With the feet and legs dovetailed I turned them upside down, clamped them to the table, added liberal amounts of wood glue, slid each foot in the dovetail joint, and clamped overnight.

The result were two bomb-proof pub table bases.

All the parts were sanded prior to assembly, so it was off to the finishing room.  The finishing process was a bit different than usual.  In order to achieve the finish color I needed, I first stained the tables with one color stain, allowed it to dry, and followed it up with another color stain.  This gave the tables a deep rich dark brown color.

The stain was applied using a brush, which ensured the stain reached all the grooves and corners on the tops and the legs.

After the stain was applied and had dried, two coats of pre-catalyzed lacquer were sprayed on , with a light sanding between coats.

A quick note on the paint booth you see in the background.  All of the paint and lacquer finishes I apply are sprayed using a gun and a pressurized pot.  The material is sprayed out onto the piece of furniture and any over spray is sucked away and collected in the green filters of the paint booth.

Here is the finished table top…

…and the finished legs.  The tops and the legs were finished separately to avoid any excess lacquer over spray.   Over spray is when excess lacquer that is sprayed out of the gun dries in the air and then settles on the work piece, creating a rough, sandpaper like feel.  The exact opposite effect I am going for when I finish my furniture.

A few shots of the finished project.

The first step was to route out the middle of the dovetail with a plunge bit. I was not able to use the guides for my router base because they only space out 4″, so I had to get clever. I ended up clamping two board along the sides of the router base to act as guides, hence the four clamps around the router.

Once the middle was routed away, it was time for the dovetail bit. A fence was set up along the side and a stop block was clamped on to ensure I didn’t route to far up the leg.

After two set-ups and eight passes I had four dovetails.

The leg dovetail fits into the dovetail slot routed out of the leg like so.  The dovetail joint is one of the strongest joints out there.  It takes a fair amount of set-up time to get everything  lined up and fitting tight, but once it is done it is near bomb-proof!

I have seen many tables with legs like this one that used two other methods for attaching the feet to the middle leg.

One method uses dowels glued into the leg and the foot to join the two together.  This involves less labor but is far inferior.  Over time the glue joint or the wood around the glue will fail and the connection will loosen and the table will wobble and tilt.

The second method, I believe, is more work than the dovetailing method, and I am not convinced that its results are any better.  It involves hollowing out the center  of the middle leg, attaching two lag-screw type bolts to each foot, and connecting the foot to the leg with washers and nuts, which are hidden inside the hollowed out portion of the middle leg.  To me this is just to much work, and mechanical fasteners are almost always inferior to a tight joint bonded together with a good wood glue.

A side note: Wood glue, when used correctly, creates such a strong joint that the wood will splinter before the glue fails!

In the case of a dovetail joint, all the stress is trying to pull the foot away from the leg, yet the foot is being held securely not only with wood glue, but also with material from the foot itself!  Pretty much a double whammy of strength!

Here is a close up of the base of the leg.

A close up shot of the top of the leg-foot connection.

I wanted to show everyone the turned leg in its entirety.  It is absolutely gorgeous!  I was a bit afraid that the turnings on the leg would overwhelm the table because they have such a large diameter (close to 6″), but the top reeded portion really seems to give the leg a slimmer feeling overall.  Each leg cost a small fortune, constituting half of the total cost, but they will really make these pub tables stand out from all the others!

A close up shot of the skirt. I routed the same detail on the edge of the skirt as I routed on the table top.

The middle turned leg is connected to the top using the square plate you see here. Four screws into the leg and four screws into the top and everything is good!

It was time to tackle the eight feet. They were rough cut way back in the first entry and had to wait for the arrival of the middle leg to go any further. Their time had come and, using a pattern and a flush trim bit, I cut out their final shape on the router table.

A subtle, yet fancy detail is routed all the way around both sides of each foot.

A dovetail is routed into each foot using what else but a dovetail bit and the router table.

The tops of each dovetail are cut away, ensuring that when the feet are attached to the turned leg, they will cover the top of the corresponding dovetail slot.  Just wait and see.

There are two ways to complete this step:

1. Cut out several thin strips, layer them together, apply liberal amounts of glue, wrap them around a half-circle mold, and clamp overnight. Repeat for the other half. This method is the nicest way to build a curved board, since the grain pattern shows up over the entire face of the curve, but it is the most difficult, and the most time consuming.

2. Cut out short lengths of wood, cut an angle in each end, glue end to end to form a circle, and cut your circle out of that.

I chose the latter one, for two reasons: The curved portion is going to be the skirt to this pub table, so a minimal amount of grain pattern doesn’t really matter since it sits below the table top. The second reason was structural in nature. If I built two halves, using the laminating method, then connected them together to form a full circle skirt, it would not be as strong as a skirt built employing the second method.

The first step was to sketch the outside diameter of the skirt on the underside of the table top.

With one top measuring 30″ and the other 34″, each skirt would require different numbers of pieces and would be cut at different angles.

The 30″ top required nine pieces cut at 20 degree angles while the 34″ top required ten pieces cut at 18 degree angles.

I then cut a biscuit slot in each end…

…and glued and clamped them up.

After the skirts had dried overnight I had my brother compass out the diameter and cut out and sand each one.

The final products are two skirts, one at 30″ and one at 34″.

After sanding both glued up surfaces, the diameter of the table top was traced out and rough cut on the band saw. The picture above is a bit confusing because I took it before I actually rough cut the tops on the band saw.

Next, a plunge router mounted to a compass and was centered on the underside of the table top and the exact circumference was cut out using a straight cutting router bit. Using this method to cut the tops final size, rather than sanding it freehand, ensured that each top would be a perfect circle free from bumps, dips, or flat spots. By the way, the tops were held in place with double stick tape on the underside.

After each top was cut, another router bit was used to add a nice ogee edge.

May 2008

The project before you is a pair of pub tables I was commissioned to build by a wholesale client of mine. I wish I had a picture of what each piece will look like in the end, but I am simply matching a pub table from a catalog. Each table will have a round top with a 3″ skirt extending below. There will be one large, fairly intricate, turned center leg that will have connect to four Duncan Phyfe style feet.

I began by milling up two boards to be used to cut out the eight feet needed for the two tables.

Before cutting any of the feet, I first created a template of the foot from some scrap particleboard I had laying around the shop. The reason for the template was two-fold. First it will be used to trace the outline of each foot, as you see in the picture above, and after each foot is cut out, the template will be used, along with a flush trimming router bit, as a pattern to ensure that all eight feet are exactly the same.

After laying out the feet on the boards, they were cut out on the band saw.

There they are folks! Eight partially completed feet. They are going to have to stay in this state for a couple more weeks because before I can complete the next step I need the two custom turned pedestal legs that I outsourced to another company.

Given that the feet are on hold, the table tops are front and center. I milled up enough Alder to glue up a 34″ and a 30″ circular top.

Using a bevy of clamps, the seven boards were glued together…

…and the next morning this is what it came out looking like. A glued up surface awaiting a compass and a router to cut out the circle.

A totally random picture of me cutting out the feet on the band saw, taken by one of my fathers employees.

In the near future I will post some pictures of J. Alexander’s shop and explain why my shop looks so large.