Celtic Federal Shaker Tables

[mike holden]

The big project for this Holiday Season was these tables. They may win an award for the longest running simple project ever - I made the tops over ten years ago! I had just bought a plane and squared the edges while holding the wood in a shopmate, had to put one foot on the shopmate to keep it from falling over with the force of the plane! Watched the tops warp and straighten over the years as I moved them around two iterations of workshop.
Finally, while watching the Steve Latta video on stringing, I got the desire to finish them. Of course oak is inappropriate for a federal table, so I decided to try a celtic knot. Some sketching showed that I needed to use a double line so that the "over/under" of the knotwork would show.
Also, Holly was not going to show in oak, so walnut was chosen.

I was going to turn some walnut pulls, but once I did the inlay on the drawer fronts, it became obvious that something rectangular was needed.

I think it came out pretty nice, and my wife, the recipient loves them! Brownie points for me.

Thanks for looking,
Mike

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[John Keeton]

Mike, that is a BUNCH of inlay work!! The tables turned out very well, but I don't think I would have the patience for that much detail work - good job!

For a Queen Anne kinda guy, that is quite a change!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mike,

Very much worth the wait! Gorgeous tables!

[Sam Layton]

Mike, your tables turned out great. They are "at home" in the room you have them. Very nice work. How did you finish them.

Sam

[gary Zimmel]

Well worth the wait Mike. They turned out great.
Love the inlay work!
Sometimes the brownie points are a long time in the making.

[mike holden]

Sam,
The finish is a golden brown transtint dye over red oak wood followed by several coats of satin poly.

The room was done by me and my wife, we saw the cover of home improvement magazine several years ago that had the three-tone yellow paint and the A&C style moldings. I laid the floor and the ran the moldings (13 times around the room - it looked so easy in the magazine, Hah!)

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments.

John, it was a lot of inlay, but the hardest part was that my fingers would get sore after about an hour and I had to put it aside for the next time. Pushing in all that inlay starts to hurt, and dont ask how many splinters I pulled out of my fingers! Good thing it was walnut so I could see the little buggers. Re: the style, yeah, my primary push is the period stuff, and its all in the living room. Next big project is a lowboy with full carving along the apron, legs, and center drawer. Its from the DeWitt Wallace museum in Williamsburg - that one will take a year or two.

Mike

[Cody Colston]

Wonderful work, Mike. I never knew Red Oak could look so classy. That inlay is the bees knees.

[John Thompson]

Those came out excellent Mike. I have one similar coming up this Tues. in the form of a crochet-lamp table for beside my wife's chair in front of the TV. You did an nice job with the red oak...