Please look and advise

[George Carion]

I'm building this largish coffee table with drawers on both sides for my wife in solid walnut with maple insides. I think I'm going to go with a natural finish. Probably a coat of orange shellac, Generals seal-a-sell, then some coats of arm-a-seal with some sanding in between and a furniture wax at the end.

Dimensions are 48"W X 36"D X 21"H. The top is 5/4 and the legs are 3". The sides are floating tongue and groove slats.

These two pics are of the table dry-fitted before final adjustments. I'd like to gather some opinions on the design before I start sanding and gluing. Is there anything you'd change? This is my largest project to date and my real goal, besides making my wife happy, is to make the project appear more valuable than the raw materials . My wife seems to prefer the rails flush with the legs. I thought I'd recess the rails and drawers about 1/4" from the inside of the legs, but it's her choice. Also, she doesn't want sharp edges on the piece so all the corners and edges will need to be sanded to some level of roundness. I'm going to round them as little as possible.

Thanks for looking.

[Chris Kennedy]

George,

Nice looking piece.

You don't sound like you want to round the edges. If you prefer sharper lines but don't want corners, I would suggest a small chamfer along the edges. Keeps the lines but eliminates the sharp edges. I've done it with a router and a plane. The latter would probably be easier given your stage of construction.

Cheers,

Chris

[Jim Becker]

Probably a coat of orange shellac, Generals seal-a-sell, then some coats of arm-a-seal with some sanding in between and a furniture wax at the end.

Note that Seal-A-Cell contains urethane resins. You want to use de-waxed shellac under it for best adhesion. Most orange shellac is waxy. If you want the color of orange shellac, either source a de-waxed version of it or garnet or be sure to put a coat of Zinsser Sealcoat (which is dewaxed) over the regular orange shellac.

Personally, I've found that several coats of SealCoat shellac do a very nice job on walnut, especially if it's air dried material, despite being a little lighter in color than orange or garnet shellac.

Nice piece, BTW.

[George Carion]

Looks like the shellac I have on hand is de-waxed pale. I tested it out on a sample and it, combined with top coats of arm-a-seal, comes out pretty nice.

Any comments on the style of the piece? I'm wondering if I should,

a) inset the rails and drawers.
b) reduce the size of the legs to maybe 2.5" thick (this will be a pain though)
c) make an angle cut of maybe 15 degrees off the bottom 1/4" inch of thickness on the table to try and reduce the overall "boxiness" of the table, but maybe just chamfering or rounding the edges of the table, legs, and drawers would help.

Thanks guys.

[Frank Drew]

Very nice work, George, and it's going to look great under finish.

I wonder, though, if you use it as a traditional coffee table in front of a couch, will everyone constantly be kicking it since there's no ground clearance, no kick space?