Build the table I designed for my wife ...

It’s been 4 days since I cut that last leg and my legs are really itching—to the point of bleeding.

It could be my bodies reaction to the large quantity of dust I inhaled.

Next time I’m for sure gonna wear my respirator.

My first leg came out so good that it stands all on it’s own, balancing tapered from 2 3/4” to 2” on a base that is only 1” wide.

PS—I didn’t mean for this photo to come out like some kinda of phallic shot or something weird. I just meant to show my wife that the leg stands by itself. She’s the one that arranged the shot.

Well, I got one leg done today. The other will go much quicker.

I bought a dado blade for my table saw and I love it.

I also made a taper jig for this specific taper of the legs. It was much easier than I imagined. Rather, the cut came out cleaner than I imagined despite my mis-handling of the wood. haha

And I have to bundle up with a hood pulled tight, rubber gloves over my long-sleeved shirt, under my sweatshirt and shirt. I also have to wear a full face shield over my hood. I keep forgetting to put my full respirator on. I was ok without it just cutting 1 leg, but next time I do 2 or 3, it will be absolutely necessary.

After cutting 1 leg, there is about 1/2 cubic foot of pulverized toxic wood in the air of my garage. After about 10 minutes, I am nearly choking. But that doesn’t last long.

Well, this goal has been on hold since before the holidays.

Now that the holidays are passed, I have jumped back in and things are looking good.

Yesterday I bundled myself up with a hoodie, rubber gloves, and full face shield in order to protect myself from the toxic lacewood dust. (So far, no itching today.)

I only wish I had worn my full industrial respirator—that dust produces sneezing and a sensation like the begining of the flu when it gets into your nose and throat.

I also have a new dado blade for my saw. It works GREAT. I love it.

Pictures to come.

For the past week (as the pictures will show), I’ve been happily working in my shop, making good headway on the table—ripping, gluing, trimming, sanding the lacewood I bought. Sweating and wiping my brow on my new oversized cotton flannel work shirt (where the sawdust was building up).

And each day I brush myself off and go upstairs (carrying with me trace quantities of Lacewood sawdust).

My wife was the one that started itching first. Within a day, I also started itching—first on my wrists, then under my chin, then on my eyes and the back of my neck. Anywhere I sweat.

I’m glad to know the reason now: Lacewood. It has some “phenolic compounds” in common with poison ivy.

I just hope it will go away directly and not stick around like poison ivy does.

I am REALLY very pleased with the first glue up of a table leg.

Last night (see previous entry on this goal) I glued together four 3/4” x 3” planks to form a solid block of wood aproximately 3” x 3” x 36”.

This is the first time I’ve ever attempted a face-to-face glue up. It turned out better than any of the edge joints I’ve ever glued up. haha

This is a picture of the rough cut. Basically it’s cut just to trim off any glue and even up all the surfaces.

Later it will be tapered and mitered. Then sanded down to a fine finish. :D

I give up trying to find 3” x 3” leg stock. Instead I went out and bought about 35 bf of Lacewood.

This wood is SO beautiful. I almost feel bad about not making a tabletop out of it.

So, I was able to find 1 piece (just enough) to make the 1” thick tabletop endcaps.

The rest is 3/4” thick. That means in order to make legs that have a max thickness of almost 3”, I need to glue up 4 planks of wood, face to face, for each leg. There is a HUGE potential for slippage here. I have to check the configuration ever hour or so and move the clamps around if necessary.

I started gluing 1 tonight. I used a bit much glue, but I think it’ll turn out well.

It looks messy in the clamps, but afterwards, I’m confident, it will look really fine.

Wish me luck.

I found a tool (2 actually) in the box of my dad’s tools that I brought from NJ. It’s neat.

It’s kind of a cross between a plane and a file. It’s like a cheese-grater to be used like plane. (Using a plane on a surface wider than the blade can leave large grooves in the wood.)

I’ve seen this tool before in my father’s shop, but I never saw him use it and it never occurred to me to try it.

It’s AWESOME. It eliminates LARGE irregularities in seconds. Blemishes and misalignments that would take me HOURS to sand away disappear in about 10 minutes with this tool.

I love it so much I decided to take a second pass at smoothing my joined surfaces again. This time I even did the bottoms. Now the bottoms are a nice as the tops were before and the tops … well, they just look marvelous.

Of course, I had to repeat much of the sanding afterwards, but that’s cool. It was WELL worth the effort.

And my dog just LOVES this tool. She thinks it’s the coolest thing ever.

- DaveFer

I’m at a point where I’m ready to start working on the legs. The 3 horizontal surfaces need only be trimmed down and the mortise holes in the table top opened.

So I’m trying to order wood that will serve as the legs (3”x3”x36”) and that will also serve as the endcaps for the tabletop.

I can’t find any hardwood in 3”x3” stock. Been researching this for over a month now.

Great, so I’ll glueup the pieces. Thickness doesn’t matter, I’ll just use as many layers as required to compose the legs.

But I DO need at least 15/16” for the tabletop endcaps. A key design element is that the endcaps are thicker than the tabletop itself (3/4”). This gives the illusion of a slight curve to the the surface, when in actually there is none. This curve is important to me because when I concieved of the design it reminded me of a Japanese Welcome arch.

Oh well, I’ll keep looking. Meanwhile, here is the latest design image of the table.

- DaveFer

Hey Dave….nice table, where did you get those clamps????

Where are you building that table?