Ahh, the joys of shop time can only result in bliss. Here is the build for my latest "effort". It is an end table (maybe?) made from Padauk and Tiger Maple that ended up being my dads 60th birthday present.
First of all, I had to cut 11 strips for each leg. 3 Padauk on both the top and bottom, with alternating Padauk and hard maple in the centers. The top and bottom strip I then split and glued in a strip of tiger maple.
The splitting of the top and bottom required a separate glue-up.
Next shows the the final strips drum sanded to final thickness and then into the bending form they go. I used Unibond 800 to ensure (well actually, it eliminated) any spring back.
Once the legs came out of the form, I cleaned the sides up using a combination of a belt sander and a jointer. Of course I had to stand them up to see that they were going to come out like I had planned.
The next step was to make 2 decks. A longer one to span the distance at the bottom of the legs, and a shorter one to span the top near the curve. I cut some veneers from the tiger maple stock and glued them to a piece of 1/2 ply. I chose plywood instead of MDF because of weight, although that might not really have been much of an issue.
Next, I wrapped each deck in Padauk. I mitered each corner, and used 2 Wenge splines for a little accent.
I routed "slots" in each leg to hold the deck edges and reinforced them with dowels to give them a little more support. I didn't want to have to make the slots too deep so that I wouldn't cut into the maple strip down the center of the top and bottom strips in the legs. Final assembly:
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