“Wow, that is a really stylish, modern-looking table design,” thought I, “I need to take a closer look at it.” To my surprise, it was not a modern design at all, but a traditional pine country table. Still, there was something about it. I started to wonder what it would take to convert the humble country effort to a modern-looking end table. After a quick chat with art director Jeff Jacobson, the answer came back: “not much.” I removed some little nubs on its feet, added a chamfer around the top, changed the species of wood, inserted a cherry accent strip and added a second wedge to each tenon — and the deal was done. The design had gone from down-home to uptown in just a few minutes. Now all I had to do was build it!

Starting with Species and Grain Selection

The original country table had been built from plainsawn pine — a reasonable and traditional choice. The modern version could have been made from a straight-grained, light-colored softwood like Douglas fir or longleaf pine, but I had been thinking of using quartersawn ash and dyeing it nearly black. As I was perusing my favorite lumber racks, looking for just the right ash lumber, I glanced over and saw a stash of some really large wenge boards. I did a sort of double take, because the wood had many of the visual characteristics that I had hoped to develop in dyed ash lumber — only here it was naturally occurring in the wood. So, I grabbed one of the long and wide wenge boards, measured it up and found I could get the whole table out of that one piece. (This entire table uses less than eight board feet of lumber.) The grain of the plank changed from riftsawn at one edge to cathedral figure on the other edge. After noodling it over for a bit, I decided that all the legs and feet would be made with riftsawn figure. The only place the cathedral grain would be seen would be on the stretcher and the table top.

Additionally, for the table top, the riftsawn grain would be oriented to the outside edge of the top with the cathedral figure divided by a cherry accent strip down the center. At first, I thought the cherry accent was just going to be a narrow strip to add a touch of color. I also planned to use two cherry wedges in the exposed through tenons on the legs as additional accents. But, after looking at Jeff’s CAD drawings of the table, it occurred to me that a 3/4″ x 3/4″ accent strip, turned 45° to the plane of the top, might bring some visual interest to the piece. I blame this kind of thinking on master woodworker Ian Kirby, who has influenced my design sensibilities over the years. A tweak of the CAD drawing convinced me I was right, and my coworkers agreed. With those choices made, it was time to start making sawdust.

One quick word about wenge. I had never used this species of wood before this project. I found it to be a very dense hardwood that cuts, glues and finishes well. One detail that I learned about wenge the hard way is that it splinters, very easily, on the edges. While I didn’t find this to be a problem in general, when I got to chopping the through mortises on the legs, it gave me fits. I needed to resize the openings and carefully insert the tenons to avoid breaking out the edges of the openings.

Making the Legs and Feet

The feet, cleats and legs (pieces 1 through 3) of the table form a shapely support for the table top. In addition, they are made with a couple of nice pieces of joinery which are attractive, fun and practical. I recommend beginning by making the legs. I cut them to width and length, marked out the mortise location and then stepped over to the table saw to raise the tenons on the ends of each leg. (Note: if you choose to use wenge as I did, I found it important to use a white pencil to do my markup; the wood was too dark for a regular pencil line to be seen.)

Because the tenon on the foot end of the leg was so long (4-1/4″), I couldn’t slice it with a traditional tenoning jig, so I nibbled away the waste. (I would have used a dado head in my saw, but I discovered that my new table saw will not accept my old dado cutters! Even woodworking editors are forced into workarounds …) With the tenons formed, I then chopped out the through mortises with my mortising machine. You can also cut the cleats to length and width and use the mortising machine to form those mortises as long as you have the mortising machine set up. If you don’t have a dedicated mortiser, use a Forstner bit and a chisel to chop them. With those tasks behind me, I moved on to the feet.

Start that process by cutting blanks for the feet that are 5″ wide and 10-7/8″ long. Next, cut the blanks to match the geometric pattern shown in the Drawings. You will machine these pieces while they are in this shape, forming open mortises that capture the long tenon on the end of the legs. This happens when all three pieces are glued together. I used a modified tenoning jig on the table saw to cut those open mortises. The jig’s fence leaned back at 45° so I could plow the opening in each foot. I tested the fit of the open mortise on the tenons as I went.

Then I stepped to the band saw and cut a couple of square notches on the foot pieces that would help me clamp them together more easily. Staying at the band saw, I cut the curves onto the edges of the legs, the last step before gluing the feet and legs together. Glue-up not only required clamping across the face of the legs, but I squeezed the open mortise walls together, using wax paper to keep the glue block and the bench from getting stuck to the glue-up. After the glue had cured, it was time to mark out the final leg shape on the subassemblies and cut them out on the band saw. I took the time to make accurately shaped templates from scrap 1/8″ plywood of the foot shape. I did this for all of the shaped parts. It takes just a few minutes, but it provides an added level of control and makes the rest of the process go much more smoothly.

While the cleats are still in a rectangular shape, take a few moments to bore the holes for the screws that will secure the table top to the cleats. These are two step holes as shown in the Drawings. Following that, I cut the profiles onto the lower edges of the cleats as shown in the Drawings.

Once the legs, feet and cleats were cut to shape, I took them over to my spindle sander and sanded the edges up to the marked out lines. With that done, I glued and clamped the cleats to the top of the legs and allowed the glue to cure. At that point, I set them aside and moved on to the last couple of components.

Building the Table Top and Stretcher

The table top is composed of three pieces of wood, and the stretcher is secured with cherry accent wedges (pieces 4 through 7). As I mentioned before, the stretcher was formed out of the cathedral grain section of the stock. I cut it to length and raised the tenons on its ends as I did with the legs. (See the Drawings for construction details.) The original country table used only one wedge per tenon, which did not make sense to me if it was intended to be something other than eye candy, so I placed two wedges per tenon, as shown in the Drawings.

The table top is simple in concept, but a little tricky in execution — only because it is a long, exacting joint. Go ahead and cut your two tops just slightly oversized, so you will have a bit of stock to trim if necessary. Making the V-groove cut on the table saw requires some preparation. You will need to secure a sacrificial face to the saw’s fence in such a manner that you can slide the tops without obstruction. You will also need a zero clearance insert in place that you sliced the blade opening through at 45°. This is because you need to form the V-groove, but leave a very small amount of wood in place on both sides of the V — less than 1/16″. That tiny bit of stock needs the zero-clearance insert to ride on. I also used a featherboard to help control the cut. I heartily suggest that you test your setup with some scrap lumber and even go all the way to glue-up as I did. It is an odd little joint, and practice never hurt anyone!

When I had the tops machined, I formed the insert strip by cutting an over-long piece of 1″ cherry and then machining it perfectly square in my planer.

Glue-up of the table top was not tricky at all, but I did check to make sure that the two tops were aligned with each other (flat across their width). Once the glue had cured, I used a hand plane to remove the triangle of cherry that protrudes over the flat surfaces of the table top. Then I cut it to final size. There are a few ways that you might create the rather large chamfer on the edge of the table top, but seeing as I had the 45° zero-clearance insert already made, I just did it on my table saw. It worked really well.

Wrapping Up the Last Details

All of the components were now complete, which left just a couple things to do … first off, you guessed it … sanding. One nice thing about this little table is that there are a lot of flat surfaces, which are easy to sand. One not so nice thing about this table is that there are a lot of curved edges to sand — which are a lot trickier to do well. I used a combination of spindle sanders and hand sanding on the edges. For the flat surfaces, I used my trusty 4 x 24 belt sander and a random-orbit sander. But I always do my final — in this case 320-grit — sanding by hand. I “broke,” or gently rounded over, the edges of the pieces during this step.

Once the sanding was done, it was time to glue the stretcher in place. This was done with extreme care to avoid breaking off an edge of the through mortise. I cut a temporary brace for the clamp-up that was exactly the distance from shoulder to the shoulder of the stretcher. This allowed me to clamp top and bottom on the leg subassemblies and keep the assembly exactly square. I glued the wedges and tapped them in place, wiped all the excess glue clean with water and a soft rag, then waited for the glue to cure. When the glue was dry, I trimmed the excess off the wedges and sanded the tenons and wedges flush to the legs. Now it was ready for the finish.

I finished the table top and the legset separately. My first application was amber shellac mixed three to one with denatured alcohol (right from the can). I wanted the amber color to highlight the lighter grained flecks in the wenge. I paid special attention to the end grain, making sure to seal it well. Then I used three coats of sprayed-on shellac from an aerosol can, de-nibbing between coats with #0000 steel wool. I applied a final coat of lacquer from a spray can, because I think the lacquer is a little tougher than the shellac.

Once the finish had cured, I attached the top to the leg-set with screws, and the table was completed. And I must say that I think it turned out well. The dark wenge accented by the cherry lumber looked very sophisticated: equally as attractive, but quite a bit different from, its country pine table origins.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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It’s one thing to own an expensive sports car or a luxurious boat, it’s another thing to keep it in top condition over time. Regular maintenance is essential to keep all of our “adult toys” operating at their best. A table saw – or any power tool – is no different. A well-tuned machine is a pleasure to use, while a poorly maintained one is at best inaccurate and a pain to use and at worst can cause a serious accident.

I like to go over my saw and perform each of the operations I’ve described in this column at least once every six months – more often if I’m using the saw all the time. It’s also prudent to go through most of these procedures on a brand-new saw right after you assemble it. Good maintenance will keep any kind of table saw – cabinet, contractor’s or portable – performing both accurately and safely over the decades to come.

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Adjustments for the Miter Slots and Gauge

To keep your miter gauge crosscutting accurately, there are several checks and adjustments you’ll need to make. The first step is to make sure that the bar on your miter gauge fits snugly, yet slides smoothly in the table slot. Some miter bars have special inserts that can be adjusted in or out with a small Allen wrench (Photo 1). If your gauge lacks this feature, you can replace the bar with an aftermarket steel bar that has adjustable spring plungers that keep the bar tight in the slot.

Next, check that the slots on your table saw are actually parallel to the blade. If they’re not, you’ll never get accurate miter cuts, no matter how perfectly the gauge itself is adjusted. Start by mounting a good, flat saw blade and raising it to full height. There are several ways to check the slot/blade parallelism. The easiest method is to use a dedicated tool, such as Rockler’s Superbar (available through Rockler’s website) or the Woodpeckers Saw Gauge (Photo 2). These specialized tools accurately fit into the saw’s miter slot and use a dial indicator to take readings on the front and rear surfaces of the blade body. If the dial shows a different reading front to back, then the slot is likely not parallel to the blade.

A lower-tech way of checking parallel is to clamp a scrap wood stick to a miter gauge set for a square cut. Extend the stick so that it just touches the front edge of the saw blade. Slide the gauge until the stick is touching the back edge and see if there’s a gap (if there’s resistance sliding the gauge, reset the stick to touch at the back of the blade and slide it forward). Measure any resulting gap between the blade and stick with an automotive feeler gauge (Photo 3). To make sure that any gaps aren’t due to an un-flat saw blade, rotate the blade 90-180 degrees and repeat the process (also be sure and do this if you’re using a special saw gauge).

If the parallelism test reveals a discrepancy of more than, say, .003-.005 in., then you should realign the blade and miter slot. On contractors’ and some portable table saws, resetting parallel is done by shifting the saw’s rear trunnion side to side on the underside of the saw table.

On most cabinet style saws, this job is accomplished by rotating the entire table top relative to the saw’s base. In either case, loosen the necessary bolts and shift the position of the trunnions or top slightly, then retighten the bolts and recheck the parallelism of the slots and blade.

Finally, check the angle stops on the miter gauge head by taking cuts and 90 and 45 degrees, and comparing the cut ends as you did when adjusting the blade tilt angle stops, described above. Readjust the screws on these stops as necessary so that they yield accurate cuts (Photo 4).

Adjust the Rip Fence

One of the most important things to do to maintain the cutting safety and accuracy of your table saw is to make sure the rip fence is basically parallel to the blade. A fence set with its back end closer to the blade than the front end tends to pinch the workpiece against the saw blade, which can result in a dangerous kickback.

An easy way to check for parallel is to press two 3/4-in. thick blocks at either end of the saw’s right-hand miter slot, then lock the fence down just shy of the blocks and measure the gaps. Ideally, the gap at the back edge of the blade should be just a skosh (.001 – .002 in.) greater than the front gap (this provides just a slight bit of clearance at the back of the cut). Use a feeler gauge to check the gap. If the setting isn’t right, loosen the screws or bolts that secure your rip fences bar (Photo 5) to the fitting on the front rail and reposition the bar as necessary. Retighten the bolts and recheck fence alignment.

If your table saw has a cursor and scale on the front rail, position the fence bar so that its face lightly touches the saw blade teeth and lock it down. Reset the fence’s cursor to read zero on the rail’s scale (Photo 6).

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This interactive DVD-ROM will show you the fundamental maintenance procedures for seven major woodworking power tools: the table saw, jointer, drill press, dust collector, air compressor, pneumatic nailer and even a moisture meter. You’ll get step-by-step instructions, over 150 photos and over 60 minutes of video from experts Sandor Nagyszalanczy and Chris Marshall, Senior Editor of Woodworker’s Journal magazine.

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