The Hammer Beam Low Table . . . Building the Base

There are many reasons to avoid designing and building simultaneously.  Materials and time may be wasted, and there's no guarantee that the whole thing will hang together -- visually.  But it does give you the maximum degree of flexibility for the greatest amount of time.  After fiddling with the design on paper, I decided to flip the entire piece and and place greater visual weight along the floor.  I wasn't exactly sure, as I started to saw the white oak, how the joinery would come together -- but once underway, it became pretty straight forward.

Given that I'm looking to give the appearance of post and beam construction, I knew that each piece would be fairly thick, and given that I didn't want to invest in 12/4" timber, I knew that I'd be gluing up for thickness.  This gave me the chance to "build" more complex joinery in pieces, simulating large mortise and tenon joints without all the chiseling.

I start by gluing up three pieces to make the vertical post.  Because I want to create a shadow line against the bottom support rail, I sandwich a 3/4" thick piece between two 7/8" pieces.  I take care to keep the grain running in the same direction to facilitate the hand planing that blends them into one visual post.

This support rail is an odd-looking little construction (3/4" thick), that will slide into the post's bottom. creating a bridle joint of sorts.

I then attach a series of 3"x7"x 3/4" "cheeks" that make the rail look to be one solid piece.  As long as every cut is square, you create a perfect 90 degree angle.  As all glue surfaces are long grain-to-long grain, I'm not worried about the strength -- but they will be reinforced later.  Once dry, I'm ready to move on to the curved "supports."

I drew the curves using the method outlined in the contemporary chair project -- attaching flexible bending sticks to a block the width of the leg, and moving it until I had the curve I liked.  It's then into pattern-making mode to cut and refine a template that reproduces that pattern.  I remember to make the template longer on both ends to facilitate the entry of the router bit without encountering end grain.

As I want the final thickness of each support to be approx. 2", I select some chunky 8/4" white oak stock. I Surface, bandsaw, and template each piece, arranging the stock in such a way to avoid routing against the grain.  I do not cut the straight sides with the router, rather I plane to the line on the long straight side, and cut the bottom of the support with a newly-sharpened saw.

A quick pass with a my 4 1/2 plane over this very straight-grained oak results in a glass-like finish.  I've found that adding a high-angle frog to the mix improves almost all of my smoothing jobs,

The support is joined to the post and rail by a joint (that must have a name), that slides along a loose tenon on the post, and is fixed to the rail by means of a dowel.  There will be a corbel that attaches in a very robust fashion that will also secure this piece.

The support on the right will slide along the tenon, cut to provide a long grain-to-long grain strength . . .

 

 

. . . and the dowel pops into place

The next step is to create the corbels that will act as feet on the table, provide visual interest, and secure the supports.

Cheers!