Kitchen work table done

The next step was to install the lower shelf pieces across the bottom stretchers.  This was a good use for some of those scrap white oak pieces I bought during the FDR chair project.

Some of my brainstorms work out and some don't, and this one didn't.  I decided to fasten the shelf pieces with the 1/8" joinery dowels from Lee Valley.  I really like the way they look on boxes but here they look too much like I used nails and wood filler:

Oh well, they aren't very conspicuous and the chef is fine with them.  If I did this again, I think I would use a larger pin in the center of each piece and make them more prominent, in part by not staining them so they would contrast with the stained oak.  This could be done by trimming the pins after staining but before finishing, using a playing card with a hole drilled through it to protect the piece.  The pin would be left very slightly proud, a look I like.

With this done, it was a simple matter of attaching the top and installing the casters.  The casters have a friction ring, so they just slide into a 7/16" hole.  You get what you pay for; they were expensive but worth it.  Here is the finished project:

Although the casters are too large for my taste, they roll very easily and it is turning out that the table gets moved around several times a day.  It is very comfortable to sit at.  In retrospect, it would have been possible to have a drawer as many kitchen work tables do, but I like the clean look of the spare carcase.  The stool is one I made years ago, but I will be making a new pair to go with the table.

Many hand tool woodworkers believe it is about the journey, and it is, but often it's about the destination too.  This table really enhanced our kitchen and the chef is very happy with it.  Now that we have one, I don't know how we did without it.

Kitchen work table II

We decided to stain the white oak, which immediately raised a concern.  When I stain a piece after assembly, I invariably miss at least one glue spot, resulting in an ugly splotch, and I find it difficult to apply the stain smoothly at the joints. I knew that some woodworkers apply stain before assembly, something I had never done.  Doing so could potentially solve both problems, but I was concerned about whether I could glue up the base without damaging the stained surfaces.  In the end, I decided to give it a try and it worked great.  It was easier to keep the stain out of the mortises and off the tenons than I thought it would be and I managed to avoid damaging the surfaces during the glue-up.  This is something I will definitely do again.

As for the glue-up, it was surprisingly uneventful.  I am really pleased that the joints all closed tightly:

Here is what the table looks like in clamps.  Notice the cards under the clamp faces to protect the stained surfaces.

I am very pleased with this stain.  It is called Salem by General Finishes.

I am tempted to conclude that my woodworking has gone up to a new level but, in statistics, there is something called regression to the mean.  In this context it means everybody gets lucky once in a while, but they shouldn't count on it to be true in the future.  :)

One issue with staining the frame before assembly is that I have to install the lower shelf pieces later and I don't know how that is going to go.  Worst case, as long as I can touch up the stain, I think I will be fine.

Kitchen work table

With the lumber processed and the leg blanks glued up and dimensioned, it was time to turn to joinery, specifically the sixteen mortises for upper and lower stretchers.

When I first shifted to hand tools, I used a hybrid method for cutting mortises, which is an easy way to keep the mortise walls vertical and it is faster, at least for me.  Variants of it have been around since at least 1945.  The method is to drill out the mortise on the drill press and then use chisels to finish it.  If you trap the leg between two fences, only the top and bottom of the mortises need be marked:

  The overlapped holes drilled to depth with a forstner bit the same width as the mortise provide a precise guide for the chisel work.  I have been reluctant to use my regular bench chisels for this chopping, so I use these Lee Valley chisels with butyrate handles and they hold up fine:

I made the tenons in the usual way, using knife walls, a tenon saw, a router plane and a spokeshave to chamfer the ends of the tenons.  I've learned the hard way to make the tenons very tight the first time they go in the mortise because they tend to loosen up when they have been in and out a few times.  There's little danger of splitting these legs.  I have also found that if you make them "too tight" at first, it gives you the chance to make minute adjustments in the walls of the mortise if necessary for both shoulders to close tightly.  I think this is not the way you are supposed to do it, but it works for me.  The advantage over using a shoulder plane is that it give you a chance to align the stretcher properly.

I would like to get to the point that I can chop out mortises quickly entirely by hand.  My reservation has been not being sure I could keep the walls perfectly vertical.  Paul Sellers has added a simple, shop-made guide to his method for using a bench chisel to chop mortises.  You put the side of the chisel against the guide while chopping and then also use it to pare the wall of the mortise when you are done.  It seems to me that a mortise chisel is inherently more stable than a bench chisel for chopping mortises, so, if you are going to use the latter, a guide seems necessary.  I am going to give it a try.

Some projects design themselves

We need a kitchen work table, like one of these.  In consultation with the chef (aka wife), we came up with the following requirements:

1. counter height and width, four feet long;
2. white oak base and maple top;
3. readily movable;
4. able to sit on a stool to work or eat at it;
5. as much storage as possible given other requirements.

The first two determine the dimensions and materials.  The third led me to rule out a drawer that might interfere with my legs when I am sitting at it.  It also meant that there will only be one shelf across lower stretchers.

We spent some time discussing whether to put the table on casters.  Heavy duty, American-made ones that look good are large and expensive, but I wouldn't settle for anything less, though 450 lb. capacity per caster may be a bit over the top.  In the end, we decided that being able to move the table around easily was worth the appearance hit.  I couldn't find ones with stops that I liked, so there is a risk the table will move around too easily in use.  If it does, I am going to make some custom chocks from white oak that will surround the wheels.

I also worried about how big of an overhang the table should have.  Four inches seems quite large but it is within design guidelines I consulted and will make it more comfortable to sit at.  Visually, I think it is pushing it though, because the table is only 25" wide.  I may offset it so there will be a larger overhang on one side that will be comfortable for sitting at the table.  I'll be able to judge stability before deciding. 

So, this will be a fairly simple project: a top, sixteen mortises in the legs for upper and lower stretchers and a shelf across the lower stretchers.  Basically, the requirements determined the design.

Off I went to the lumber yard, where I received sorta good news and bad news.  The bad news is that white oak is in short supply because of all the demand for whiskey and wine barrels, so it cost $7.50 per board foot and there wasn't a lot of selection.  Further, they didn't have any 12/4 stock, so I have to laminate the legs from 6/4.  The sorta good news was regarding the top.  They were having a closeout sale on prefinished laminated maple countertops in these exact dimensions for $120, compared to about $80 for material and supplies to make my own.  As I am in a hurry, I bought one.  It turns out not to have been a great purchase because when I got it home and unboxed it, one edge had been run through a jointer against the grain, resulting in both a washboard and bad tearout, and one end had checking.  They just applied finish over the top of it.  I had to cut off the end and resurface the edge, then refinish both sides.  The top surface was fine though.

The total cost of materials was $120 for the top, $170 for lumber and $80 for the casters.  Sounds expensive until you price commercially available ones of the same quality.

I ripped all the pieces to width on the bandsaw, jointed them and used the lunchbox planer to surface them because I am in a hurry.  With one exception I will describe later, the rest will be all hand tools.