did make sure I had complete
coverage and with that it turned out a little darker than I wanted.

 

 

After the first coat of poly it glistens as it's still wet. I gave it two days to
dry as the temps were in the upper 50's. Then I lightly hand sanded it to
remove the roughness and make it smooth for the final coat of poly.

 

I really like natural wood with stain because you can't duplicate the
beauty of the wood grain.

 

 

A detail of the back shows my mark.
It reads: Handcrafted by Robert A Given Jr

 

 

The second coat of poly still wet. The second coat goes on much
easier, but it's harder to see if you got complete coverage because
it blends in to the first coat.

 

I've decided to call this style - rustic. Basic lap and dado jointery,
simple lines, and no veneer on exposed end grain. Did I mention
I love the wood grain patterns?

 

After the polyurethane has dried it's a semi-gloss finish and doesn't
look "wet". I learned a lot doing this project! It was fun figuring out
the design and how it would fit (except the time I drop the side piece
and it snapped in two.)