Building the second (and third) Walnut/Cypress Tables

Right after I got the new Domino XL in to test I received a commission to build two more of my walnut and cypress tables.

I of course was quite excited to have a more substantial way of building these tables!

The sides of these tables are glue ups of various thicknesses of cypress with slightly thicker tapered cypress legs.

The center panels had already been glued when the XL arrived in my shop.

But I was able to use the Domino to aide in alignment and to be able to add some structural strength.

Because the area of the panel I was going to mortise was only 3/4" thick I went with 8mm Dominos. The smallest size the XL can mortise for.

Three per leg seemed plenty though.

You can see here that 8mm Dominos work perfectly fine with 3/4" thick material.

I think it would be nice to have the smaller sizes available with the Domino 500. But knowing that 8mm Dominos work in this thickness material will fulfill 90% of my needs.

The Dominos certainly eased my glue up and makes me more comfortable with the strength of the legs.

Then I moved on the the cross stretchers.

Before I had two pair. One at the top of the legs and one at the bottom. Not having a better system. I had used pocket screws to attach them to the leg assemblies.

It was very hard to align them just where I wanted. And of course they won't take as much abuse as I would like.

These new tables only have two thin cross stretchers at the top.

I added a full shelf at the bottom to give more strength to the table.

The new Domino XL is really more tool than you want to be trying to align at the end of a thin stretcher like this.

Once again I'm using the 8mm bit size here.

I centered mortises in each end with surprising ease considering the XL weighs in at over 10 pounds!

As long as you are slow and steady with you plunge and put a lot of downward pressure on the big front handle. You'll be fine.

The alignment window is much more useful than the trim stop.

As big and weighty as the XL is. I'm finding the trim stop to be too small and just not that useful with this tool.

Next I wanted to add some Dominos to the bottom shelf.

This was complicated by the design of the shelf.

I put the mortises where they needed to go purely by eye.

Then I transferred the locations to the leg units.

To do this I marked a horizontal where I wanted the shelf to end up. I then carefully balanced the shelf on the line and transferred my mortise centerline tick marks. I also marked an offset for the center mortise that's lower then the other two.

I then balanced the XL on end.

Managing the dust extractor hose was the most difficult part of this operation. The Domino itself has such a nice big fence and the smooth operation made the plunge fairly easy.

(Note to self - Buy a boom arm for my CT 26 to solve the hose issue!)

I merely aligned the Domino's base mark with my pencil mark and plunged.

Six mortises. Six perfect alignments!

Assembly went like a charm.

Here the table base is dry fitted with Dominos. Even without glue it was nice and stable.

I decided I wanted the tops of these tables to float above the base.

To accomplish this I bought a length of mild steel tubing at Lowe's.

I liked the natural industrial patina as an accent to my wood.

So I simply cut the tube in 1" lengths and attached the top to the base with screws from the stretchers through the shell tubing into the walnut top.

Done.

Now to deliver...

The new table was a snooze to the family dog. But the new owners were ecstatic!!!

I'm always happy when a client's happy.