Walnut Table

Our front hall has a nice mirror hanging in it, and the space below the mirror just cried out for a small, narrow table to sit beneath it. I designed and build this one from Walnut. I am especially happy with the top - it has a glue line down the length of it, and if you know its there you can see it. The grain match was very nice.

The table is very simple - I started with rough-cut walnut, a piece of 8/4 for the legs and some 4/4 for the top and aprons. The pieces for the top were selected first with an eye toward the grain match - the picture shows how nicely that came out. The aprons were cut and the table saw used cut tenons for the joinery. The legs were dimensioned and cleaned up, and then mortises cut to match the apron tenons. Once the mortises were complete, a quicky jig was made to taper the two inside faces of the legs, below the level of the aprons.

The top pieces were glued up, and an border added around it conceal the end grain. I didn't worry about the two end pieces being across grain since it was only 8 inches wide. The top was attached with metal cleats hooked into slots on the inside top of the apron. This permitted getting the top centered side to side, but a little bit forward since it was going up against a wall.

The piece was finished with brushed on polyurethane and that was polished with pumice and rotenstone. A light coat of wax finished it.