Router Table

Index

Coffee Table: This is essentially the same as the coffee table I made earlier for our living room - mission style, of hemlock (my sister-in-law's choice). The earlier one was of utility pine with an MDF top with mitered 1-1/4" door-stop trim around it. In this case joined two boards together for the table top, then surrounded those with a 3" wide mitered picture frame, also of hemlock. None of this involved glue. I did it all with pocket hole joinery. I wanted to try this anyway, and I thought that since hemlock is soft and might get damaged it might be possible to simply replace a damaged part by unscrewing it. The legs, rails and spindles which constituted each end structure were glued (though I'm working on a way to avoid that in future as well).
The first picture shows a new method I divised for making the spindles for the table ends. What I wanted was to get the distance from tenon shoulder to tenon shoulder exactly the same on each spindle. I ripped a board to the width which would become the spindle lengths, then cut the individual spindles. Next I clamped the square in place on my sled and used that to locate the shoulder cuts, 1/2" from the ends, cutting all the spindles (side by side) at once. That done, it was easy to use the bandsaw to form the tenons. The table went together easily. Prior to assembly I finished all the parts with Jel'd Stain (dark mahogany - left on for at least 24 hours) then a half dozen coats of clear satin finish. One of the end pieces on the top didn't come out right (there was a gap due to an inaccurate 45° cut), so I unscrewed it and cut a fresh piece. Twice. I'm glad it hadn't been glued.

			Coffee Table: This is essentially the same as the coffee table I made earlier for our living room - mission style, of hemlock (my sister-in-law's choice). The earlier one was of utility pine with an MDF top with mitered 1-1/4" door-stop trim around it. In this case joined two boards together for the table top, then surrounded those with a 3" wide mitered picture frame, also of hemlock. None of this involved glue. I did it all with pocket hole joinery. I wanted to try this anyway, and I thought that since hemlock is soft and might get damaged it might be possible to simply replace a damaged part by unscrewing it. The legs, rails and spindles which constituted each end structure were glued (though I'm working on a way to avoid that in future as well). The first picture shows a new method I divised for making the spindles for the table ends. What I wanted was to get the distance from tenon shoulder to tenon shoulder exactly the same on each spindle. I ripped a board to the width which would become the spindle lengths, then cut the individual spindles. Next I clamped the square in place on my sled and used that to locate the shoulder cuts, 1/2" from the ends, cutting all the spindles (side by side) at once. That done, it was easy to use the bandsaw to form the tenons. The table went together easily. Prior to assembly I finished all the parts with Jel'd Stain (dark mahogany - left on for at least 24 hours) then a half dozen coats of clear satin finish. One of the end pieces on the top didn't come out right (there was a gap due to an inaccurate 45° cut), so I unscrewed it and cut a fresh piece. Twice. I'm glad it hadn't been glued.