Triangle Table

This accent table was something of a first for me, or at least the legs. I have a lathe in my shop, but hadn’t put much time and effort to learn how to use it. Call it a character flaw, if you will, in which I have a “few” tools in my shop that I have acquired, but not mastered. Avarice, I believe is what the character flaw can be called. Or at least tool avarice! Anyway, the legs on this table were the first real project parts I made using that lathe. They have a taper to them, so not only did I have to learn how to turn the legs, but then cutting the mortise into which the skirt pieces were inserted required that I build a special jig for that particular step.

It’s not pretty, but this is the jig that I built to add the mortise for the skirt pieces.

The table top is ash, a lovely light colored wood that has strong grain akin to hickory or oak. Ash is fun to work as I doesn’t splinter like oak does. The legs are of white oak. This wood came to me from the Pacific Northwest were a friend had harvested it in the late ’70’s and it had been air drying for decades! Nice and stable and full of character in the form of knots and voids that were not only interesting, but something of a challenge to work with while maintaining the strength of the pieces. Finally, there is a lovely little cutout in the table top that mimic the round shape of the legs as they rise slightly above the surface of the top. It is a light little table that graces a hallway in our home, adding a lovely accent to fill that space.

Speaking of creating the jig for this piece, read more about jigs in this blog post here.