We all recycle ideas and there are some that get used a lot more than others and it would be great to see of your favorite go-to designs.

My favorite is what I call the 10 hr. table, because it takes 10 hours to go from a pile of 6/4 oak to the finished product ready to install.

It’s a basic mission style table, but it’s clean lines lend itself to modern, country, craftsmen, folk victorian and some other situations where a nice proportioned table is needed, and tables of this size are always popular for various parts of the house.

Shown is a coffee table, but with longer legs it’s been a great double vanity with the bowls on top and faucet out the wall.  Most tables of this size are right around 100 lbs. so even if they aren’t bolted down they feel and work great.

If painted it’s at home in a country kitchen as a work table or in a laundry room as a clothes sorting table.  If ebanized (vinegar/steel wool followed by black dye) it’s a great flatscreen TV base or fits well with other black furniture.  In a dark stain it’s right at home in an old house.

The bottom shelf simply rests 1″ into the legs with 1/8″ extra room in the knotch for expansion.  Quick to glue up and quick to install.  As a built in table the shelf goes clear to the rear wall.  If the lower table is no longer than 4′ I’ll pick up two 1-1/8″ stair treads.

The curved stretchers for a basic 26″x 50″ such as in the pic are 3″ in the center and 4-1/2″ on the ends with a 3/8″ reveal to the legs.  The tenon is 3″ x 3/4″x 1-1/2″ starting 3/4″ from both the top and bottom of the stretcher, with a 1/8″ shoulder on the outside and whatever it comes to on the inside to make a 3/4″ thick tenon. 

Mortices are cut the fastest with a plunge router and two edge guides, one on each side.  The tenons are cut on the table saw without anything fancy as a guide, but with about 1/16″ of slop so it’s easy to cut and assemble.  System 3 epoxy with silica thickener fills the slop in the joint and makes an easy to assemble but tough joint.

Another advantage of the loose tenons is that during assembly the legs and stretchers can easily settle into a flat orientation as they are epoxied and clamped on the upside down table top covered with plastic.

Legs are roughly 3″, but that varies depending on proportions.  The bottoms are beveled about 1/2″.

I like a 1-3/8″ thick top and 1″ bottom shelf, but that can be changed to match various styles.  The overhang on the table below is about 1-1/2″, but changes depending on application.  Some builtins look better with the legs tight to the wall while others, such as a vanity with wainscot wrapped around in a bumpout looks best with the top tight to the walls, but the legs out away from the wainscot and trim.

Since this is really not to the grade (or price) of fine furniture there are many shortcuts that speed assembly on site. 

The top and shelves are glued up after all pieces being trimmed to exact length and planed to clean up obvious defects.  It’s much quicker to get an acceptable edge by simply sanding the ends with a ro sander rather than to cut the width with shooting board or two cuts on a slider. 

The boards for the top are carefully ripped with nothing fancier than a 24 tooth Freud blade with stabilizer until the angle is right (top is reasonably flat when clamped) and the gap is small enough to not be noticable.  The arrangement of the boards is adjusted so the table top will be easy to glue up since we haven’t used a jointer to flatten the faces.  The faces of the boards have to align during glue up or it will waste an hour of time to get it flat. This is not quite furniture, but it should look good with everything but a straight edge.

The glue is completely removed from the surface at glue up with clean wet rags and a nylon or brass brush to get the pores clean.  This saves a great deal of time during sanding since very little wood needs to be removed.

The legs are rough ripped 1/4″ oversize and all glued at once with careful attention paid to keeping the edges together so it’s an easy job to run them through a planer to clean up the legs.  The final size of the legs is often determined by how much wood is removed to clean up planer marks from the doubled 6/4 and the table I’m working on today is 2-7/8″ while others are 2-3/4 or even right at 3″.

Most parts are cut with a slider and good length stop.  I’ve been thrilled with a kreg heavy duty stop and track on a 16″ wide x4′ table mounted with Dewalt quick release levers made for the saw.  I also have 32″ and 16″ tables of the same design, but the longer 4’er gets used the most.  There is maybe 9″ in front of the track, which leaves plenty of room behind it to stack material, tape measure, water bottle, etc.

Oh yeah, I hate to admit it, but it’s faster to prestain everything before assembly since corners keep extra stain and dye that dries much slower.  The dye dries quickly and the parts are carefully clamped with cusion pads and any excaping epoxy is carefully cleaned up simply by thorough wiping with paper towels. The epoxy hardens in a few hours and the works is turned over, any touch ups are made to the stain and it’s either shot with lacquer for seldom used items or clients that like a thin finish and don’t mind additional upkeep over the years or polyurethane for surfaces that takes a beating.

10 hrs….done.

Good builtins to all!