Last blog post for Furniture Design class

Blog post 12/8/2011

table top with half the tenons cut flush with the table top.



the wedged tenon through the mortise.

tenon with the

Things are winding down for semester.  This week, I attached the legs to the table top.  It was pretty cool.  The tenons went through the top. On the ends I had cut slits and drilled a hole at the end just above where the leg actually started.  This is to relieve the pressure when the wedge is inserted so the tenon doesn’t crack or split down into the leg. 

 

Noticed that it is Non-Toxic, Safe for the Environment, and Safe to Use.

I took my table home to sand it and apply the finish. That took longer than I thought it would.  After a while (day and half) I gave up because the top was so dry that once I got it super smooth, any change in the humidity and it would feather up/feel rough again.  On Saturday, I applied Danish Oil as the finish.  When I looked at it this morning, I noticed a spot of glue where the oil didn’t penetrate.  So I sanded that spot and re-applied some oil.  With Danish Oil, you supposed to put on a thin coat, wait 5 minutes and then wipe it completely dry so that no oil is left on a clean cloth. Then 8-10 hours later, you buff it until you get the level of shine that you want. 

So far, so good; except in Saturday when I was sanding, my husband and I considered different bowls to try to select the best one.  I had 2 from the kitchen that I had thought of from the very beginning, even before I thought I might make a concrete bowl. (I ran out of time for that option, but since I have the materials, I want to try to make it anyway with my son, over the holidays while he’s home from college.  He knows a lot about ceramics and loves working with concrete, so that should be fun). 

The bowl my husband and I agreed on was an anniversary present we had given ourselves a few years back. We bought it at a small shop in Stanton, Virginia where we spent the weekend to see a Shakespearean play at the Black Friar’s Theatre.  There was a slight problem.  Because the bowl is handmade it was not completely symmetrical.  So I tried to adjust the opening in the table top to accommodate the irregularities in the shape.  I ended up realizing that I was never going to get it exactly right and there would be gaps showing between the bowl and the table top.  Since I was starting to run out of time, I figured, I’d just go for it for the presentation on Monday and worry about fixing it later.  But after a good night’s sleep, I wasn’t happy with the gaps and decided to use a different bowl. 

My husband was really sweet and found a beautiful black Murano glass bowl from Italy online at Crate and Barrel.  He showed it to me and I liked it too, so he called ahead and drove to the store to pick it up.  While he was gone, I knew I had to fix the hole in the table top, so I found a pie tin that was just ever so slightly larger than the current hole.  I traced the pie tin onto the table top and started hand sanding.  I wrapped sandpaper around a thick dowel.  It took about a half hour just to get the oil off before I reached the wood.  Then for the next 2.5 hours I sanded, only stopping to check my line and change out the sandpaper.  My husband came home with the bowl and it is beautiful, which motivated even more to get the hole in the table to fit as best as I could get.  It’s still not perfect, but it is significantly better than it was. So the next step was to sand the whole top for consistency.  Again, it was a pain to remove the oil before I could reach the wood, but I was rewarded with a truly smooth surface.  Because the oil had penetrated most of the wood, the humidity was not such a big deal, and the surface remained finish.  Already, the oil is enhancing the wood’s beautiful grain.  So tomorrow from 5 – 8 pm, will be our final:  presentation/show.  I’m excited.  I know it will be fun.  I am sorry to see this class end.  There is still so much about woodworking that I want to learn and have the time to practice; maybe after graduation in a year.  

This was going to be my last blog entry for my Furniture Design class, but I realized that you might want to see the final result.  So after the show tomorrow, I do one last post of the show.