It's a long weekend in a fortnight, and Lynndy and I plan to visit. (We have family in Sydney, and old friends from when we lived there 30 years ago). My idea was to build a coffee table and take it on the plane as a sort of surprise (he knows I am building it, but will not expect it this way). Fun, eh?
So, I needed a knock-down design. And a design along the lines of Danish Modern, which would fit in nicely in his home.
I was taken with a piece by a Japanese maker, Ishitani. He has some great builds on YouTube which are worth looking up. Inspiration came from this design of his ...
The coffee table required two weekends to complete. That's a nice change from the pieces I've been building. The wood is Hard Maple. I've grown to like this stuff.
I made a few changes to the design. Firstly, it is a little slimmer and larger (I think): 38" long x 28" wide and 16 1/2" high. Plus a few modifications.
Here's the table ...
To take this shot I had to crawl on the carpet. Much of the underside is unlikely to be seen, even at a distance.
Here's what it looks like underneath. Where Ishitani left his rails straight, I've added a curve (you know me and curves) ..
The legs come off for packing flat ...
Join at the centre ...
Ishitani connected breadboard ends with a dovetailed spline. I have used a true drawbored breadboard construction. The weather in Sydney changes from dry cold in Winter to high humidity in summer. I did not think that a dovetail would cope with this.
Only the centre mortice/tenon inn the breadboard is glued and unmovable. The ends are free to move back-and-forth. They are still pulled tight against the table top with drawbore pins, however the holes are slotted to allow for lateral movement. Look closely and you will see this (the round rasp was used to create the slot) ...
