Yesterday, I was hoping to get out into the shop, but instead, I did something I had never done in the 23 years I have spent in Florida. Rhonda wanted to go tubing on the Rainbow Springs river, and we all piled in the car for one last big hurrah for summer here in Florida.But today I got my time in the shop to push the front coffee table further toward the finish line. In fact, with the top close to being done, the next step was to build a splay leg base for the table. No big deal, right? Well, I was certainly nervous, since I had never done that before.

I first had to take a big chunk of walnut and turn it into four leg blanks. That was easy with my band saw. Using a MicroJig push block helped keep my hands safe, and the Infinity rip blades made resawing even 12/4 stock a breeze.

I mean, come on. This was high-quality stuff! It took very little time to make these roughed out blanks clean and ready to use as legs. The next step was to calculate where the legs were going to go on the bottom of the table. I struck lines across the center pivot mark I had used to cut the table top into a circle and calculated about how far in from the table’s edges I wanted those legs to go. That was easy – I settled on four inches.

From there, the part I assumed was going to be the toughest step was upon me. How was I going to get a five-degree splay on these beefy legs for the table? I mean, this is something I had never done…

Wait, I have seen it done a lot. Think, Tom. All the times you watched Norm Abram, Scott Phillips, Tommy MacDonald, Marc Spagnuolo… they all had this down to a science. Instead of figuring out how to cut two separate angles, you rotate the workpiece so you only have to cut the angle once…

So, i tipped the saw five degrees from perpendicular…

And, in the scrap bucket, I found a piece of 2 x stock which I ripped with a 45 degree bevel for the workpiece to rest against …

Then, I made the cut. Ta da!  Like a champ. Once I made the cuts, I was sure to carefully mark which parts pointed where. With no marks on these babies, it would have been a very easy matter to get turned around.

From there, I wanted to verify that the angle on the ends of each of the apron pieces was going to be five degrees. Again, back to the scrap bin, a quick saw reset and instant gratification. Exactly as I had suspected.

With things going this well, I continued to press my luck. I cut the aprons to their five degree angles, then marked out how long I needed them to be. Knowing that I wanted all four to be identical, I used a stop and made the cuts. Bingo. I also marked carefully where I knew I was going to need a five-degree bevel on the tops of the aprons. Just to keep things straight.

How was I going to attach the base? With Z-clips. Those little bent bits of metal screw into the underside of the table, and a tab fits into a little slot you can cut with a biscuit cutter. Four quick plunges later, and I had my top ready to go.

I carefully lined everything up, and screwed the base to the top. With just a little bit of effort, I wrestled the unfinished table into the living area and called everyone over to take a peek.

Sure, it’s a departure from what I normally build, but I think that it came out looking really nice in the space. Now, I just have to start sanding, rounding over edges and finishing, then the summer of coffee tables can come to a happy conclusion.

Now that I’m off and running with the coffee table, my first thought was to build the top of the table. After all, once I have that done, the base should be pretty straightforward.

The only problem is that I needed the top of the table to come out to about 36 inches around, and, well, I’m just a little shy of that magic mark. What was I going to do to make up the difference?

Since I needed the remaining boards to make up the stretchers and legs, I was going to have to figure out a way to get that extra width.

Now, normally I would just line up the boards like this and cut my circle, but as you can see, this is terribly inefficient. You end up with unusable scraps at the far ends. That dog just won’t hunt.

So, what I did was find the center mark of the middle board I wanted. I also used my beam compass to mark an 18 inch radius so I could gauge how far down the board I wanted to be.

Once I marked the arc on both ends of this board, I lined up the next boards but just down a little bit, so I would keep the highest edge against the top edge, I was able to swing the arc onto the second board, meaning I was able to use less of the board in the circle. By the time I got to the third boards, I was close. Real close.

I used my miter saw to cut the third boards as closely as possible to the line, then marked the outside edge of the circle onto the scraps. The first side used only a little of the board, so I headed to my table saw to rip that piece in half.

With it in place, it’s easy to see just how well this table top is going to look. Once I get it glued up, I will move on to building a router trammel to cut the perfect circle. But, that’s another post for another day.

So, this was supposed to be the summer of coffee tables. True, it’s technically still summer, but the kids are getting ready to go back to school next week, and Rhonda is going back to work today to get her classroom in order for the big back-to-school push.

I started off so promising with the Cotterman, but the front table has languished, what with the trip to the west coast, straightening out my reference material … the works. But, I’m finally getting a round tuit.

No, not one of those, but they are clever. Instead, I am starting to build the front coffee table. It’s not as if Rhonda has been subtly hinting that perhaps time had come for me to actually build the table. In fact, she had our sons, nieces, nephews, friends, kids of friends – gosh, just about everyone – use her Spirograph kit to decorate the existing table in our living room.

OK. I get the message. Time to move. First, I had to unpack the care package that came from my friends at Bell Forest Products. I wonder what could be in there?

Hmm, some quick work with a razor knife, and my jaw just about fell to the floor. Inside the package was some of the most gorgeous, clear walnut I had ever seen. And, believe me, it was more than enough for what I wanted to build.

My milling plan for this lumber was pretty simple. First, I took the time to get the boards to sit flat on the workbench using some hand planes. Again, with the right appliances on my bench, some sharp irons and a whole lot of elbow grease, I was able to get this stack of lumber into condition to run through the thickness planer.

Once through, and after straight line ripping the boards using a Bora clamp, the table top started to come into shape. Nice tight joints. Now, I have to sketch out the size of the circle I need to cut so I don’t waste too much lumber, cut the pieces to rough size and glue them up. But, this was a good stopping point for now. After all, I don’t want to get this done too fast!