My friend Erick has a great woodworking shop. Over the past year I've spent a bunch of time helping him build and move from his old shop (a 3rd car stall in his garage) into his new shop (around an 800 sqft shop). Well, a bunch of time helping for me is roughly equivalent to about 1/10000 the total amount of time it took to build the new shop...

For the past month or two I've been slowly making progress on my first woodworking project - a small end table. The goal of the project was to start with something small that I could complete all the way, including "furniture" grade finish. We started with the best intentions... We dismissed ideas like a computer desk or built-in bookshelves as far to grandious for a first project. The end table for my theater room would make a great small project that would require too much materials, time, or skill.

Until we started feature creep... first, we decided the table should be round. Then, of course, the stretchers should also be round. Finally, the legs should taper in three directions and the finish should be a high gloss stain and laquer... Oh, and we decided to make the entire table out of Honduran Mahogany, a somewhat pricey (but not ridiculous) wood that is fairly soft and easy to work with...

During this project I had messed up practically every step.

First step was to make the top. milled some stock into three 6" strips which we glued together to form the round top. After waiting for a couple days we determined the top was slightly cupped, but OK. So I went to work on the top using a jig that I used to make the forms for the stretchers (more later). Of course it wasn't until after I cut the top that I realized I didn't take into account the thickness of the router bit, making the top 3/4" short on the radius - given that I only wanted about a 1" overhang, it destroyed the top.

To build the round stretchers we needed to create glue laminates, which involved cutting a good amount of wood into 3/32" strips that we could glue together. After ripping about 20+ strips we reached the conclusion that they were too thin and inconsistent. Toss that wood.

So here I am, having burnt through about $50 worth of wood. But, I've learned some good lessons. Off to the wood store to get more mahogany.

Measuring more carefully this time. New blade in the band saw. Stretchers come out much nicer, only a few mess ups. Top is looking good - this time we thought aheard and book matched the wood for great symetry of the grain.

We decide to do a three way taper on the legs, leaving the front face nice and flat. Looks nice, but involved some trickiness to get the table saw and chop saw to cooperate.

After that it was just sanding, and finishing... all in all it probably was a 25 hour project.

Hours in shop: ~20 hours
Finishing time: ~5 hours
Tools used: Double belt sander, band saw, table saw, planer, jointer, hand plane, forsner bits
Mechanical fasters: 6 figure 8 clips to secure the top to the base

Construction used loose mortice and tennon to secure the stretchers to the legs, using 0 biscuits. Each stretcher consists of around 6 layers of mahogony that was cut to around 3/32 on the band saw and sanded down to around 1/16 with the double belt sander. Gorilla glue was soaked into all the layers of the stretchers and then they were put in a round form for around 1 day each and held under pressure. When all 4 stretchers where completed they were jointed and cut on the table saw to be made consistent.

The top was a single piece of 12/8 stock (i think?) that I split on the bandsaw, then milled to be glued together into the 16" diameter round top. The top was roughcut on the bandsaw, then cleaned up with a router using a jig attached to a dowel in the center of the top. The top was attached to the base using 6 figure 8 clips, using a forner bit to drill out a spot on each stretcher.

The finish was a oil based dark walnut that I wiped on, and I did 3 coats of lacquer to the entire table, with 6 coats on the top.