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![]() This article is all about the process of building a mission styled end table to use in that location. We had made wise choices concerning investments and low life insurance quotes so we could definitely afford to buy a new table. However instead of simply purchasing something from a shop, I wanted to make it hands on.I decided to build one myself. I began by making rough drawings of the height, width and length of the table and converting the rough sketches to working drawings on Autocad. Being very familiar with this software from having used it for the last several years during my working life as a tool design engineer, I had no problem doing this. Autocad lets me determine exactly what the dimensions will need to be and more importantly, lets me see if there are any measurment conflicts BEFORE cutting the pieces.
After finishing the legs, I moved on to cutting the pieces for the top. I cut, jointed, glued and clamped six pieces together that made up the overall width and length of the top minus the 1/4" thick edges that I made and eventualy would glue to this top. Next, I cut the remaining parts and laid them on the side table of my saw to make sure everything had been cut. You can see all of this in the photo below and that at this point the tenons had not been cut on the cross pieces but that the top had been jointed, glued and clamped. ![]() ![]()
I began assembling the cross
pieces into the legs by first building up the sides gluing them and clamping
them along the way. After these assembled sides were dry and unclamped,
I began inserting the rear and front pieces to the finished sides.
Various stages of this process can be seen in the three photos below.
Note that I decided to make a small drawer in the top section and cut and
assembled a frame for the drawer opening.
The next step in this whole process was to install the slats that makes up the bottom shelf. The slats were made with a 1/8" bevel on the top side edges of each piece except for the two pieces that were going to be placed next to the side rails that contains them. On these two pieces, the bevel was only routed on the sides that would be adjoining the inner slats. The below photo gives you a view of what the table looked like at that point and prior to the installation of the top. ![]() ![]() Before
installing the completed drawer, I mounted the top to the framework and
stained the completed unit with a dark walnut stain. Boy was this
a problem!! Being fairly new at this whole woodworking thing,
I never experienced trying to stain hard maple with anything other than
a natural or clear top coat before. I applied at least four coats
of stain and after wiping off the excess each time, I still ended up with
a look that was much lighter than I had expected. I eventually ended
up just putting some of the staind (it wasn't gel stain) into my spray
gun and kind of just stood back on "fogged" on the stain. I let it
air dry for about six days until the stain was completly dried and then
sprayed on four coats of clear water-based urethane, sanding with 400 grit
sandpaper before the last two coats. The result was pretty close
to what I had wanted to get. The pictures below show a couple of
views after the stain had been applied and after the drawer slides had
been installed.
After the point in time shown in the right photo above, and after the completed drawer was dried and unclamped, I installed it into the table using the previously installed 16" full extension drawer slides. The photo here on the right shows the table after the drawer had been installed into the frame and before the drawer front was attached.
Well, here's the final product! Not to sound too egotistical but I think it looks pretty nice setting next to my brand new reading chair. Hope you get as much enjoyment reading about this project as I had making it. As always, your comments whether negative or positive are always welcome. ![]()
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