Side Table

ronanmor Jan 03, 2020

This is a brown oak and steamed pear side table, with drawer, i made over the last 5/6 weeks. This is made in a traditional style using runners, kickers and guides to position the drawer, and buttons to attach the table top. The legs are tapered on the spindle moulder and radiused by hand, the side and back rails are attached to the legs using haunched and mitred mortice and tenon joints, the top front rail is attached using dovetails and the bottom front rail is attached using a floating tongue and groove joint. The runners and kickers are also attached using a floating tongue and groove while the guide is simply glued in place. the table top is biscuit jointed, then moulded before radiusing the corners by hand. The drawer is a brown oak front with hand cut half blind dovetail joints to steamed pear side and back panels. The drawer base is a 5mm mdf sheet veneered with steamed pear and brown oak.

#woodworking #sidetable #table #bedsidetable #brownoak #steamedpear #halfblinddovetails #dovetails #osmooil #taperedlegs #buttons

I started by cutting my lumber down to sawn size.

Once planed and squared i morticed the legs for the rails and created the grooves for the front rails, runners, and kickers.

I missed a couple of glue up photos such was the panic but i first glued up the 2 side rails with their corresponding legs. Here you can see i have the back rail and the bottom front rail in place for a dry fit.

This is the top front rail which was dovetail jointed in place. You can see the "pins" above.

Here i have dry fitted the runner and kicker using the loose tongue and groove. The important part here was flushing the runners and kickers with the front rails.

Here is just the runner in place. This is also a good shot of the dovetailed front rail. I used a drawer template to fit the guides which i unfortunately did not photograph.

Once the top came off the router table i was left with a gap at the corners. Here it is after i have rounded it by hand.

As above.

This was my simple veneering job. I say simple but the drawing itself took a couple of hours trying to find the correct ration of increasing sizes.

The finished product. I wish here i had chosen a more figured piece of brown oak as the continuation of the figure in the steamed pear looks great.

Steamed pear tails.

All in place and ready to go. One of the sets was a hair loose but still somehow didn't show any gaps.

Fitting the drawer was surprisingly tricky. After glue up i brought down the sides of the drawer gradually and evenly on both sides. What i forgot to take into account was the drawer height. Thankfully i realised on time and a little skim and it fit pretty neatly.