Oak TV / Plant Stand

Dimensions: 16" X 16" X 41" Tall

Material: Red Oak

Finish: The finish is a hand rubbed Watco Oil finish.

Design: The style is similar to a 1940's era table we acquired as an antique. Over 80% of the table is made with hand tools. The main components were cut-out on either a table or band saw then finished by hand, sanding was kept to a minimum by scraping as much as possible.

Tools Used: Chisels, a variety of hand scrapers, #12 scraper plane, #78 filletster plane, #113 circular plane, hand drill, yankee screwdriver, measuring and marking tools, a router and dove-tail bit, home made fixtures, table saw, and band saw.

Finished Pictures:

 

 

Construction Techniques: The legs are attached with angular dove-tails into the top, then secured by the decorative molding. This method of attachment is mechanically very strong, but does require some advanced skills to apply.

The dove-tail slots were put in the top with the aid of a home made fixture and router using a dove-tail bit and router guide follower. The angle of the slot is 5 degrees down, therefore the complementing dove-tail on the legs are actually a series of compound angles, which were best cut by hand. I used a dovetail saw to cut the wall on each side, a #78 Stanley Duplex Rabbit & Filletster plane to cut the thickness, and a chisel to finish the dove tail angles.

The distance the legs are allowed to travel into the slot is governed by the distance from the bottom of the leg to the face of the wall. Since this is difficult to hold this relationship, I added a notch into the corners of the decorative molding (not shown) which maintains a positive depth stop and secures the leg from moving from side to side. The last thing I did was to add a small block which I screwed up against the inside of the leg to keep it from ever backing out.

The legs were band sawed out of 7/8" flat stock staying about an 1/8" from the line. The four legs were then clamped in my vise and a #113 Circular Plane was used to create the shape. This was the first time I really put this type of plane to test; it went very well. It required a bit of skill to constantly turn the bottom curvature adjustment screw and plane over a changing convex to concave surface. However, the skills actually took a relatively short time to master; the second set of legs (I made 2 tables) only took about 40 minutes to completely shape both sides of the legs.

Creating the Legs with a Stanley #113

  

Well I hope the tale of this project was informative to you. Please feel free to let me know what you think... Comments and Criticisms are Always Welcome, Floggings Are Not!

John