Harborwood Furniture

02/25/2015

Waaah? That’s right. After years of serving as your Patron Saint of Do-It-Yourself (dashboard statues available in the lobby as you leave), I descend from the

02/11/2015

Building the Table–Part 5
At last, we can do the final bit of assembly . . . attaching the top, newly finished, to the base, newly painted. The little blue device is a jig for making holes for pocket screws. It’s an incredibly strong joint which, frankly I am using for the first time in this application. But I have made doors and boxes using this technique, and it’s near-to-impossible to pull the joint apart.

You can follow the step-by-step process on my furniture blog: http://harborwoodfurniture.com/building-the-table-part-6

02/11/2015

Building the Table–Part 5
At last, we can do the final bit of assembly . . . attaching the top, newly finished, to the base, newly painted. The little blue device is a jig for making holes for pocket screws. It’s an incredibly strong joint which, frankly I am using for the first time in this application. But I have made doors and boxes using this technique, and it’s near-to-impossible to pull the joint apart.

You can follow the step-by-step process on my furniture blog: http://harborwoodfurniture.com/building-the-table-part-6

02/04/2015

Building the Table--Part 5

We're coming to the home stretch on the Side Table Build. This week: finishing the table top.

After applying a coat of cherry stain to the red oak top and the drawer pull, we're now applying the first of three coats of polyurethane. After this, it's on to painting the base and drawer and attaching the top to the base.

01/20/2015

01/20/2015

Building the Table–Part 4
The next step in our End Table construction process is completing the drawers. In Photo One you see the glue-up of the drawer itself. I’m using poplar for the structure and Luan for the base.

(Follow the step by step process at http://harborwoodfurniture.com/the-latest/)

The sides are held together with locking mortises so the strength will be focused on the front and back panels. I will add a false front made of pine that will support the drawer pull and provide some design.

In the pix below you see a structure as important as the drawer itself. Surrounding the opening are four guides glued into channels (visible in the rear). The side guides keep the drawer sliding straight while the upper and lower guides keep it from tilting back when the drawer is closed and tilting forward when pulled out.

01/06/2015

Building the Table--Part 3

The next step in the process is turning the legs.

This part of the project was the trickiest in that they not only had to match, but they had to match the existing furniture. It took an hour per leg, basically, using careful measurements to determine changes along the length of the legs and calipers to measure depths.

Take a look at the results below:

12/18/2014

How to Build a Table
Over the next few weeks, I’m dedicating this blog space to building a table step by step, complete with pix. Hopefully, you’ll follow along and Tweet back with your own designs and preferred ways to work.

The project is an end table to match an existing set with turned painted legs and a stained-pine tops. The challenge of course was matching new and old–especially the rather intricate legs. It will be fun, so follow along.

Step one was to create a mock-up. This rather ugly foam core “table” was vital to helping my proportions and visualize how the final piece would look in its assigned space.

12/10/2014

How to Measure Stuff
Did you know that not all inches are alike? Fact. And right there, gentle reader, is the problem with our society today. The absolutes we could once count on are no longer absolutes but relative terms, and if you are regular readers of this column, you know how I feel about relatives.

But try this experiment. Take two of the rulers cramming the junk drawer in your kitchen (you know you have one), and lay them side-by-side and try to align the inch marks. They may align and they may not, depending on the make and price of the ruler.

“So,” you may query, “tell us, John, what then is an inch?” Squirreled away somewhere in the Bureau of Weights & Measures (what kind of job do those people have?) I am sure there is a definition of a perfect inch, a shining model of inch-ness displayed in a glass case in a room under low light and heavy guard.

Read the rest of my blog at: http://goo.gl/XsZQkW

10/16/2013

Please pardon our appearance while we sharpen our chisels, sweep up sawdust & work out all the bugs.