Small Hall Table – Starting the Mock-Up

This weekend I had some free time and spent my time working on the mock-up for the small hall table.

I started with the legs. I was concerned that the size of the legs I drew up in my plans might be too bulky. The legs I drew up were 1 ¾” square at the top and tapered down to 1” square. After making the first leg I was sure it was going to be too bulky, for this table. I mocked-up another leg that was 1 ½” square at the top and tapered down to ¾”. I like this leg much better. It just goes to show that it is hard to judge size and proportion in a "CAD" program. A full size drawing or a mock-up might be needed.


To cut the tapers I made a simple jig. It’s just a piece of ½” MDF, with a couple stops attached to it. The stops held the blank in place pretty well, but I added some double-stick tape for good measure. After cutting the first two tapers, I had to add a small “shim”, the size of the waste I cut off, to the lower part of the jig. This kept everything lined up for each cut. The cuts were made on the table saw. The jig runs up against the rip fence.

After getting the legs worked out, I had some time to start on the form I was going to use to glue-up the apron. The apron will be a bent-laminate glue-up. This is going to be a somewhat “small” glue-up, so I just plan to use a few pieces of MDF. The apron will be about 1 ¾” wide. 3 layers for ¾” MFD will give me the width I need to do the glue-up. To make the radius cuts I need, I used my band saw. I’ve seen this done on many woodworking shows, but haven’t tried it yet. I didn’t make fancy jig for this, it's just a piece of MDF attached to my top. I then drilled holes for the different radii I needed, and used a piece dowel as the pivot point.

The boards that were going to be cut, were somewhat small so I only used double-stick tape to attach the jig to my top. Someday, I may spend some time to make a “reusable” jig. For now a simple board taped to the top worked well.

I started the glue up of the 3 layers of MDF. I plan to use some cork to line the form, but I have to track it down first. I think I’ll have time next weekend to do a test glue-up of the apron. I’ll show the completed form and glued up apron at that time.