Beveled Edge Bar table
A Christmas present for my Mom; she said she wanted a rolling bar cart. Having to transport it across the country, while also hauling gifts for 6 other people, she'd have to settle for a stationary bar table. After describing to her the types of wood I could incorporate into the table, my Mom asked for "Eye of the Tiger", which I presume was some sort of amalgamation/ malapropism of zebrawood and bird's eye maple. I didn't find a good way to incorporate zebrawood, but I did get the bird's eye in a decorative frame and some figure in the walnut. I slapped on some pipe fitting legs from Home Depot's plumbing aisle and had to cut some emergency notches in the lower shelf, but the overall effect was rather clean. Most importantly, my mom loved it; although, I think it set the bar for all future gift giving occasions higher than I'd like.
Required Resources: 10 hours, $175 ($60 in wood, $115 in Pipe Fittings)
Size: 15" x 32 x 29" Tall
Materials: Figured Walnut, Bird's eEye Maple, Purple Heart, Cherry, Titebond II Glue, Cast Iron Pipe Flanges and Steel pipe.
Finish: Minwax Natural Stain (2 Coats). Minwax Semi-Gloss Polyurethane Aerosol (3 coats), Sanded with 400 grit in between coats and finished with 800 and 1000 grit, Buffed with Turtlewax
Tools: Table Saw, Circular Saw, Planer, Jointer, Orbital Sander
New Techniques:
Mitered Corners, Filled Frame: Miters corners, when two pieces of wood join together at an angle often as part of a "frame", are notoriously hard. The reason being, if they are just the slightest bit off in angle or length, the mitered seam will have gaps. It is made even more difficult by the fact that the mitering index on standard chop and table saws are famously inaccurate. Taking this into account, I made sure to match the positive and negative angled off cuts from a single cut on the chop saw to preserve the perfect 90 degree union and assembly. It is a bit tricky to plan cuts this way but it definitely paid off. I think I got reasnonably clean (at least passable) miter joints. In the future, the best way to do this is to create a table saw jig and match joints in a similar fashion.
Lessons Learned:
End Grain is Weird: Wood is a highly anisotropic material, meaning its properties, from it strength and modulus, to its workability, vary drastically depending direction and structure of the wood grain. Face or side grain bonds well with other face or side grain surfaces. End grain, however, is notoriously tough to glue, especially when glued to another end grain face, as is the case in the miter joint. One way to strengthen this joint is to thin some glue with water and paint the end grain with the mixture. Once the fibers suck up the glue mixture and dries for 20 minutes, the pieces are ready for the true glue up. This should make for a stronger, longer lasting joint. If the miter joint is meant to bear some sort of load, its typically wise to reinforce the joint with a staple or two on the back side, or a wood spline. See the picture frame project for an example of splined frames.
The Waxes Won't Wane: As with the coffee table project, I again erred by not properly filling the grain (neither with wood filler nor by cutting back deposited poly finish) and then applied automotive wax for buffing. The opaque wax embedded itself into these pits and left an unsightly residue. I worked at the blemishes with a soft rag to pull the wax out with middling success. It took months of use and cleaning to really clean the gunk out of the pores.
