Coffee Table – Week 1

I have a lot of wood I’ve collected from two of my woodworking jobs. It’s just sitting in my garage. I bought some of it because it’s beautiful. Also because I didn’t want to see it cut up and used for things that wouldn’t show that beauty or be appreciated by young children. But mainly for the sheer beauty.

The rest is scraps that were too good to throw away or items we removed and replaced. There are also a set of drawers from an Army desk. I bought the desk from a guy at my pre-woodworking job. After several years of use in multiple homes, I decided it was time to get rid of it. Everything but the drawers with the dovetailed fronts. I simply had to keep those.

In my continuing effort to clean up our garage, I needed to decide what to do with all the wood. I came to the obvious conclusion that I wouldn’t be able to do anything with it by myself. My stroke saw to that. I had one project ready to go, though. By ready, I mean all the pieces were cut to size, except for two that I kept long to allow for fine tuning.

I asked my dad if he wanted to tackle the project with me. This is the only way I would get it done, unless I bought or borrowed the tools and gave Dorothy a crash course in basic woodworking. Dad said yes. The wood for this project came from a job at which we both worked, adding another layer to this.

Sitting unfinished in garages and a storage unit didn’t do one of the pieces any favors. This required a decision on my part. Do I go back to square one and undo the previous work to repair the problem? Then do all the work necessary to bring it back to its current level of doneness? Or do I come up with a fix I can turn into a design element?

Here’s Dad aligning two pieces to mark one of the previously mentioned long pieces before cutting it to size. I already had a bunch of plugs cut. There are also some small pieces he will take home to cut larger plugs from on the drill press.

There were plenty of holes that needed drilling and plugging. Here’s Dad drilling a larger hole to plug a deep gouge where a nail once was. I offered those wire cutters/strippers for dad to hold the plugs with, in case you’re wondering what they’re doing there.

Speaking of deep gouge, he did all the work, but I’m the one who got injured. This piece of oak, or one of his three brothers, fell onto my shin. The corners managed to maintain their sharpness after all these years. Dad took care of that later with the router.

~ Check back for Week 2, or leave a quick comment letting me know you’d like to see more of this project. You’ll receive an early-bird email with a link to the next installment. I don’t have an email service set up, but I should be able to manage it manually. Thank you for reading this far.