One of the most frequent inspirations I have for designing and building a project is the presence of scraps of wood left over from a previous project. I use a lot of Baltic birch plywood, and had several roughly 2" wide strips of 12mm plywood left over from a cabinet project. Those scraps were begging to be made into something useful.
I appreciate the simple beauty of the classic parson's table. Creating one from wood usually requires careful mitering of pieces and challenging clamping for assembling. There is also an inherent weakness in simple miter jointing. Strength requires the reinforcement of a splined joint, biscuits , or a locking miter cut done with a special router bit. All of that, to me, is too much work for left over scraps of wood. A simpler approach was necessary.
 |
| Simple |
The strength of this table lies in the interlocking of pieces at each corner of the table. The beauty lies in how beveling the corners balances each face and eliminates the distraction of the plywood's joint line. It celebrates the plywood's edge.
 |
| Beveled Outside Corners |
Sixteen strips of 12mm plywood were required to make this table. Eight were 1.53" (38.8mm) wide. The other eight were 2" (50.8mm) wide. Glued together the legs and top frame are 2" x 2".
 |
| Top Plane |
 |
| Top Frame |
 |
| Legs |
I cut a 1/8" deep recess in the top for a piece of 1/8" thick glass to sit flush with the frame top. Before getting a piece cut to fit I realized I had a 20" x 20" piece of glass on hand. The table looked better with that glass sitting atop the base so it won that job.
This table ended up being a great use for some plywood strips. The top corners have a void and the light colored filler is a 3D printed piece of wood filled PLA, Once I find (or buy some more of) the paint I used for the base I'll touch up the corners to match.
Questions and comments are encouraged.
4D
No comments:
Post a Comment