A Delicate Tea Table

Hard Maple

This maple tea table was inspired by a metal version I found on the web.  

I remembered I had a maple panel.  It was a bit thicker than 3/4".  19" x 14".  Room enough to cut four 3" strips from that were 19" long. Glued them together to make a 3" x 3" x 19" block I used to make the center post from:

Center post 

Mounted on my radial axis. First step was to turn the square block into a 3" cylinder. 

18 inches of 3"d cylinder

Then the roughing cut, which pointed out a few flaws in my setup. The square section left next to the 3-jaw chuck didn't care to run into the router chuck as it created a burning smell and left the router chuck black with carbon. 

I made a finish pass down the cylinder to cut the desired shape.  A few visible flaws left from the roughing cut that went haywire. I took the post from the CNC out to my garage lathe to clean up and sand. 

For the base I glued up some maple boards.  They were a bit thinner than 1.5" thick. When the glue was dry I scraped off what squeezed out, then used my drum sander to clean off and flatten both sides.

Uniformly flat, clamped to my CNC bridges, and getting the bottom cove cut out.

Cove cut.  Almost done.

Board flipped over, new file loaded, and the top surface was cut. Next to the bandsaw to cut off the corners.  After that a trip to my trim router table to flush trim the bottom edge, then round over the bottom edge just a little (1/8"r). 

Base trimmed and cleaned up.  Post trying it on for size.

A good snug fit. 

Next came the top for this table. A thin edge is desired. It would help the structure to be thicker in the middle where the post connects.  Made an intermediate plate that glues and screws to the post, but then can be screwed to the bottom of the table top.  I ordered some 3/4" thick maple strips I can glue up to make the top from. 

Maple to make the top arrived. Strips 2" wide, 3/4" thick, and 16" long. The strips were square and smooth and  ready to glue together. 

Some advice to minimize the chance of bowing after the slats are glued up, is to alternate the end grain curves on each piece. 

Once all the strip are glued together and the surface cleaned up a trip or two through my drum sander smoothed out any offsets and made both sides uniformly parallel to each other. 

Next was clamping the panel down to my CNC and cutting the bottom contour.  The hub was cut first.  Left on the CNC to check that the center post top tenon does fit in the mortise in the center.  Wisely done, as it didn't fit the first time tried.  A new CNC file was made and run to cut the mortise wider.  With fit verified the contour shape was cut.  Then the part was remove from the CNC and cut free from the starting block using my bandsaw. 

The top underside shape took the longest to cut and created a beautiful huge mess of fine maple chips.  

The only deficiency of this design is that from above where most will see it the contours under the top are not visible.

Simple thin edge.

This table will get a maple stain to even out the color of all the board strips. I don't drink tea, so am not sure where this table will end up.  😉

As I study the aesthetic details, the simple top seems naked compared to the post and base below.  My first addition is a 30 degree bevel around the perimeter.  To accomplish that required a fixture with bearings to add to my trim router table fence.

Bearings to keep the edge from getting too close to the bit. 

No room for a bearing to run on the edge. 

Beveled edge.

Comments welcomed and Encouraged!

4D