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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

New Project - Drop Leaf Cherry Table - Nice Table from the Met. Museum

I have started a new project, this one is not quite as elaborate as the last but it still has some challenges.  There are three legs with elaborate turnings, rule joint for the drop leaves and supports for the leaves.  Each of these will take some thinking and care in the building.


The pictures and dimensions are from an old book, Masterpieces of Furniture by Verna Cook  Salomonsky.  The book is readily available. You can also download a picture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I started by making full sized drawings of the top and frame.  I also made a full size story stick of the leg turnings.


 Since I am not a great lathe turner, I decided to make a practice leg from some soft maple that I have, it required 1 3/4 inch stock.  Cutting the shape 60 degrees on the front and 30 degrees on the back was an interesting task.  I'll show you how in a later video in detail.


The first thing I found out after cutting the leg stock was that I could not get the 1 3/8 inch round circle within the cut stock.  The largest circle I could get was 1 1/4 inch.  I thought I would practice anyway and see how it looked.



I turned the two pommels and then the center to 1 1/4 inch.  Then I marked the pattern on the center and turned it with a spindle gouge.



I turned the pattern on to the leg but it was real difficult with it offset by the top and lower solid pieces.  There was a lot of vibration and flexing in the center.   I decided to approach it in a different manner.   

I decided to turn the center out of 1 3/8 stock and leave 7/8 inch tenons on each end.  That way I could turn the top and bottom pommels separate from the shaped stock and glue up the assembly when I was done.  

Here is a cherry center of the leg with 7/8 inch tenons on each end.  It was much easier to turn it this way.

  
Then I turned the end pieces pommels and drilled holes to fit the tenons.  

Below is two maple ends with cherry center for practice.  Looks like it is going to work but I have to practice turning the pommels on the ends without chipping them.

In the next post I'll detail how I will make the legs from the cherry stock.

Here is today's video:


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