I built this table over a year ago and didn’t plan on putting it up on the blog so this won’t be my typical post with measurements and instructions for building. However, it should give you an idea on how to turn legs, attach them to an apron (while being removable), a peak at how I did the drawers and some ideas on creating a custom wood stain.
I turned the legs for this table back when I had my old Walker Turner lathe. You only need a 3 woodturning tools for these legs: a roughing gouge, 3/8″ or 1/2″ spindle gouge and a parting tool. Calipers are a given!
I started out by rounding out the turned part of the leg, marking the wood and using my parting tool + calipers to cut down to the right thicknesses on different parts of the leg.
The lines that you can see signify the bulk (center) of the beads or the starting/ending point of a straight edge.
Little by little you shape the beads and coves with a spindle gouge and it gets really exciting!
Once all the legs were done I would turn the fence on my jointer 45-degrees and run a corner of the legs through several times to get a 1-inch wide flat. Then I would use my corner jig to rest the legs on and drill holes for some hanger bolts. Here’s a post with more details on this process: https://theprojectlady.com/adding-bolt-hangers-to-table-legs/
Next I added the hanger bolts…
…and attached the hardware to the aprons.
Here’s an idea of how I did the drawers. I bought slides and mounting brackets on eBay.
I made a custom stain color which I LOVE.
First I wanted to nail down what to put down on the wood before the stain to ensure it would go on smoothly and not too splotchy. You can see in the sample above what a huge difference applying a poly first (right) will do compared to just bare wood (left).
Next I made a few samples to get the correct ratio of Varathane stains. I used Carbon Gray and Early American and thinned it with mineral spirits. Sorry I can’t remember the recipe (I regret not writing it down)!
I hope this post gave you some ideas! Good luck!
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