Small Table

I had some thick bits of oak that came from a saw mill. The biggest bits were 20cm wide and 3cm thick. I wanted to make a small coffee table but it needed to be about 40cm wide. I thought that trying to join two bits together side-by-side would be difficult - partly because although I have a DEWALT DW733 thicknesser, it can only fit pieces up to about 30cm, so I couldn't plane the whole top after it was glued together. Instead I decide to round off the edges of two bits 20x60cm and then fix them together with a small gap between them - as you can see in the pictures. I then made legs from the same 3cm thick wood.

Oak planks, 3cm thick, 20cm wide. A total of about 1.5meters long. Apart from some glue and dowels, that's all you need.

I cut two pieces 20x60cm, ran them through the thicknesser and then used a rasp and a table router to round off the edges and the corners.

First I made a template for the legs out of hard-board. Then I marked out the shape using the template on the legs and just followed the line by hand with a circular saw. I wanted to get the angle at the top of each leg exactly the same so I used the leg template to set up the right angle on my mitre saw and cut all four legs. I tidied up the circular saw cuts with a smoothing plane and rounded off the edges and the bottom of the legs with a rasp and a table router, just like I did with the top.

One of the most difficult parts of this project was getting all the legs in exactly the right position: at 45 degrees, exactly in line with the corner, and all the same distance from the edges. I used two 8mm dowels about 2cm long at the top of each leg. I have small dowel jig that guides a drill so that the holes are the right distance apart and perpendicular to the wood. I made a frame that I could use on each corner to hold the jig exactly over the line at 45degrees from the corner. On the back the are a couple of batons that line up with the edges of the top. On the front is another baton that I clamped my dowel jig to so the the holes are in the right place.

I started by marking the centre-line of the top of the legs, then used my dowel jig with a small packer so the the holes would be exactly on the centre-line.

I used my leg template again to make a new template (template B) to check the inside angle of each leg. Then I clamped a scrap piece of square 5x5cm wood to the end of the leg - making sure it was lined up with the the end. Then I clamped the scrap wood to the table top. That made sure the leg was tight to the top and perpendicular. I then checked both angles - with a set-square and template B.

I cut two more bits of oak 1x3x35cm to hold the two halves of the table together and screwed them underneath the table top. I cut slotted holes for the screws so that they can move if the top shrinks due to changes in humidity - otherwise, without using slotted (ie. oblong) holes ,the top could split.

I finished it with a coat of wax polish.