Mission Style End Table with Marble, Finished

I just completed the end table and change the embedded stone from slate to marble. The slate was too bumpy and heavy for a table top and it even showed minor scratches. Marble isn't my favorite but I can get attractive 12" x 18" tiles for $8. The top is constructed from quarter-sawn white oak veneered on red oak. Red oak is readily available from my local Lowes store. After staining, you can't tell the difference in the species of oak.

Here is a view from the top showing the final construction of the curved sides. I was worried that they might flex easily but that has not been the case. It's easy to miss that they are curved. I think this is a design issue because there isn't anything straight to highlight the curve. Perhaps it would have helped if the sides were flush to the curved top.

Finishing only took two days. The first day to apply gel stain to emphasize the grain. The following day I lightly sanded the oak leaving the stain in the grain, and then sprayed it with a brown water-based dye. After it dried, I used a spray can of Deft satin lacquer to finish the project.

Mission Style End Table with Slate, Part 3

Here is an update on the end table project. The complex part are the curved sides which bow out slightly from each side to match the curve of the top. The picture at right shows the bottom of the table with a coat of gel stain that fills the grain of the oak. I'm following my Mission Style finish recipe that I blogged about earlier. After the stain dries, I'll sand it and then spray a brown dye.

Economy and Reduced Complexity

Using solid quarter-sawn white oak would have been costly and showing flake on all four sides of the legs would have been difficult. This project almost entirely uses veneer. The core of the legs is ¾" plywood with ¼" MDF sandwiched between them. Quarter-sawn white oak veneer is glued to all four sides.

Enabling the Curved Sides

To create the bowed sides, I've cut a 15° slot into the sides of the legs. I don't want the curve all the way to the floor, so the challenge is only having the slot partially down the leg. Veneer allows me to cover the slot on bottom part of the leg. I sawed the slot the entire length of the leg, then filled the slot with filler where it wasn't required. Veneer was glued over the top and I exposed the slot again with a small diameter router bit on my router table.

Mission Style End Table with Slate, Part 2

Here is the table top with the slate installed. I sprayed it with Deft Clear Wood Finish, a lacquer finish with a satin sheen. Both the wood and the slate were sprayed. The lacquer added more amber color to the top making it a bit darker than I wanted. I'm starting to have reservations about using slate. The finish highlights any scratches and the surface is too bumpy. I plan to attach the top with screws so I can change it later if I get motivated.

I want to have an enclosed shelf underneath the top to store books and other stuff. To make it challenging, I'm trying to have curved sides to match the curve in the top. I've never tried bending wood before because it looked pretty involved. I wanted to see whether I could just veneer quarter-sawn oak to ⅛" MDF and bend it to the curve I needed.
To experiment, I've cut 15° angle slots into what would be the table legs. I've screwed a board to the legs and wedged a narrow board under the MDF at the peak of the curve. I was worried that the curved veneer would flex when pushed, but it's very stiff. This may work!

Mission Style End Table with Slate, Part 1

I've wanted to integrate slate with wood and thought I'd share my progress on an end table that I've just started. I had a piece of plain sawn oak that I want to make more interesting. I glued quarter-sawn white oak veneer to it to make the top more interesting. I plan to apply the Mission Style finish that I described in an earlier posting.

Here is what it looks like after applying Mahogany gel stain. Notice that the grain pattern is now more visible because the pigment gets lodged into the pores. I'm going to let it dry over night and then sand off any stain on the wood surface while leaving the stain in the grain to accentuate the pattern.

After I sanded the stain with 220 grit, I sprayed on a brown water-based dye. To protect the dye from subsequent operations, I then sprayed with Bulls Eye Shellac. Now I'm ready to glue the plywood bottom for the slate and then insert the tile into the tabletop.

Toning for Accent

Its been too cold in the shop lately so I haven't done much finishing this month. I received a tile that a relative had made and used some scraps of cherry to make a frame for it. I routed a pair a beads on the edge and sprayed it with a water based red dye. I usually use a water based finish so to protect the dye, I sealed it with Bulls Eye Clear Shellac. Then I noticed that the beads didn't really stand out. It was only when they cast a shadow did they show well.

This gave me an idea to try toning to simulate a shadow. Toning is selectively applying stain over a finish to highlight some feature. Most articles about toning say you need to spray it but for my frame, I just wanted to apply a little dark stain on each side of the bead. I decided to try an artist marker of the shade I wanted. The product I used is called Prismacolor which is a dye in an alcohol solvent. Applying it on the shellac is a bad idea since it is alcohol based too. This time I needed to seal the shellac. Since it was still too cold to spray a water based finish, I sprayed a coat of lacquer which isn't very temperature sensitive. I then used the fine point edge of the marker and drew a line between the two beads and then on each side. I sprayed another coat of lacquer to seal the dye. It was just enough to get the beads to "pop out" in any lighting.