First piece of "furniture"

[Joe Cunningham]

Finishing schedule?

Wiped down with tack cloth. Applied with 4x4 gauze. Dried for > 8 hours. Lightly sanded with 0000 steel wool. Re-tacked. Re-applied.

thanks
d

Hi Dan,
Thanks I wasn't sure if you used a complex finishing routine or not to get that sapele to look so great. Did you use polyurethane or varnish or lacquer? Maybe you mentioned it and I missed it.

[dan lemkin]

Thanks I wasn't sure if you used a complex finishing routine or not to get that sapele to look so great. Did you use polyurethane or varnish or lacquer? Maybe you mentioned it and I missed it.

I used minwax alkyd wiping poly. No special treatment. This finish was recommended in a review I think I saw on fine woodworking website. Nice. The satin does not have too much gloss. It dries very quickly (no shellac fast, but tacky within minutes, and dry to light touch in an hr, recoat in 3)

The sapele is amazing. Iridescent in how the grain lights up with shifting light. Anyone know how disastrous it is to the environment...

[Dave Verstraete]

Dan
Awesome first piece....Love how the different woods look together. Keep 'em coming.

[Brad Wood]

very nice looking piece there

[Bruce Page]

Dan,
Very nice “first piece of furniture” or even a 20th piece!

[Von Bickley]

Dan,

Great looking wood and a great looking table..... I personally like to have a small reveal between the apron and legs.

Great work. Thanks for sharing the pictures with us.

[Don Eddard]

You did a great job Dan, especially for a first piece of furniture.

[gary Zimmel]

Great job on the table Dan!

[Mark Placek]

Dan,

I like everything about the table, great job!

[John Thompson]

You did well with this first piece.

Sarge..

[dan lemkin]

It seems that the border on the top where the pomelle Sappele and cherry meet is starting to drift. Not apart, but a ridge is developing. It can not be seen readily, but if you drag your finger over it, you can feel it.

My prep was this
-Glue up was reinforced with biscuits and glued with TB3 after jointing edges. -Clamped for 8 hours.
-Scraped with cabinet scraper and sanded with belt sander
-It sat around for 3-4 days while I built the base.
-Finish sanded with orbital to 320 grit
-Finished with Minwax wiping poly x 4 coats

No ridge upon completion... Is this a temp, moisture migration? Should I sand it down and refinish the top again? Will this fix the problem?

Thanks
dan

[John Keeton]

My guess would be that the cherry is trapped in the mitered Sapelle border and is expanding because of increased humidity going into a season change. At some point, I would guess that the miter joint will show some stress - even though joined with biscuits. Not sure the prognosis is good here

I have always avoided mitered borders surrounding a solid panel (vs. plywood) for this reason.

I hope for the best here -

[Todd Bin]

Is the cherry on the top solid cherry or veneered? Most of the time when you see a table with a really nice wood with some kind of mitered border around it the "nice" wood on the inside of the border is a veneered panel. The veneered panel would be over ply or MDF so that no expansion happens. Just as a side note you will have to put a cheap backer veneer on the bottom side of the panel so the panel doesn't warp over time.

Really nice table. Like it a lot. If you live in an area where the humidity stays realatively constant between seasons then you may not have a problem.

Todd

[Jim Becker]

Nice work, Dan!