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Thread: Mahogany Bedside Table

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
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    Mahogany Bedside Table

    A couple months back, I posted my first completed woodworking project in the hopes reviewing my first full year building furniture with a sort-of retrospective of the past year's work. It was the holidays and I got busy, but now I'm gonna try to get some project pictures up finally. So my second project was this mahogany bedside table.

    When my wife got pregnant with our first child she was studying to become a midwife at Emory University and she asked her favorite professor to be with her in labor and help her through the process. Her professor/friend agreed and wouldn't accept any payment, so my wife asked that my contribution be to build Sarah a piece of furniture. Hey, how many of you wouldn't rather spend 30 hours in the shop than endure the pains of childbirth?

    So, after consulting with Sarah about what she needed/wanted, getting some pictures of the bedroom where it would go etc., I found a pretty cool design by Steve Latta in FWW. The design called for real mahogany for the top, drawer, and legs, with plywood for the sides and shelves. The plywood is faced with edge banding. The tapered octagonal legs are made by cutting tapered squares on the table saw, then turning them into octagons on the jointer with the fence set at 45. I thought that would be the toughest part of the project, but it was really a piece of cake.

    The hardest part was fitting it all together. The plan dictated joining the sides to the legs with biscuits. I wasn't crazy about this and I had a tough time getting it all to "draw up" and fit just right. Even though my pieces were cut accurately, it was tough to pull together at clamp up time. With a little luck and some truck tie downs wrapped around the whole thing, it came out tighter than I thought it would.It was also my first attempt at half blind dovetails. This was also less daunting than I had thought at first. I wished I had spaced them a little more randomly so they looked more handmade.

    The biggest screw-up on this piece was related to the top. I glued up the top using biscuits, but when I went to the tablesaw to cut the angle on the underside of the top, I realized that one of my biscuit slots showed through. Doh! Stupid, stupid, stupid! For this and other reasons, I really don't like using biscuits for furniture. There's no sense in them. I don't think it makes the joint stronger, and it really doesn't do a great job of lining things up anyway.

    As it turns out, my old man came to the rescue. I called him and confessed my mistake, and it turns out he just happened to have a panel lying around his shed that would work. And instead of African mahogany, it was Honduran, and oh, what a difference an ocean makes. Its truly works beautifully. Man.....That's about it. As you'll hopefully see in future installments, after this piece I returned to more traditional forms and joinery, but this was a nice diversion. Oh, and that's my daughter Evangeline on the bottom shelf there.
    All in all, I think I got a pretty good deal.



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    Last edited by Joe Arcimboldo; 02-21-2012 at 8:21 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Seabrook, TX (south of Houston)
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    Great looking table. And, yea, there's a lot of difference between African and Honduran mahogany. I just finished 2 end tables of Honduran. I'll be posting pics soon.

    P.S. I like the decorations on the bottom shelf, too.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
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    mid-coast Maine and deep space
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    Looks really very nice. Proportions are great - wish the leaf pattern was included . The mix of mahoganies is not a distraction at all. Had to laugh about the biscuits, been there, also once set them up too close to the top and after sanding 4 times because I couldn't get the finish right the biscuits started telegraphing through. Lesson learned there too. Don't give up on them though, you just need to plan your layouts. They are much better than nothing for aligning your plank surfaces before glue up and so save a lot of aggravation at clean up time. Having said that – I now own the Festool Domino and THAT IS AN ALIGNMENT TOOL.

    Oh, and you'd better include a safety rail if you are keeping Evangeline in there Nice!
    "... for when we become in heart completely poor, we at once are the treasurers & disbursers of enormous riches."
    WQJudge

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Mebane NC
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    Very nice, Joe. I like the clean look, unadorned I guess I'm trying to say. Paul

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
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    Bishop, Ga.
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    27
    [QUOTE=Jim Rimmer;1877946]Great looking table. And, yea, there's a lot of difference between African and Honduran mahogany. I just finished 2 end tables of Honduran. I'll be posting pics soon.

    Yeah, if somebody ever wanted to try to go "sans sandpaper," that would be the wood to try it with. Shavings come out of the plane beautifully. The African seems to reverse a lot more. Both species match incredibly well (like across a panel) and both finish with the same warm tone. As Sam says below, they blend really well together.

    I also might add, the finish was 3? coats of spray laquer, rubbed out with Wolwax and steel wool.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    Wake Forest, North Carolina
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    Really nice Joe.

    Baby seems satisfied with it.

    PHM

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