The Woodshop Shed

Mission style orchid table

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


My wife needed a table for her growing collections of orchids. She saw a mass produced one that wasn't the best quality, but she liked the style and asked me if I could make her one from the photo she took. So of course, that's what I did.I built this table from walnut, using dowels for most of the joinery. The shelves are walnut plywood edged with solid wood, because the design might be difficult to allow for wood movement if they were solid wood. The top is a glue-up of 3 pieces of solid walnut about 1 3/8 final thickness. It was attached using Z-clips to allow for movement.One issue I encountered was how to accurately align the three small 7/8 width vertical rails on each end with a strong joint. My solution was to build a quick jig to hold the pieces secure and centered so that I could attach my Dowelmax jig to drill a centered hole in the end of each piece. The jig was made from the same 7/8 stock sandwiched between a couple of pieces of plywood, so the fit was very snug. It worked very well.There were some color inconsistencies in the pieces of walnut, and my wife likes a darker finish, so I used Dark Walnut TransTint Dye for the first time (after multiple test pieces). That was followed by 2 coats of Osmo Polyx overall, with an additional 2 coats on the top.It was a fun project, and it turned out to be the last one for my trusty Jet Table Saw that has served me well for over 15 years. I'm retiring this year and will be spending more time in the shop, so I pulled the trigger on a SawStop PCS for the added quality and safety.Thanks for looking!

0 comment(s)