Burr horse chestnut saved from the firewood pile

[ucoulddoit]

Hope you weren’t expecting a massive piece of burry timber! I’ve been sorting through my stock of milled and dried timbers as I’m getting to an age where realistically, I just won’t be able to use all of it.

 

Never used horse chestnut before and always assumed it would be pretty bland and uninteresting, so was thinking of putting this into the firewood pile. A casually applied rub with a rag and tung oil showed it’s worth keeping an open mind……!

 

First piece of furniture I’ve made for over four years and also one of the smallest, but quickest, and my wife loves it as it meets her brief for ’somewhere to put my mug of coffee when lounging on the settee’. The tapered chamfers on the top didn’t quite work out as expected, but that will just need a bit more design development next time. Some folk thought it was marble!

 

Now wondering about some of the other planks put into the firewood pile……..

 

Andrew

 

[trigger_andy]

Thats beautiful! Any progress pictures you could post up?

[ucoulddoit]

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

Thats beautiful! Any progress pictures you could post up?

Thanks Andy. Finished it recently but wasn’t sure about putting up a picture. But fairly quiet on this part of the forum these days, so I thought why not.

 

Didn’t take any other progress pics, but I’ll upload some sketches later.

 

Andrew

[trigger_andy]

Thanks Andy. Finished it recently but wasn’t sure about putting up a picture. But fairly quiet on this part of the forum these days, so I thought why not.

 

Didn’t take any other progress pics, but I’ll upload some sketches later.

 

Andrew

I could add some Viking Necklace Jewelry pics if anyone's interested? [emoji3] If not then it will be some time before Im back in the workshop unfortunately. [emoji20] 

 

Ive got a stunning piece of Burr Oak that Im needing inspiration for. 

 

Sketches would be nice. [emoji4] 

 

Andy

[ucoulddoit]

13 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

Any progress pictures you could post up?

No progress photos unfortunately, partly because it was so quick to make. But here are a few thoughts about the background to the design and making of this small table. The following sketches show how the design evolved, and it’s not finished yet, although the first one has been made. I wonder if the legs might be better splayed out slightly by cutting the corner mitre joints at say 40 degrees instead of 45. The geometry of the tapered chamfers at the mitres needs fixing. And, I like the idea of a ‘nest of tables’ perhaps two identical smallish ones under a larger/longer one of similar design. And …….., lots of other ideas which could keep me busy for ages.

 

I wanted a design that could be machine made, really quickly, possibly suitable for small batch production. I’d used mitre corner joints before for small tables and like look of ‘folding a plank’ so that the grain runs around the corner. So that was a starting point. The width would be 10” as that’s the width of my planer thicknesser and I wanted to avoid the time needed to edge joint planks. The height and length were to suit the plank length of about 4 feet and the positions of the corner joints to avoid larger defects in the plank. First sketch got me started and fulfilled the brief and dimensional constraints. Second sketch was trying to improve the appearance by adding chamfers and the third sketch is how it was made including tapered chamfers and curves on the edges of the top and legs.

 

I cut a 250mm wide plank from the slab on the bandsaw, surfaced one face and an edge, then thicknessed it to about 45mm, trimmed it to width, and cut 20 degree chamfers on both sides of the plank. Then cut the plank into three pieces, cut the mitre joints on the bandsaw and cleaned them up with a hand plane. Drilled the dowel holes in the mitre joints. Cut the legs on the bandsaw to taper their thickness, then cut the curved edges on the top and legs using a router and curved mdf templates. And finally, sanding with a random obit sander and glued the mitre joints with polyurethane glue. Just a few hours work which I could reduce a fair bit if making several at once as the set up time for the machines would be spread over several tables. Final sanding, picking out bits of ingrown bark and filling with resin all took longer than the actual making! And then it was given several coats of tung oil.

 

My wife thinks the curved edges and tapered chamfers make it look a bit more ‘classy’. That’s a matter of opinion I guess, but I agree with her and copied this idea from a DVD I watched about Tage Frid who used this technique on his designs. Final sketch shows the stages to cut the tapered chamfers, starting with a straight and square edge. Really quick to do with a router.

 

Andrew

[muttley9050]

Very nice. More pics of the finished product please

[trigger_andy]

Thanks for the write-up! Looking forwards to more pictures.

 

I really like the chamfer on the front. 

[ucoulddoit]

18 hours ago, muttley9050 said:

Very nice. More pics of the finished product please

Hi Muttley

Glad you like it. Tried to take some more pics but it is so small, it's hard to get a view that shows much else. The picture below shows the chamfer on the front edge of the top. Quite subtle, but helps to give a bit of shape to the top. It's only a 20 degree chamfer and I guess making it steeper, in timber with a bit more colour, might make it more obvious with the light reflected differently from each face?

 

Interesting bit of timber to use. It came from a tree in a work colleagues garden about 20 years ago which was being trimmed by a tree surgeon. In those days, I didn't have an Alaskan mill, just a small chainsaw with a 14" bar and freehand chainsawed the side off a 4 foot length with a good sized burr. Then took it (plus various other odds and ends) to a woodmiser to tidy up the freehand sawn face, and cut a 2" plank leaving the burr as a good sized lump. After drying outside for 2 or 3 years it's been in the roof of my workshop ever since, gathering dust and basically forgotten about. Delighted to see how it turned out and it's surprising how many of the 'odds and ends' from that period when I milled anything, are still worth hanging onto.

 

Andrew

[muttley9050]

Its a stylish piece. Impressed with your bandsaw joinery. Not sure i could make it as neat with just a bandsaw.

[ucoulddoit]

11 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

Thanks for the write-up!

No problem. That's a nice slab of oak you have, quite thick from memory as I remember seeing a pic before. Thinking of starting a thread about using the burr oak I had milled as I'm part way through the first project.

 

Andrew