The best step of any project had finally arrived, the final assembly!  We tackled the final assembly in five small steps, rather than trying to build the entire table all at once.  The picture above shows the final glue-up.

We are quite fond of how the final piece turned out! The grain color and pattern is stunning, especially when the sunlight hits it!

This console table is being shipped off to a client in San Francisco, so we crated it up, and then needed to estimate a shipping weight.  We don’t have a scale of any kind at the shop, but my brother and I put our collective heads together, hearkened back to the good old days, and constructed a scale from a 12′ long pallet and a 2×4.  The final shipping weight for the crate was 350 pounds, and the crate could not have weighed more than 50 pounds!

After allowing the veneer to cure and fully adhere to the MDF substrate, we tackled the task of mortising dozens of 5″ long, .5″ wide, 1″ deep mortises in the surfaces, which would hold a loose tenon and connect the surfaces to the uprights.

Using a clamping straightedge, a plunge router, and a brand new .5″ spiral up-cut bit, to ensure minimal tear-out in the veneer, made the entire process a fairly easy one. The most difficult task was keeping all the sawdust out of the way so we could see the start and stop points on the surface. I suppose it is time to get a new fancy smancy plunge router with a nice built-in vacuum attachment.

A couple of hours later, we had routed ourselves 24 perfect mortises!

I have also learned over the past couple of years, no matter how good you are, always dry fit the project before you dive into the assemble or finishing processes.  In this instance, the dry-fitting process allowed us to fine tune the alignment of a few of the mortises and assign a letter to corresponding mortises and loose tenons, ensuring the final assembly would be perfect.

The first step to the finishing process was to sand all the veneer surfaces using a sanding block and 150 grit sandpaper. Once we removed any sharp edges, scratches, or frays it was time to spay on a coat of vinyl sanding sealer.

We just recently began using a vinyl sanding sealer as the sealing coat, rather than using an extra coat of of lacquer or varnish, because the vinyl sanding sealer is thinner, which allows it to penetrate deeper into the wood, doing a much better job of sealing the pores in the wood. The vinyl sanding sealer also sands much easier and creates an incredibly smooth surface for the lacquer or varnish to be sprayed over.

We sprayed on two coats of conversion varnish over the freshly sanded sanding sealer.

Repeat the same process as above for all the vertical uprights, except rather than leaving them a natural color, we stained them pitch black!

With the three surfaces sized to the correct width and length it was time to add a couple of layers of conversion varnish to the MDF.  This may seem backwards or counter intuitive, but with a PSA (peel-and-stick adhesive) backed veneer, the PSA will only stick to a sealed and clean surface.  It will not stick to raw wood or any unsealed surface.

We sprayed two nice coats of conversion varnish onto the top and under sides, about six coats on the edges, and allowed everything to dry for 24 hours before beginning the veneering process.  The 24 hours we allowed for drying time was to make sure the varnish had completely off-gassed before sealing it in with the veneer.

We began the veneering process by laying out all the pieces we would need, paying special attention to grain flow, and cutting out each piece 1/4″ oversized using a straightedge and a utility knife. The veneer itself was made up of three layers of material, the Santos Rosewood veneer, a paper backing as thick as the veneer, and the PSA layer.

Applying the veneer to the substrate was pretty straight forward.  Simply remove the backer paper to expose the PSA layer, lay it onto the surface, and smooth out. It was, of course, a lot more stressful than that, because with only an 1/8″ overhang on each side there was not much room for error.

We began by making a few cuts to the backing so we could remove it in small pieces, rather than in one large pass.  Next, we laid the veneer on the surface and evened up the overhangs. Once that was completed, we lifted up one end of the veneer, peeled away one slice of backer, and slowly laid the veneer back down, making sure to prevent any air pockets from forming.  Once the PSA layer touched the sealed surface it was instantly connected.  There was no pulling it off and trying for a second time if you laid it down crooked.

After we applied the entire surface of veneer to the substrate, we used used a tool called a veneer hammer, which you can see in the picture above, to apply as much pressure to the surface of the veneer as possible, smoothing out any bumps and ensuring every square inch of the PSA was adhered to the substrate.

After 4.5 hours of cutting, peeling, adhering, and trimming veneer (including one errant fingertip), we had three fully laminated console table surfaces.  It is a bit difficult to see in the picture, but the grain of the veneer is continuous from the end, over the edge, along the length of the top, and over the opposite end.  The grain on the side is also continuous with the grain on the top.

All in all, it makes for a very beautiful looking table top!

The table itself is a very simple, contemporary design, comprising of just ten parts in all; three surfaces and seven uprights. Each surface is 68″ wide, 14″ deep, and 2″ thick. All seven of the uprights are 3.75″ wide and 8.5″ deep, with the four top and bottom ones being 6″ tall and the three middle ones measuring 12″ tall.

We began by building the three substrates that the Santos Rosewood veneer would be adhered to.  To achieve the 2″ thickness for each surface we sandwiched two 1″ thick MDF layers together.

We used veneer for this console table because Rosewood is not available in solid boards in the lengths or the thicknesses necessary to construct large pieces of furniture. Using veneers allow us to use the Rosewood for any project of any size we desire.

Once the glue had a chance to dry for a few days, the 14″ width was easily achieved using the joiner and the table saw, but cutting each surface to the required 68″ length was a bit more difficult.

We normally cut boards to length using a chop saw or a table saw and a sled, but in this case, neither of these options were going to work for us.  The width of each surface was to large to cut on our 12″ chop saws and each one weighed so much there was no way we could use the sled and the table saw to cut the ends.

Instead, we simply set up a straight edge, and using a 2″ straight bit in the router, trimmed each end square and to the correct length. The resulting edges were perfectly clean and smooth.

After finishing work on the surfaces we moved on to the uprights. As I mentioned before, all the uprights were 3.75″ thick.  We could have arrived at this thickness by gluing multiple pieces together, but I didn’t want there to be any seems or glue joints visible on the fronts of these uprights.  Instead, we called up a few of our hardwood suppliers and one of them had some 16/4 basswood which would work perfectly well.

The 11″ width of the rough board was to wide to run through our joiner, and even the final width of 8.5″ was to wide for our 8″ joiner, so we achieved one flat side by running it through a wide belt sander at a local cabinet shop.  After a dozen or so passes we had a nice flat side. We then ran it through our 15″ thickness planer to flatten the other side and achieve the overall thickness of 3.75″

Each of the uprights also have a cove detail in the front and back.  The only way we had the ability to achieve this was to use the table saw.  Every time someone sees this done they cringe and think you are out of your mind, but it is a perfectly safe (as safe as using a table saw can be) and normal detailing technique.  It is also a fairly simple one.

We clamped on a straight fence, and through a little trial and error, arrived at the correct angle.  The only thing to remember is to not try and cut off to much in one pass.  The closer your angle is to horizontal, the less you can take off at once.

After we cut each of the seven uprights from the newly coved stock, we began routing out the mortises in the tops and the bottoms.  We used our plunge router and a .5″ spiral upcut bit to mortise out two 5″ wide and 1″ deep mortises.  After all 24 mortises were completed, we were practically swimming in the wood shavings!

Here is a closer shot of the mortises.  Each of the uprights look like they are comprised of two pieces of wood because we had to cut them on the table saw in two passes, running in opposite directions, which resulted in the different color wood surface. Similar to the way the lanes of a freshly mowed lawn looks green and silverish.

And last but not least, here is a picture of the Santos Rosewood veneer.  It is an absolutely beautiful exotic wood and the price of each sheet of veneer definitely reflected that!