We owe you a progress report on the Mahogany Dining Room Table. Since we last left you (post here), we’ve used 12mm Beech loose tenons to add the “bread board” ends to the table finishing the frame. We purposefully made the frame a bit proud of the inner frame so we could plane & sand it down to the same level as the inner panel. You get a much result if you sneak up on something like this. It’s part of what woodworkers call relative dimensioning. Relative dimensioning is when you use the actual pieces of a project to measure something vs relying on a tool or tape measure. All tools have slight inaccuracies because let’s face it, none of us can afford the measuring tools NASA uses. You will see in some of the pictures below, we’ve got the skirts in between the legs that have been set into place to the table top. Everything is upside down, so you will have to use your imagination a bit …. or stand on your head. :) By doing this we can then mark where to cut the skirt using the actual pieces of the table. This also gives a chance to verify everything is looking good. No matter how much you plan on paper or see things in your head, there is no better way to verify proportionality than seeing it.
We’ve also included a couple of pictures where you can see the frame is thicker than the inner panel. This is done to make the top look thick and beefy, but cut down on some of the cost of mahogany not to mention the weight. This top alone weighs nearly 300 lbs. Our customer wanted a beefy “farm table”, we’re giving them a beefy farm table! 
To pick up the Purple Heart inlay on the top of the table and to break up the straight lines, we’ve added a pencil molding inlay in the skirts. The molding goes all the way through the skirt. It isn’t just glued on the top of it. You’ll see some close up of the glue up on those. We’ve also used some smaller 5mm loose tenons made from Sipo Mahogany to help keep the pencil molding and corresponding Mahogany tooth tight to the skirts. You’ll see the tenons sticking out of the skirts. Those have since been flush trimmed and no one will ever see them unless you are doing the limbo under the table. If you are doing that, chances are you are at a party listening to Reggae music with a couple of Pina Coladas in your system and you won’t notice them anyway. BTW.. we’d like to be invited to the party, OK?
Finally you will see where we finished the underside of the table top as this will be the last time it was exposed. We temporarily took the top of out of the shop while we finish the final glue up of the skirts and legs.
When we get the skirts and legs glued up, we’ll convert the shop to a finishing room to get the many many coats of polyurethane sprayed on. Stay tuned for additional pictures as we proceed.
Thanks for stopping by!
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- Loose tenons attach the “breadboard” ends.
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- We’re using 14mm Beech tenons.
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- Using a plane to get the frame to the same depth as the inner panel.
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- More planing
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- Setting up the legs and skirts to get the relative and final sizes before cutting the skirts down
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- More relative dimensioning
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- Close up of the skirt and leg
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- Under side of the table so you can see the frame is thicker to give a more beefy look without adding more weight.
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- Hand rubbed finish on the bottom of the table before we moved it out of the shop
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- Beefed up skirt ends
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- Close up of underside of the table
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- Close up of Purple Heart pencil molding. The molding spans the width of the skirt. Its not just glued on the top.
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- Adding Purple Geart pencil molding.
