After months of sitting in the living room built, but
not finished, I finally did the final sanding and
finishing of this table.

It’s a smaller companion to the coffee table I made
about 4 months ago. The fun parts took about a day –
making the design (the funnest part), buying the wood,
then building the structure. I learned from the
coffee table that a table like this needs two kinds of
braces between each leg — the “shelf”, and a
crossmember that sits just below the table top. This
helps to hold the legs square, and makes assembly much
easier. With the coffee table, I relied on pegs
joining the top to the legs to maintain squareness.
This doesn’t work well.

The table is made from maple (legs and edging) and
3/4″ birch plywood (table top and shelf “middle”) with
some Honduran mahogany inlaid between the maple and
birch on top. I laminated some 4/4 maple to make the
legs, and tapered them on the table saw using my Incra
Miter 1000 as a jig.

The top and shelf are built with birch ply joined via
biscuits and glue with the mitered maple surround.
The shelf and crossmembers are joined to the legs with
glued mortise and tenon joints.

I’m really happy with how this one came out — I got a
small belt sander, and was able to get the top very
flat and smooth. A belt sander is the right tool for
this job — I had used a random orbital sander in the
past, and would get an uneven surface. The belt
sander produces a very flat surface.

Hours of sanding away glue on previous projects taught
me to be a little less crazy with using too much glue
– so there wasn’t much corner-sanding to do on this
project.

I did the final sanding with some 3M 400 grit “3x”
sandpaper. This is AWESOME sandpaper. I never
thought I would say that, but 3M’s sandpaper guys have
really come up with some innovative stuff. The “grit”
doesn’t get dull after 2 minutes like most paper,
also it doesn’t start falling off. The paaper backing
holds its integretiy for a LONG time. I used a single
piece of paper on my sanding block to do this whole
table, and used it to sand most of the bed frame I’m
working on now too. I replaced the paper after I
nicked it on a sharp corner on the table, and that led
to the paper tearing a little bit. But after about an
hour and a half of continuous use, the grit was still
biting, and was not “caked” with sawdust. It’s really
great technology and worth the extra money.
Anyhow….

I took a new direction finishing this piece. On other
things I’ve built, I’ve gone with several coats of
stain (waiting a couple hours between coats) then a
few coats of satin polyurethane (waiting several hours
and giving a light sanding between coats). This takes
FOREVER and the poly never comes out very smooth –
there are inevitably brush marks or drips in the
finish.

After seeing some woodwork a neighbor of my parents
had done, I decided to give Dutch Oil a shot. This is
basically linseed oil cut with mineral spirits,
optionally with a dye or pigment added. I chose
Deft’s “Black Walnut” for this table. It goes on
super easy — just wipe on (i used steel wool), wait
30 minutes, then wipe off. Wear Nitrile gloves (the
blue-green ones) so you don’t get that nasty toxic
stuff on your hands.

Repeat once, then wait a day for the oil to soak in to
the wood and dry. I gave it a good rubdown today,
then rubbed on a couple of coats of paste wax (I used
Johnson’s — but then picked up a tin of “Orange Power
Premium Carnuba Paste Wax” that I’ll be using in the
future. Johnson’s smells bad for a couple of days.
The orange stuff smells pretty nice, and seems to dry
harder and has a nicer sheen.)

All in all, very easy — and the finish is absolutely
GORGEOUS. The table surface is buttery smooth, and
has a very nice consistent satin sheen. The wood
grain has an amazing depth — the wood feels much
“closer” than if it was behind polyurethane. I’m very
happy with it.

I’m not sure if it would stand up to the abuse we give
the coffee table, which for the most part is our
dinner table, but this is how I’m going to finish
things from here on out.

So one table down, one bed to go. The bed frame is
essentially built and sanded. I ran some tests today
so we could decide what the best color for it would
be. I’ll post a followup article with photos later
this week when (hopefully) it’s finished.