Coffee table for Tze

Long, long time ago I promised to make a coffee table for my friend Tze. The story behind it is quite long but in short - I took her huge, solid teak dining table which warped in Swedish dry climate and became unusable. The aim was to make something new from it: smaller table.

It took me many months before I could finally get to this job. Now it was time!

Original table was 2x1 meter big. New table shall be 30% of that.

Having all dimensions transferred onto wood I cut out the new table top, with some margins for possible errors.

The old table was shellac-painted (I think) so no natural wood colour was exposed. I could not keep this paint - the table needed truing during which the paint would be planed away anyhow. We need to go to bare wood. So I started - first the bottom side.

Started with block plane and put chamfer on all edges, to avoid tear-out on the edge. Then came jointer plane - my beloved Mother Of All Planes, huge & heavy L-N No.8. Quite a workout it was, I had to divide this session into two days since it was very hot weather and I was sweating while working hard with the plane.

Eventually the job on bottom side was done - with smooth plane and scrapers which followed jointer plane.

Teak is a dense hardwood which dulls tools very quickly. Frequent plane sharpening was necessary.

I switched now to the top side. This job took more time - as a “service side” it needs to be as plain and smooth as possible.

Sanding came next. Started with 80-grid, to remove plane and scraper marks, moved all the way up to 320-grid.

Grain beauty is starting to show.

By the end of the day the table top was finished.

Legs: I wanted to re-use the old legs, just to cut them shorter, remove paint and adjust old anchoring blocks into my new table.
Cutting was first. I aligned them all four for a cut, with a naive hope that by doing that they all will have the same length. At least close to that, I leave final adjustments until the table is assembled.
Paint removal with scrapers.

Sanding sequence followed.

Anchoring blocks were originally made to mach specific leg. They are marked with numbers, same as legs. When I disassembled the original table these blocks were screwed and glued to the bottom. It was mostly screws which held them in place, after removal I could remove blocks just by bumping them with a mallet. Probably because of that the builder used additional steel profiles screwed to the side of legs and to tabletop. They looked odd and like added afterwards. I didn’t want to use them in my project but I realised that these same blocks with screws will not sit solid enough.
I needed a good glue which will take the load, maintain stiffness of the assembly yet be elastic to cope with table movements. And will adhere to oily, hard teak. G-Flex epoxy was formed to such requirements.

First I needed to modify the anchoring blocks a bit: clean them from old wood and make attachment surfaces a tad concave. This should enable glue to maintain some thickness, to not starve the joint while legs alignment to the table top will be kept as original - no gap.

Then I slide respective block into its leg and using mounting, double-sided tape found the exact position of each block when the leg is flush with two side faces of the table. The method worked almost fine, in one case I had to use trial&error instead as the block sat too tight in its leg to rely on the tape for unplugging it.

Exact drilling positions marked with a long screw, taking care not to move the block by any bit as it would result in misalignment.

Once screwed I could temporally attach legs to see how the table will look when assembled.

Of course - one leg was longer… I adjusted that now, it will need trimming after final assembly.

Gluing: masking, sanding, acetone cleaning and epoxy.

Squeeze-out on all sides so wetting should be even and good.

Cleaned the goo and left the assembly overnight for curing.

Oiling: I wanted to have this table satin, not glossy finished.
Started with legs - cleaned thoroughly in alcohol first.

Owatrol was applied and brushed several times to saturate wood.

Left for a while to see if parts of wood need some more oil - they would turn matt if so.

Once saturated the excess oil is wiped with clean, cotton cloth. Important that the cloth does not leave bits of cotton or hair, especially if one waits too long with wiping and Owatrol starts to cure.
After 2 hours the oil was cured, legs ready for assembly.

While epoxy was still gelling I oiled the bottom of the table. For that I wanted to try another teak-oil which I got a bottle long time ago. It prove to work fine: satin look, good spreading and did not discolour wood.

It just has one drawback: it does not smell nice after application. It’s not an ugly odour but smells a bit industrially. Fine with furniture which will stand outside - odour will probably disappear after a while. My table is meant to be indoors so I needed to use oil which also smells good.
Besides - Owatrol is easier to buy for Tze than this special mixture acquired probably somewhere in Dalarna. To keep wood in good shape it will need a sweep of oil every other year or so.

The last and most pleasant stage was to oil the table top. First cleaning with alcohol. Some more sanding with 320 if hand felt any wood “hair” sticking out after alcohol bath.