About a month ago, I was asked by Osborne Wood Products to create a step-by-step tutorial for one of their new products: acrylic table legs.

Naturally, I was very excited to take on the task! They provided me with the legs free of charge, but I received no other compensation. I ended up finding some friends who needed a side table for their living room, and we agreed that I’d build the table for just the cost of the remaining materials.

I had a few goals in mind for this build:

• In the spirit of DIB, I wanted to make this a project that could be done by someone who was moving up from basic DIY skills.
• The acrylic legs were going to be a bit unorthodox, so I wanted the design of the table to draw on the legs in some ways to bring everything together.
• It needed to be functional for my friend’s living room. This meant a lid that opened rather than a draw. The additional advantage is that this makes it much more DIB friendly; drawers can be a tough thing to master.

With that in mind, here’s the basic sketch-up: cherry side table diagram

I opted to do the sides (aprons) of the table using what would be called “1×6″ stock, if you were to find it at a home improvement center. I don’t mean construction grade 1×6; these stores will carry craft grade hardwoods in this dimension, most likely red oak and maple. Since I can mill my own lumber, I just went ahead and bought some S2 cherry and milled it to 1×6 stock. In actuality, it’s 0.75″ thick and 5.5” wide. If you’re curious why this these dimensions are different than the label states, revisit my blog post here!

I would have LOVED to have used 1×8 material, because I think the proportions would have come out better. But I couldn’t find any hardwood stock that Home Depot or Lowes carried (and was affordable) in 1×8. Being able to mill to 1×8 isn’t a luxury most DIYers will have, so I stuck with what was common.

Three days after confirming with Osborne, the legs arrived in the mail.

The first thing I did was take them out of their packaging and measure each one. They were all the same length, but there were some varying widths to the wooden parts, at most 1/16th of an inch different from the 2.5″ they were supposed to be. Not a huge deal, just important to know so we can adjust.

This is a good time to lay them out and figure out which legs will go where. I tried to match them so that the front and back legs would have similar widths. I mark them with a BL for back left, and a FR for front right.

I then made marks for each corner so I could keep reference (see the 1 and 2 marked on here.)

Side note: Those four little impressions must be from the machining process, like a lathe chuck. In hindsight, I should have removed them. What I’d recommend is using a miter saw or table saw to take about 1/16th off the end of each wooden block just to remove these.

Next, I cut the cherry boards down to the length I needed (see diagram). Remember, you have to add 0.75 inches on each end of the length to account for the tenons we’re going to cut. You can do this on your table saw, like I did. You can also use a miter saw, circular saw (of you use a carpenters square to keep you at a 90 degree cut) or even a hand saw if you’re careful enough.

As an added measure of safety, I measured the legs in adjacent pairs. By doing this, you essentially multiply the error of each individual leg by 2. Basically, it’s easier to notice a 1/16th difference between 2 combined legs than a 1/32nd inch difference on each. For every fraction of an inch this measures under 5″. add that to the length of the side that will connect those two legs. Ex: If FL and FR together measure 4 and 7/8ths inches across, then the front apron needs to actually be 12.5″ plus 1/8th inch variance (plus 1.5″ total for the tenons).

You always want to cut your mortises first. It’s much easier to make a tenon just slightly thick and then trim it to fit a mortise. Much harder to make the mortise narrow and widen to fit the tenon. I opted for a 3/8 inch thick tenon, which means we need a 3/8 width mortise. I also decided to leave 1/2 inch on the width of the board on each side as the “shoulders” for the tenon.

On each side, mark 1/2 inch down and 5 inches down. These are the lines where we want our mortise to stop. You’ll need to mark this line on all four sides of the legs since we’ll be referencing off them.

Side note: This is a good time to unscrew the acrylic legs. Not only are they cumbersome while we’re doing all this, but Osborne tells me that lacquer thinner will melt them, so they need to come off before we apply the finish anyway.

To do this on a router table, you’ll want to use a 3/8″ straight cutting bit. Use a square placed against the fence of your router table, and mark the edges of the bit on some pieces of tape so you know where to start and stop your cut. I use my calipers to make sure I’m as close as physically possible to being centered. It should be 1 and 1/16th from each side, or 1.0625. You can see on my calipers that I’m 0.0125 inches off. There’s no way I can make an adjustment that accurately.

Instead, what we do is run the piece through, flip it around, and then run it through the opposite direction. That guarantees that slot will be centered. This is also why we cut our tenons slightly thick and trim down; we’ll always end up with something slightly larger than a 3/8 mortise.

Start very shallow, maybe 1/8 inch. Slowly work your way up until you’ve reached 3/4″ in depth. It should look something like this:

The other way to do this is with hand tools, if you don’t have access to a dado stack on your saw. Here’s a blog post where I showed how to do that as well!

To cut the tenons, I decided to use the dado set on my table saw. This is essentially two 1/8 inch wide blades put next to each other. I could have done a 0.75″ thick dado cutter, but then I’d have to move down to 1/4 when I cut the grooves in the sides, and I’d rather just do one setup.

Anytime you are crosscutting (where the grain is perpendicular to the blade) on your table saw, you have to use a stop block on your fence. This keeps the wood from binding between the blade and the fence, which can cause a dangerous event called kickback.

Measure 3/4 inch off the stop block to the opposite edge of the blade, then set the height of the blade to just under 3/16ths of an inch. Use your miter gauge to cut out the tenon on a piece of scrap identical in thickness. Here’s a good video:

The tenon you’re left with will be square edged, but the mortise has rounded edges. Simply take a chisel or utility knife and knock the corners off your test piece.

Try the fit of your test piece. If it looks good, make all the tenon cuts.

Again, here’s a link to the post where I show how to do this by hand. In that case, you’d use a 3/8″ chisel.

Now you need to make the groove for the bottom drawer that will fit in. I opted to use pre-finished plywood on 1/4 thickness. I think anything larger would be overkill. I made the cut with my dado blade, using a featherboard to hold everything flush (always keep the featherboard in front of the blade to avoid kickback.

You could just as easily do this with a router. If you were going to do this without either of those tools, it would be very difficult. You’d have to use a groove cutting hand plane, or you could mark the lines and hand chisel. This would be a good excuse to borrow a tool or find a shop that can cut this for you.

I decided to echo some of the round elements of the legs in the rest of the construction. That meant using a roundover bit on all the corners and the bottoms of the aprons.

Before you start gluing anything, you really need to mark your tenons and mortises to make sure you remember what goes where. I find it’s best to put them on the end of the tenon and inside the mortise, since they’d get sanded off if you put them on the outside.

Dry fit everything together and then measure for the plywood bottom. Remember to add about half an inch to the total length and width to account for the two, quarter inch deep groves on each side.

Note: To make this easier, don’t roundover the inside corner of the legs. It was really hard to get the rounded profile right, and it didn’t turn out as perfectly as it could have with a square corner.

Cut your plywood off the large sheet, leaving a little bit extra so you can give it a final, more accurate cut on your table saw. If you don’t have a table saw, just do the final dimensions with your circular saw; the groove can hide some of the imperfections.

I used a hand coping saw to cut the corners out. You could also use a scroll saw or powered jigsaw.

Dry fit once more to make sure it fits as you’d like.

Once all the pieces fit, set everything aside until we’re ready to sand.

Moving on to the top, I also opted to go with 1×6 material. Here’s why I call this my “wild” cherry side table. Look at that grain! The oil is really going to make this pop.

The most important part of this glue-up is making sure the edges are perfectly flat (jointed) and perpendicular to the flat faces. This will ensure that the top is flat(ish) once glued up. Here’s how we’ve done this in previous builds.

My phone deleted the pictures of this piece being clamped and glued, but it’s the same as the process in the previous link. No special joinery or screws needed, just flat edges and glue!

If you’re glue-up came out perfect, skip this next step. But, if like mine, you find it’s a little less than perfect, you’ll need to pull out your hand plane again. I held a long metal ruler over one side of the table to identify the peaks and valleys. Then, I used my hand plane to gently remove those spots. Once I was satisfied with that flatness, I clamped it to the flattest spot in my shop: my table saw top. Then, plane the other side flat and parallel.

Use a table saw, circular saw, or bandsaw to cut to final dimensions.

At this point, you’re in the final stretch! With a powered sander (or a handheld sanding block) start at 120 grit, then go to 150, 220, and 320. The legs from Osborne actually come sanded to 150 already, so I just went to 220 right away on them. 320 is probably overkill for most woods, but cherry can get very blotchy when you finish it, especially if sanded to a low grit. So I went to 320.

For the finish, you have a ton of options available. The least expensive and most user friendly is wipe-on formulated polyurethane; I’ve used this in previous builds. I wanted something that would really penetrate the cherry though, so I went with Minwax “tung oil” varnish. Despite what the name says, there’s no actual tung oil in there; it’s just a wiping varnish. DO NOT buy 100% tung oil for this project; it never dries, and it will not work well in this case.

After two coats of the finish had fully dried, I applied wood glue to the tenon and inside of the mortise, assembled everything, and clamped it in place. The most important thing to do is make sure it’s on a flat surface so you make sure it doesn’t wobble. Also, make sure to measure the diagonals; if they’re equal, you know the table is squared.

I opted to use polished brass “non-mortise” hinges. All that means is you don’t have to chisel any wood out to make the hinges sit flush. Here’s a link to the page on Rockler where you can order them; I think Home Depot may carry them as well.

Mark pilot holes, and use a hand screwdriver or battery screwdriver (not a drill!) to put the screws in.

Turn the table top upside down, place the hinges on there so that the back will overhang by one inch. Pilot holes, and screws. I also decided to add one of these brass lid supports to hold the top open. I may add a second, but one seems to hold well.

Here’s what it looks like when it’s all done!

Well, the end is nigh!  In a good way though.  Once you’ve finished part two of the table top build the rest if very simple!

Start by using a chamfer bit to get a 45 degree profile on all of the corners.  This will reduce the sharp edges, and give the table an elegant edge profile.  I used this great cordless trim router I got for Christmas, but literally any router will work.  If you’ve managed to make it this far in the build without the use of a router at all (wow, serious kudos if so) then just use a block plane to add the chamfer.  Sand everything down to a universal smoothness, starting with 80, then 120, the either 180 or 220 grit (this will depend on wood type and stain type, a whole separate blog post on its own…).

Vacuum everything, then apply stain.  I used General Finishes Antique Oak, in a water based formula.  This causes it’s own unique issues, since the water in the stain will raise the grain some.  You can either 1) wipe the whole table down with a damp cloth, let dry, then sand to final grit again (essentially pre-raising the grain) or 2) apply the stain, apply sanding sealer, then sand.  I went with #2.

The shellac based sanding sealer does two things; it helps protect the stain from being removed when I lightly sand the raised grain off.  It also keeps the Aquacoat (see below), which is water-based, from reactivating the stain.

For the finish, I elected to do multiple steps, in an attempt to reduce the rough texture you can get from the coarse grain of oak.  To do this, I opted to use Aquacoat clear grain pore filler.  Lightly scuff sand the table after both coats of shellac go on with 220 grit sandpaper.  Apply Aquacoat to directions on the container.  I did two layers.  If you use a less grainy wood, like Maple or Cherry, this step won’t be necessary.

After the Aquacoat, allow to dry for a minimum of 72 hours before applying an oil based finish.  Finish with a three coats of General Finishes Arm-r-Seal.

You’re remember that the frame looks like this after being built:

On each of those four short braces, we’re going to put four figure eight clips.  These clips allow the table top to move freely as the seasons cause it to expand and contract.  Mark out four spots on each beam, far enough into the taper that a 3/4″ #8 screw can go in.  I chose to put all 16 fasteners facing the space between each set of beams so they won’t be seen.  Use a router or forstner bit in a drill to make a small 3/4 inch diameter cutout that is the depth of the figure 8 clip.  Predrill holes, and fasten them to the table base and table top!

I’ve taken a somewhat minimalist approach on this post, because I’ve covered a lot of these topics before.  To build the table top, we’re going to start with 8/4 lumber.  I chose white oak, in part because of the cost (relatively less expensive) and in part because I am a big bourbon drinker, and like the idea of using its signature coopering wood in my build!  As a bonus, it makes the shop smell fantastic after you work with it; it’s like walking into a rickhouse!

If you start with 8/4 rough lumber, you’ll need to do the same steps we did for the hard maple frame in the previous post; joint one face, plane the other side parallel, then joint the edges perpendicular to the faces.  I was shooting for 1.75″ thickness, which would leave a quarter inch to sand and surface the table top once everything was all glued up.  My final thickness will be 1.5″.

If you don’t have access to a jointer or planer, buy S3S or S4S pre-surfaced lumber, and use a hand plane to joint the edges.  You want them as flat and squared as possible.  This will ensure a solid glue joint.  After laying out the boards for the appearance you’d like, use this method to joint the edges.

Once you have the board layout together, it’s time to prep for gluing.  I made some custom 48 inch sawhorses to support the whole thing using this guide.  I then put some duct tape on the top to keep the boards from sticking to the sawhorses.  

Now it’s time to clamp.  While my pipe clamps are five feet long and I could technically clamp the whole table top in once piece, I decided to do it in two pieces.  Doing two, ~20 inch pieces would allow me to send it to my local lumber yard, where they could flatten each piece and sand it down to exactly 1.5″ on their 36″ drum sander.  For those who don’t have access to a service like this, I’ll cover some other options later.  After I get the two pieces back, I’ll only have one glue seam on my final piece as I join those two pieces, which can be easily flattened with a hand plane.

Spread a good, quality wood glue like Titebond 3 on the edges, using an acid brush or foam brush to make sure you get a nice, even layer.

I used cauls to help keep the top as flat as possible.  Essentially, you tape two pieces of wood (I used 2×4 scraps) and flatten one side each.  Then, clamp them down to the table top to keep everything flat.   Pipe clamps do the majority of the work providing pressure for the glue up.  I got 10 of these Pony clamps for $125 with the pipes, which is a ridiculous Craigslist find.  The guild also has a bunch of clamps I could have used.

Follow the directions on the glue bottle, but leave this clamped for at least an hour, if not more.  When the glue is kind of tacky, use a cheap chisel or metal scraper to remove the glue that squeezes out.

For the Reddit r/woodworking Dovetail challenge, I decided to finally tackle a project I’ve been meaning to work on for a few months: a memorial case for the flag my family was presented at my grandfather’s funeral in November. My grandfather grew up during the Great Depression, served in the military until retirement, and raised a large and loving family. To honor his roots and the connection we have to our family, I built the case completely out of cypress taken from our family’s land there.

If you’re looking for perfect dovetails, this won’t be for you. But, it’s a special wood (in rarity and in sentiment) and I wanted to think outside the (90 degree) box (literally and figuratively) when contemplating a way to incorporate dovetails. This was really something I did for my family and myself, but I also know my grandfather would be proud to know that I made this and would want me to share the process as well.

I’m currently working on two projects: the nightstands to match the bed I recently made, and also this desk that was commissioned for some friends.  I am not going to share the entire build process for the desk (I think they’d appreciate their desk being unique), but I wanted to share an easy little workaround I made for a spine jig.

“What is a spline?” you may be asking.  Well, when you make mitered corners for any sort of box, the corner ends up becoming two pieces of end grain that are joined together.  End grain glue ups are substantially weaker than long grain (face grain) glue ups.  How do we improve that?  Well, one way is to add a spline.

For a picture frame or small box, you can accomplish easy splines by creating a sled for your miter saw that you set the frame in which will cut a slot perpendicular to the miter.  For a big desk like this, though, it becomes a lot harder.

One solution is to use a biscuit joiner on which you create a jig that attaches to the joiner.  I really didn’t want to spend a ton of time building that.  All I needed was a perpendicular reference point; I could use the fence on my joiner to adjust the height, and use the alignment points to make sure I got the corner on center.

The solution?  Use two cutoffs to create a reference edge!

Since these are cutoffs from the stock I used to make the mitered edges, the height is exactly the same, making clamping a breeze.  And, since I used my miter sled to cut them, I know they’re accurate 45 degree angles.  I just plunge the biscuit joiner in at it’s deepest setting to cut the slot.

I ran a strip of 1/4 inch walnut through my planer until I got a snug fitting piece that would slide in the slot.  Glue liberally, let them dry.  Then, use a flush cut saw to cut off the excess, sand, and finish!

When we left off, I had just rough-cut and planed down some of the persimmon. To get a truly flat, squared piece of lumber, I had to go to the local Woodworker’s guild where I am a member and use two of their machines: a jointer, and a planer. The jointer is a power tool that lets you take a piece of wood and make the face side perfectly flat. You then lay that against the fence and square up the edges. From there, you run it through the planer with your flat side down, and it makes both faces of the board parallel. You can absolutely do this with hand planes, it’s just a lot more time and effort. I didn’t get any pictures of the process, because frankly that was my first time using those power tools and I don’t feel particularly qualified to teach them. But, that’s part of why I joined the guild; a member was able to help me use them.

Next, figure out the dimensions you’d like for your mallet. That’s right, we’re making a mallet! This is about 5.5″ long by 3.5″ tall. The thickness of the mallet will be determined by the thickness of our stock. After surfacing, my pieces of persimmon came to 5/8″ thick. I decided to laminate three together for a total thickness of roughly two inches.

What we want to do at this point is create a slot for the handle to go in, and we want to taper it slightly so we can use a set of wedges to hold everything together. Using a 2 degree angle, cut two smaller pieces so that (on the bottom) they leave a 1.5″ centered slot. At the top, because it’s tapered, it will be slightly larger.

Glue those two pieces on and then clamp the heck out of them.

Add a final piece on top once that glue has dried, and this is what it should look like:

Take the head, and cut a 2 degree angle on each side. Make sure the narrower part of the mallet is the bottom.

Now to start on the handle. I took a nice piece of 8/4 ash and worked it down to 1.5″ x 1.25″ x 14″ long. You can change the length to suit your tastes, and we’re going to shape the handle down so don’t think I’m crazy when you pick this up and it feels way too thick.

On the 1.25″ side, we want to mark a tenon that is 5/8″ wide and centered. Make the tenon as long as the height of the mallet head, plus 1/2″ or so.

From there, make a rough outline of what you want the handle shape to be. Make sure it remains at 1.5″ at the top for at least an inch down the handle. Using a jig saw, band saw, or coping saw, cut this profile out. I did this before cutting the wedge slots because I didn’t want to damage the tenon after it’s cut.

Cut two slots, about 5/8″ in from the front and back of the tenon, and 1/8″ thick. Stop 1/4″ before reaching the bottom of the tenon.

Now, taking a piece of the persimmon, cut a wedge that is 1/8″ at it’s narrowest and slopes 2 degrees, making sure it is about an inch longer than the mallet height.

Apply glue liberally to the tenon and wedges, then insert the handle and slowly hammer the wedges in, making sure to hammer both at the same time.

Use a cutoff saw of some sort to cut the wedges and the top of the handle off, and use a block plane or sander to smooth the top.

If I’d had a spokeshave, I would have put a lot more time into this handle. But, it’s pretty comfortable to hold and considering I sanded it using a dremel, I’m fairly pleased.

Finally, apply at least two coats of a penetrating finish like tung oil or boiled linseed oil, and let it dry! This was a gift for a friend, and I forgot to take a picture before my wife wrapped it, but the finish will deepen the color and give everything a really nice feel.