So if you’ve been wondering, “what can I make with my chainsaw milled slabs?”, here is an idea for you. It’s a copy of Stickley console table, but I modified the dimensions slightly to suit a particular narrow wall in my house. Each square represents 2” if you want to crib my plans. I made these slabs 2 years ago, and did a post about it on FHC at the time: Took a piece outta my ash Here’s a pic of the log: The upper slab I have laid out there ended up becoming the top and 2 of the legs. And I’m pretty sure the one at the bottom became the aprons and drawer fronts and a few other parts. I knew at the time I wanted to make tables out of it and imagined they’d take the form of rustic, slab furniture. But it turns out these slabs were absolutely perfect for finer applications as well. I was able to saw them up in such a way as to get exactly the grain style I wanted for all of the parts. I wanted nice straight grain for the legs and all the narrower parts in the base, and flatsawn for the top and other wide parts.
Very nice...you are giving Norm Abrams a run for the money...heck, I'd give you the win just cuz you milled yours ...that cheater buys his wood!
Very nice. What are the plans for the top of the legs? Flush cut and the top over them, or notch the top. I like the corbel accents.
Thanks! Yes, they will be cut flush to the the aprons. I like leaving a “horn” on there until I’m ready for the glue up. It makes it so much easier to knock it back apart while I’m fitting the joints. Also some of the layout had to be done with the carcass partially assembled, like the divider piece I was fitting in the 2nd-to-last pic there. It has a pair of hand cut dovetails that didn’t quite end up exactly symmetrical.
We have a quarter-sawn bookcase with notched corners. Part of why I was asking. I think it is a nice detail. Sorry for the dark pic.
These were mostly power tool - after I built my workbench, I bought myself one of these for my birthday. There was still a good amount of cleanup needed afterwards though. I skimped on the actual hollow chisel bits and I’m regretting that. I didn’t use any filler on my last piece but I think I understand now why a lot of folks recommend it. It stayed pretty smooth with the stain on it, but once I started to apply the topcoat it raised the grain enough where I couldn’t smooth it out completely without affecting the stain. So you can feel a bit of texture to the surface, but I don’t really mind that in the end: it basically feels how it looks.
Yeah.. ^^^^ What he said^^^^ That's what I'm talking about. I have started on my own woodworking space, and hope to do beautiful work such as that. I will be working on refining my rusty woodworking skills before tackling the cabinetry project with the Black Walnut that was boarded out last fall. Carry on with the awesome woodworking. Chaz
I must say, I love it when a plan comes together. Youre looking at the two drawer fronts and the face frame of the drawer case, all of which were ripped from the same board. That board was also the book match to the one I got the rear and side aprons from; plan being to make it look like the entire drawer case was made from one continuous board (which, it basically was.)
Thanks! Yes the legs have chamfers on the corners, and on the front inside edges it terminates at the drawer box. I prefer a chamfer vs a round over. I like the “crispness” of it, plus rounded corners (heavy handed at times) was sort of a signature of the pieces my grandfather liked to build. One more set of pics for tonight cause I’m really happy with the way these are turning out so far:
Man Shawn, its a good thing I don't live anywhere near you....I'd be over all the time trying to learn as much as I could!
I'd be happy with those. Do you think if they were cut a single board at a time, they would be a little tighter? It's all a learning process. Kudos for hand cutting them.
The idea behind gang sawing them was to help keep the tail cuts more perpendicular to the face. If I was off by a full kerf front to back, that’s only a quarter kerf over the 4 boards. The angle of the tails is not critical, since they were used as the pattern for the pin boards; but if the cuts are out of square, the layout will be wrong. I think the problem might be that I simply haven’t cleaned them up sufficiently yet. The shoulders on the tail boards, or the insides of the half blinds, are pushing them apart. They seem to be a pretty good fit right now though, other than a few gaps here and there which probably only I will notice. I’m afraid if I work in them too much they’ll end up a bit looser than I’d like.
I would think you might want to put yourself out there for being accessible to for being commissioned to build select pieces for fancy markets.
