I set out to build a side table with magazine storage. My grandmother currently has one that is too small and is starting to fall apart, so this will be a replacement. The new side table will be made from cherry.
The Plan
The one item that hadn’t been worked out was attaching the angled magazine supports to the legs. I was thinking screws, dowels, just glue, I will figure it out.
Lumber Selection and Rough Cuts
I purchased my lumber from Owl Hardwoods after doing some rough sizing on paper and tried to purchase most cherry with similar color for the top and legs. I found some nice curled cherry for the aprons. The legs started as 5/4, the rest was 4/4.
After measuring and marking with chalk, I rough cut the lumber to length with a circular saw and speed square. With shorter pieces I am able to hold the cut-off and speed square with my left hand and cut with my right.
The next step was to cut the pieces to rough width. My jointer is only 6″, so I have to cut all pieces down below 6″ to flatten one face. I rough cut most of my lumber with my bandsaw.
Milling Lumber
I had quite a bit of lumber to mill (joint and thickness plane). Here are a few shots of the progress during a few nights after work. As you can see I tried stickering the lumber after milling it. It may have helped a bit, but I still had to send a handful of pieces through the jointer/planer again.
Top and Legs
The top was made from four pieces that were ripped to 5 1/2″ wide. I laid them out so the grain was pleasing to the eye, and then clamped them up.
The streaks below are from wiping the glue squeeze out.
During the same time, I ripped the leg pieces to 2″ and laminated two pieces together to form the legs. I clamped them up at the same time.
After the legs came out of the clamps, I scraped the glue and jointed one edge and surface again. Then I passed the legs through the planer for the surface and opposite edge to bring them to final thickness and width. The final step was to cut the legs to length. So I squared one end and then cut all legs to the same length with the set up below.
Apron to Leg Mortises
I decided that the tenons will be 3/8″ thick, 1″ long and about 1 5/8″ wide. My aprons are ~15/16″ thick. I started by laying out the mortises on the legs. Before I did any measuring I stood the legs up and marked the rough spot of the mortises with some chalk so I didn’t get confused down the road. There are three mortises per leg. Two for the front upper and front lower rail/apron. One for the left and right side apron. All rails/aprons will be set back from the surface the same amount ~3/16″. That makes it quick to lay everything out.
I knife the top and bottom (left to right in lower picture) to place my chisel when cleaning it up after drilling the mortises.
Before I drill my first mortise, I mark a mortise center line to align my forstner bit.
You can see my mistake in the lower picture of the incorrect knife mark. Luckily the rail covers this up.
The final step is to square up the mortise ends and to clean up any material on the sides.
Apron Tenons
The next step was to cut the tenons in the rails/aprons. I had to cut all the pieces to length first and had to account for the tenon length. Since each tenon is 1″, I added 2″ to the overall length.
The next step was to lay out the tenons. I only lay out one piece and set up all the tools with this first piece. The first piece is actually a scrap piece that I had cut off from the aprons. The rest of the pieces just follow suit since they are the same sizes. You can see the scrap piece in the lower pictures. The first step was to cut the cheeks with a tenoning jig (Grizzly) which works great. I cut all cheeks at the same time.
The next step was to cut the shoulders. I used a block to repeat the cuts.
The third step was to cut the other surfaces. I am not sure what you call those, maybe the nose and back of head. I cut them on the band saw.
The fourth step is to finish the shoulder cut to remove the two end pieces. I used the table saw with the same setup as cutting the shoulders.
In order to clean up the tenons, I use a chisel and block plane.
Here is the finished photo
I chamfer the ends to they don’t get hung up if the mortise has a rough bottom.
I had to perform a dry fit once I got all the tenons cleaned up. Mmmmm satisfying!
Dry Fit Lower Shelf
The lower shelf is going to have some stub tenons that are mortised into the lower rails. The lower shelf is two pieces glued together.
I laid out the mortises on the lower rails. They are 3/8″ thick and about 3/8″ deep and 5″ wide. I referenced the same edge on each rail just in case I was off a little bit in getting it centered.
Here are the mortises after drilling and before chiseling them clean
I decided to cut the tenons in the shelf with the router table and a miter gage (I found a better way later, stay tuned)
After cutting the shoulder/cheek on the router table, I had to cut the remainder of the shoulder (nose and back of head). I cut them by hand. You can kind of see them in the below picture during a dry fit.
Magazine Supports
The main parts of the magazine supports are 1 1/2″ wide by 3/4 thick. Here is the stack of material after milling. The longer pieces are going to be the horizontal sections.
I started by cutting the four horizontal pieces to the proper length so it fits very snug in between the legs. I decided that 5 vertical supports looked the best and began laying out the mortises.
Mortises
Instead of a bunch of measuring, I used some dividers to properly layout the mortises. I started by only measuring the two outermost mortises. That created 4 lines on the work piece (2 towards each end). Then I grabbed the dividers and starting walking them down the board. If I started on the right side of the mortise, I wanted the divider to end up on the right side of the last mortise. It takes some trial and error, but it takes out a lot of the complicated measurements. Once I had it dialed in, I push a little harder on the caliper to make an indentation. After the divider is set up correctly then I only needed to place one mark on each end, like the first picture.
Once the layout was completed for the mortises, I went to the drill press and drilled out a bunch of 1/4″ mortises. After that, I chiseled them all square.
Vertical Rails
The next step was to cut the vertical rails to overall length and then cut the tenons. In order to cut the tenons, I used the router table again. This time I uses a large board to reference against the fence.
Turn down the volume for this one
The next step was to cut the nose and head of the tenon. I used my miter gage and a sacrificial fence
After cleaning up the tenons with a chisel, I wanted to add some visual interest to the vertical pieces. So I added a stopped chamfer to them. I laid out a few lines about 1/2″ from each end where I wanted the chamfers to stop. Then, I set up some stop blocks on the router table. It took a little bit of trial and error, but I got the stop blocks dialed in. The router bit was raised until I achieved the look I wanted. The bit is roughly 1/4″ above the table.
I glued up each section which consisted of 10 tenons each.
After it came out of the clamps, I cleaned up the joints with a hand plane.
Table Top Connections
I decided to try and use some z-clips to hold the table top onto the aprons. Grooves have to be made a proper distance from the top to securely hold the top into place. I used a 1/4″ router bit in my router table for some trial and error.
Luckily I guessed right the fist time. From there, I cut the slots in the aprons.
Adding Chamfer to Legs
I wanted to give the legs some visual interest and I didn’t feel like doing a taper since it was going to get really close to the mortises in the legs. So I figured I could add a chamfer that increased in size as it went higher on the leg. I started by laying out the chamfer lines. 1/8″ on the bottom and 5/16″ on top. I made a solid chamfer of 1/8″ along the entire length on all four corners with the router table.
The next step was to use a hand plane to vary the chamfer across the length. The layout lines make sure I don’t tip one way or the other too far. Here is a quick clip of planing the chamfer, but you can’t hear me explaining the process.
Assembly Process
I started with a bunch of sanding, water wipe, more sanding up to 220.
Then I was able to glue up the front and rear sub-assemblies
I made a decision on how I was going to attach the the magazine supports(show you later), so I glued up the entire base without the magazine supports. I didn’t take any pictures, but it was pretty straightforward.
Magazine Rack Supports
After the base was dry and out of the clamps, I started laying out the magazine rack supports. I started with the appropriate angle of the racks. You can see the sliding bevel below to help me transfer the angle to the saw.
I cut the angle into the bottom of the supports and put them back into place to ensure the fit was correct. I also marked the location where I wanted to drive the screws to attach the racks to the bottom stretcher.
I reattached the magazine supports with screws and then marked where they landed on the legs. I am going to use a small glue block and rabbet to hold the top of the supports to the legs.
I drilled and countersunk some small screws to attach them to the legs where I made my marks earlier. I cut a rabbet with my router table and chisel to make sure the blocks fit nice.
I glued and screwed the blocks to the legs and then dry fit the magazine racks to make sure they fit properly. I had to do some light chisel work to make them fit properly. After the dry fit, I applied glue to the lower surface to the stretcher and to the glue blocks and clamped it up.
Adding Oil to Base
After some sanding and glue clean up, it was time for oil. I used Danish Oil (Natural) on this piece.
The Top
The top has been sitting around the garage while I worked on the base. It is now time to finally cut it to size and get it ready for finish. I laid out a perpendicular line and used my saw guide to cut a perpendicular edge.
Using the table saw to cut the top to final size.
I had some burn marks from the saw on all four edges, so I used a jack plane to remove them.
I wanted to clean up the surfaces of the table top, so I used a smoothing plane to help clean it up.
I sanded the surfaces with 150/220 and then wet everything down and sanded with 150 again. In order to lighten the look of the top, I wanted to add a chamfer to the bottom side of the table top. I placed a chamfer bit in my router table and cut the chamfer in two steps with increasing depth.
The burn marks were removed with a block plane, which was a little challenging, but I was able to remove them. After the burn marks were removed, I sanded everything with 220, including the chamfers.
Adding Oil to The Top
Don’t pay any attention to how many coats of poly I mention in my video.
At this time I need to wait for 3-4 days while the oil/varnish cures.
Poly Time
I applied two coats of wiping poly to the base and top followed by a sanding with 400 grit. Then another coat of wiping poly followed by 400 grit sanding. After that another coat of poly followed by a 600 grit wet sand on the base and top. One more coat on the top followed with 600 grit wet sand. So a total of 4 coats for the base and 5 for the top. I finished everything off with some wax and buffed it out. The finish turned out okay. I don’t think I should have wet sanded the top and then applied another coat of poly. The top has some ‘orange peel’ look to it. Maybe the poly didn’t adhere too well to the 600 grit surface. Oh well it still looks pretty good. I attached the top to the base with these Z-brackets, probably overkill to use 8 of them. I should have only used 4 to allow easier movement of the top.
Finished Photos
This project was one of the first where I kept track of my time which was ~50 hours including travel to get the lumber. I was surprised at how it adds up so quick. Time well spent!