Inlaid table

[John Preston]

The question was raised a couple of days ago whether anyone does inlay anymore.

I did it at least once.

The table is for my neice, who is almost a year old now. She is expecting a sibling in the upcoming months. There's a chance I'll be somewhere inaccessable to my tools for a couple of years, so I figured I'd better get it done now.

I didn't make the chairs, just sprayed them with some waterborne stain, shellaced them, sanded them, then shot a coat of OB poly on top of that.

The table legs fold up, I used the expensive folding leg sets from Rocker, they seem to be the sturdiest folding leg movements I've seen. I could climb up on the table and shake it, and the legs wouldn't collapse.

The table is 21" high, I used the same dimesion as the tables in the unfinished furniture store. The table is 36"x36", so should be able to do double duty as a small table if someone ever makes longer legs for it.

Inlay troughs cut with a 3/4 router bit, inlay is maple and walnut, field is oak.

There are a few less than perfect places, but I figured that the kids'll probably destroy it anyway, so no great loss, a good thing to practice on.

What I would do differently next time?

1. fill the grain (with grain filler) on the oak field before filling any gaps around the inlay with wood filler. The filler stuck in the pores and dried a mud color, showing in the light colored oak.
2. spend more time juggling with the pieces to find better matches for the intersections and ends.
3. put more glue on when gluing up pieces for the inlay, several of them came apart because of no glue when sawed apart. Little suckers blew up when they got next to the back of the tablesaw blade. A good reason to wear glasses.
4. use BLO before finishing oak. I used tung oil instead, and I don't like the oak that pale, but tung oil does keep the maple nice and white.
5. Not try to set my router down while it's switched on. On the table top.
6. When inserting a section into the top to cover a damaged section, don't use wood filler with a color that doesn't match anything else.

Thanks for viewing.

[Steve Clardy]

Looking good John. I like the tic tac toe pattern. Keep up the terrific work. Steve

[Dave Avery]

Great job John..... neat design and very well executed. Dave.

[Dennis Peacock]

Great work there John. Nice to see that someone else learns new lessons during projects rather than it being just me.

Good looking table and I like the inlay. Thanks for the pics and the details, I will take notes and try it all out.

[Rusty Hughes, Indy]

There's a chance I'll be somewhere inaccessable to my tools for a couple of years, so I figured I'd better get it done now.

Boy, you sure know how to bring a tear to a guy's eye. I sure hope all goes well during that time.

Great work on the table by the way.