New Yankee Workshop - S09E08 - Carousel Table

[Music] hello I'm new I'm Abram welcome once again to the new Yankee Workshop where we continue our look back at interesting and challenging projects we've recorded earlier in past programs several years ago we found ourselves in the low country of Georgia looking for antique furniture with a distinctive personality we found a very unusual table we've never seen one before or since here's what we call the carousel table and this is the one I built after seeing the antique in Georgia and as you can see it has a very useful feature this small revolving disc right in the middle of the table and it's great for holding all those small items like the salt and pepper shaker the butter the sugar pole or anything you need close at hand you've probably seen something similar to this often called lazy susans in Chinese restaurants but unlike those that sit on top of the table and turn on a revolving mechanism of some sort this one is much more simple in a rustic sort of way the small wooden disc is connected to a turned post and that goes through a hole in the top of the table and drops down into a cup it's a simple design that adds a useful element to an otherwise simple round table and I could testify that we use this table every time we can here at the workshop when we serve our guests lunch we love it now I'll show you how we found the carousel table well today we are in the low country of Georgia Low Country because we're only inches above the water here which is not far from the intercostal waterway and you see all the marshes beyond now the owner of this house a friend of mine has graciously allowed me to come in and show you a table that you thought you might be interested in I happen to love it they call it a lazy susan table for obvious reasons now it was built in 1830 in Charleston South Carolina and it was purchased locally right here in Savannah now the spindle for the lazy susan just turns inside this cup which sits on top of these stretchers which are half-lapped in the middle and then tied into these turned legs now if you happen to not want to use the lazy susan you can easily remove it and you would cover the hole with a plate or or maybe a pot of flowers now this is a perfect project for some of our antique pine and just imagine what it would be like with your family sitting around this table well what do you think here is our version of that antique carousel table I built mine out of recycled time we've actually already applied one coat of a polyurethane that has a stain in it and it really brings out the character of that old pine the diameter of the main table is exactly the same as the antique original but I made the carousel a bit smaller our design department thinks we should go back to the original size which is a little bit bigger but hey you can make it any size you want if you'd like to build the carousel table a measured drawing is available with the materials list and you'll hear more about that before the program ends the antique Timbers that I use to build the prototype started out looking like this Boyd salvaged from an old renovation the objective is to make them smooth and uniform in thickness we have a new machine to do that in the past you've seen me recondition these Timbers with a surface planar but grit on the boards and maybe a stray nail does a job on the planer knives and I'm limited to width at the present time I only have a 13 inch surface planer here's an alternative a drum sander that'll take 24 inch boards the conveyor belt here runs the material through the machine and the whole bed can go up and down giving me a range of 0 to 12 inches there's also an electronic readout which gives me very accurate settings for the thickness and underneath this hood is where all the work takes place there are two drums and you can outfit them with all different types of sandpaper even put the same sandpaper on both of the drums I'm starting here with 36 grit finishing off with 50 grit on a drum that's just slightly lower to start to smooth the board because this is a sanding operation you make a lot of fine dust so you need really good dust collection now a surface planer you can take off 1/16 even sometimes an eighth of an inch at a pass with this you should really only take about a 64th but with patience does a good job now before we use any power tools let's take a moment to talk about shop safety be sure to read understand and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk for personal injury and remember this there is no more important safety rule than to wear these safety glasses [Music] [Applause] well that's a pretty good job and no knives to change now I'll just flip it over and do the other side well after a couple hours at the drum sander I have boys that are uniform in thickness and down to a grit of 150 there's enough here to build the entire table these are the boards for the top now one of the things I like to do when I make large glue ups is alternate the grain patterns have one with the growth rings up one down one up one down that gives some stability to the top however I found that when using recycled timber you can't always do that because you only end up with one good side on the board so you have to do the best you can before I can glue these together I have to clean up the joints they should fit snugly without any pressure best tool to do that is the joint [Music] I'm gonna reinforce these joints with some biscuits and glue but I want to make sure that the biscuits won't show through the edge when I cut the table top so I've taken a scrap piece of wood and measured from a nail to the end the radius of the table plus a quarter of an inch extra and now I'm just going to scribe a line and as long as I lay out the biscuits inside the line they won't show with a little glue in the slot and some on the edge of the board I can install the biscuits we found over the years that this type of joint is very strong [Music] in the last few minutes I've been making these square plagues from some more recycled pine and I'll turn these for the legs well I am one lucky woodworker I have this lathe duplicator attachment that goes on my lathe and allows me to make multiple copies of a turning quite easily let me show you how it works I start out by making a hard board template which has the profile that I want to turn cut into it I'm the machine there is a pin which follows the profile and at the same time up on the other end there is a little cutter which actually cuts the wood it's a lot like a key making machine it's very accurate it's very fast the legs will be connected to one another with rails and the connection between the rail and the leg is a mortise and tenon joint I like to cut the mortises in the legs first so I'm using my dedicated mortising machine it's set up with a 3/8 inch mortise chisel there's a drill bit in the center that removes the bulk of the material then the chisel squeeze it up and I just mortise from layout line to layout line there's one more mortise that I need in each leg and that's to receive these stretchers which go diagonally across the table and they're very important because they add strength to these thin pine legs and they also create a resting point for the carousel axle let me show you how I'm going to locate that mortise at the top of the leg we have the mortise for each rail directly below the corner is where I want to locate the mortise for the stretcher that means I have to hold the leg in a diagonal position and that would be real hard to do freehand so I brought out an old jig that I had in the shop that has a V groove cut in it at a 45 degree angle and I'm using a couple shims to make up the difference between the diameter and the square portion of the leg so that it's nice and flat and when I sit it in there like that I know the mortise is going to be in the perfect location with the leg still in the jig to hold it in the right position I've now switched to my radial arm saw which is set up with a stacked dado head cutter and I've just created a bit of a flat spot right at the mortise area because the stretcher when it fits in will have square shoulders this way I'm assured of a nice tight joint well now I'm ready to make the Tenon's on the ends of the rails and this piece is a little bit unusual the rails are meant to be perfectly flush with the face of the leg that's the way the antique original was and that's an unusual detail because generally the rail is held back a little bit giving a reveal the problem with putting the rail flush is that very little material will be left here if I Center the tenon so to give it more structural strength I've moved the tenon to the inside of each rail that makes this area thicker and I really don't need a shoulder on this side because I don't see this joint it's on the underside of the table to make the tenon I've set up a stop block at the saw with the right distance for the shoulder and raise the height up for half the thickness of the rail now I can run the pieces through face side down with the fence in the same position but the blade raised to a half-inch now I can nibble away the top and bottom of each tenon to complete each tenon I have to make a cheek cut on one side so I'm using my tenoning jig which allows me to hold the board securely in place while I run it through the saw the height of the saw is equal to the length of the tenon just run the pieces through let's take another look at the prototype I'm going to tip it up so that you can see underneath the top you'll notice that I've attached the top to the base with some wooden clips and those clips sit in a groove of each rail I'm gonna make that groove next at the router table [Music] now I don't want the groove to go through the tenon because it'll weaken it want it to go from shoulder to shoulder I've set up a 3/8 inch straight cutting bit and I've transferred lines back to the fence for the leading and trailing edge I just dropped the piece in over the bit with the shoulder line on the pencil mark push it through and lift it off when it reaches the other shoulder [Applause] [Music] now I'm ready to start forming the Tenon's on the ends of the stretchers and that tenon will be centered because it goes into the round portion of the leg the depth of the shoulder cut is 3/16 of an inch the length of the tenon is the same as it was for the rails [Music] well just as before I complete each tenon by making the cheek cuts using my tenoning jig where the stretchers intersect they're going to be joined by a half lap joint and while the dado head cutter is still in the radial arm I've clamped both pieces together and I'll just make the notch that does it one of the advantages of a mortise and tenon joint is that I have a lot of good glue surface areas to hold the joint together with a good quality glue applied to both the mortise and the tenon this joint is going to stay together for many years now let's see if we can get our stretcher into the first two mortises now sometimes instead of trying to drive at home with the mallet I'll put the clamp on it and see if I could just squeeze it together that's good well I think that's just about all that we'll do today tomorrow we'll finish the top and build the lazy susan this is a nice project oh good morning I get started today gluing up a blank for the lazy susan same procedures as earlier I sanded the board smooth and uniform in thickness jointed the edges install biscuit slots and glue now I just have to clamp it up and let it cook well now I'm ready to size the main tabletop cut the circle the first step is to make a quarter inch hole in the center of the blank for this doll pin which is going to act as a pivot point now I'm going to take the same doll pin and install it on this extension that I've put on my bandsaw the pin will be 27 inches from the blade the radius of the table now I can bring the blank over drop it on the pin and spin it around making the cut good there it goes right on the pin that's all there is to it now we'll just sand it smooth to ease the edges on my top I'm using a portion of a 3/8 inch radius round over bit well now I'm ready to secure the top to the base you would think that the best way to do that would be to keep the grain of the boards of the top parallel to a couple of the rails that actually presents a problem when the grain is parallel the top can flex it makes it weak but if I spin the base 45 degrees just like it was on the antique original the grain comes at a 45 degree angle to the rails adding much more strength to secure the base to the top I'm going to use some hard wood clips that I made and they simply slip into the groove that I made earlier I'll make those at the table saw here's a piece of scrap hardwood a little bit longer than what I need I've set the rip fence and the height of the saw blade so that I can nibble away a rabbet on each end and then trim to size at the miter box there's two operations for the screw hole first a 3/16 through hole then a countersink for the screw head now just secure them with the screws never any glue I want the top to be able to move this would be a good time to cut the hole in the top for the axle of the turntable first I'm going to drill a pilot hole with a half-inch spade bit and then I'll finish it up with my jigsaw well now I'm ready to start making the axle for the turntable so I've mounted a piece of pine here in my lathe I'm going to turn the top four inches to two and fifteen sixteenths inches diameter which is 1/16 of an inch smaller than the hole I cut in the tabletop then I'm gonna taper it down to an inch at the very bottom but the only tool I need is my gouge I brought back the prototype lazy susans so you can see how it's constructed off of the axle there are four spokes that actually support the top they are connected with a mortise and tenon joint I want to make the mortises in the post first to do that I've cut a square block of wood that's exactly the same size as the top turning of the post using a drill bit to drop it down into the centre left by the drive center of the lathe and I'll just screw them in place this will register the mortises 90 degrees to one another now I can show you how effective this jig is I rest one side on the base and the other against the fence and make the first mortise now I simply spin it 90 degrees set it in place and make the next mortise spin it one more time and the last one just as before I'm using the radial arm in the stacked dado head cutter to create a flat spot for the shoulders of the tenon [Music] here are some pieces which are going to become the spokes for our turntable I've just formed one of the Tenon's I made shoulder cuts first then i nibbled away the top of the tenon and I've just completed each tenant by making the cheek cut I'm using the same techniques I used earlier to make the other tenants I want to taper each of the spokes from the full width to about three-quarters of an inch so I'm using my tapering jig I set the piece against the stop and guide it through using a push stick here I'm using my sanding Center to grind down a curve at the end of each spoke but once again I'm using my router with the three-eighths inch roundover a bit to ease the edges of each spoke there's no mechanical fasteners at all to put these spokes into the axle just a little bit of glue and a nice tight fit okay now the next thing to do is to build a socket into which this axle will fit we'll do that at the lathe to make the socket I started out with a piece of one and a quarter inch pine that I rough cut the diameter over at the bandsaw then I attached it to this plate with three screws and spun it on to the lathe shaft the first job is to true up the edge making it a perfect circle I'm just using a small gouge okay that's pretty good next thing I want to do is just round over this top corner okay that's pretty good now I'm going to actually turn the tool rest so that it's parallel with the face move it up a little bit closer and start to scoop out the inside okay that's pretty good now I'm going to start a second scoop out which will fit the tip of the accident a little bit of glue on top of the stretchers I'll clamp this in place being sure that it's perfectly centered and then attach it with a couple screws these halls in the spokes will be used for screws to secure the top of the lazy susan okay now we have a lazy susan top I'll stand it smooth and ease the edges just like I did with the table top once again no glue just screws well let's check the fit pretty good spins just like a top a little more final sanding and this will be ready for the finish for years we've tried all different kinds of finishes on our antique pine we've made our own stain we've used wax that has stain in it we've applied stain and then urethane too over it but nothing has given us the look that's quite as good as this this is a polyurethane that already has the stain in it so I get a beautiful color with just the first coat and it's not blocking up it's nice and even here I can show you a couple things with our carousel table here's the turntable it has one color coat and one clear coat I didn't continue building up the finish with color coats because I was afraid that it would get too dark once the first clear coat had dried I sanded the top between coats is necessary to do a light sanding with 220 grit paper then vac the surface clean and go over it with a tack cloth now I'm ready to apply the next clear coat the reason I'm putting on multiple coats is because I want people to use this table and not be afraid that they're going to damage it and with multiple coats of a tough finish like this it's not going to happen [Music] well I think we found just the right finish for our antique pine brings out the beauty of the wood and it protects it this was a fun project to build and so is this one except it's a bit more challenging a seven draw mahogany chest on chest and I'll show you how to build one next time right here on the new Yankee Workshop [Music] to order a home video or a measured drawing of the project you've just seen please call eight six six five four five nine seven zero eight additional information is available at new Yankee comm [Music]

Channel: Alex Alex

Views: 950

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: IoH0Iy8ifIw

Length: 25min 34sec (1534 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 28 2020