[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Hi, I'm Phil here in the Woodsmith Shop, and when I was growing up, there were relatives that we visited where we had to be really careful about the furniture.

And there were relatives that we visited where we didn't have to mind the furniture so much.

On today's episode of "The Woodsmith Shop," we're building a coffee table in the latter style.

It's in that comfortable country, cozy style.

And you can see here it's got a great look.

Our version has a cherry top and a distressed painted base.

We're going to change things up with our version, but we're going to keep that same relaxed style.

The coffee table also features what I call, in front, a scrape-off drawer.

Company's coming, you've got to deal with the clutter.

Just scrape it into the drawer, close it up, and everything's clean.

If you're ready to build a version of this coffee table along with us, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

Let's build.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... ...Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So just like the rest of this coffee table, the top is going to be solid hardwood.

Now, you could buy service hardwood at a big box store, and it's going to be pretty much ready to use when you get home in your shop.

But a more economical way to do it is to buy something like this.

And this is rough-sawn lumber.

So, this has probably just come off a sawmill.

It's been dried.

So, it's going to be pretty rough, and it's not going to be truly flat.

And if you just run it through your planer, you could still end up with a twisted board at the end of the day.

And once you start gluing up a couple of these to make the top, that twist can cause some issues.

So, we're going to start by flattening it here at the jointer.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to feed it through the cutter, using push pads, keeping good downward pressure on the beds.

This is going to give us a flat reference surface.

Then I'm gonna use that flat reference surface up against the face -- the fence of the jointer, and that's going to straighten one edge.

And then, once I have a straightened edge and a flattened face, I can head over to the band saw and resaw this down to rough thickness.

Then, I can go and send it a couple passes through the planer to bring it down to its final dimensions before we head to the bench to glue it up.

So, after I was done with the planer, I went ahead and marked a cabinetmaker's triangle, after I laid these boards out and kind of figured what order I want them and which way I want the grain going.

And now I can go ahead and mark these for some biscuits.

I'm going to use biscuits during the glue-up here, not for strength, but to help align everything and keep the faces aligned as we apply glue and clamps.

Now, the biscuits are just going to be little pressed-wood football shapes, and I'll cut the slot in the edge with this biscuit joiner.

And I've set the biscuit joiner to the right size of biscuit.

So, once I get all my marks made here, it's this simple -- turn it on, plunge it in, and do that on each hash mark.

Then I can apply glue, slip the biscuits in place, and add clamps.

Now, the end of this coffee table top is going to have kind of a decorative, but also a functional feature, and that's breadboard ends.

Not only do the breadboard ends hide the end grain of that wide hardwood top, but they also help keep that hardwood surface flat and avoid cupping.

And they do that by using a mortise and tenon.

The top itself will have a wide tenon on it, and these breadboard ends will have a mortise on the inside.

And that's going to allow us to slip those over and will allow a little room for expansion and contraction during seasonal wood movement.

So, to create this, what I've done is I've set up a spiral bit in the router table, and I've marked my fence with start and stop lines because we don't want this mortise to show through the ends.

So, what I'm going to do is use my face up against the fence, and I'm going to align the end with my start line.

Then, after I've started up the router, I'll go ahead and plunge the workpiece over top of the spinning bit, and I'll rout until the opposite end hits the stop line.

Then I'll go ahead and lift that up and repeat the process for the other breadboard end.

I'm going to go ahead and cut this mortise in a couple of steps, raising the bit each time.

I go for a total depth of about an inch and 1/4, inch and a 1/2.

The depth doesn't really matter, as long as it's deeper than our tenon is.

Okay, so, to create the tenon on the ends of this top, I'm going to do that here at the table saw with a dado blade.

Now, I've already set up the dado blade, and I've positioned the rip fence to set the length of my tenon.

In this case, it's going to be an inch long.

So, I'm going to go ahead and make a pass, then scooch the top over, make one more pass before rotating this end for end and doing the same thing on the other end.

I'm going to double check the fit of the tenon to make sure it slips into that mortise.

And when it does, we'll head over to the bench to go ahead and nip off the corners.

Okay, now that our tenons are cut, I need to go ahead and nip the corners.

And I just finished this one with a handsaw.

And the reason we're doing this is to make room for those shoulders that we didn't have the mortise on.

So, now this guy will slip right over that and drop all the way down.

The only thing I have left to do is a little bit of chisel work to flush that edge up.

Okay, there we go.

Now that breadboard end should drop right on.

There we go.

And that sits all the way down.

So, now I can go ahead and grab a drill and install this.

And the way I'm going to install this is by drilling a dowel hole right in the center.

And I'm also going to drill one on each end.

Then I'm going to remove the breadboard end and locate those two holes I drilled on each end.

I'm going to oblong those a little bit with a file.

That's going to allow that seasonal expansion and contraction.

And then the only thing I'm going to apply glue to is the very center of that tenon.

Alright, there we go.

So, now with those dowels glued in, the only thing left to do is to wait for that glue to set up.

We can go ahead and chisel and sand those dowels flush, and then this is ready for a finish and to get installed on top of the coffee table.

Well, the first step in making the base of our coffee table is to start with the legs.

I've got four blanks here, all cut to proper size, thickness, and length.

The first step I want to do here at the table saw is to cut a long taper.

And that's going to give our table legs a little more of a graceful look.

To do that, I'm going to use a jig.

This simple tapering sled has some blocks, which I've nailed in place, and my blank is going to overhang about 3/4 inch off the edge.

When I run this through the saw, we're going to get a nice, even taper.

I'm going to do that to all four blanks.

With the taper cut on the legs, the next step is going to be to go ahead and make an angled cut at 15 degrees on the bottom of the leg and the top, and that way, the leg will register flat on the floor and the top will register flat on top of the leg when we get our assembly all done.

I've replaced the blade in the table saw.

The rip blade is out, and the crosscut blade is in.

I've got my miter gauge set at 15 degrees.

So, the first thing we're going to do is cut the bottom 15-degree cut.

I'll change things up, and then we'll get to the upper cut.

With the tapers all cut on our legs, it's time to cut some mortises.

Each leg has two mortises.

There's one for the end apron and another for the side apron.

So, this is where it's important to pay attention to what you're doing and make sure you're creating two lefts and two right legs.

Otherwise, you'll need to create two tables to make it all work out in the end.

So, I've got a leg all set up here.

I'm using a small plunge router, and the kind of bit I'm using is a spiral upcut, and that's a fairly aggressive bit.

It works really well for mortises because it helps pull the chips out of the mortise as we go.

I've got a fence, and I think we're all set to go.

They're going to be 1 inch deep, 6 inches long.

So, it's going to take a couple of passes each time.

I went ahead and finished up with two details with the legs.

One is I squared out the mortises with a chisel.

The other, I put a slight round-over along the edge.

With that done, we are ready to start working with the aprons.

And the first pair we're going to do are the two end aprons.

The first thing we're going to do is going to cut the -- we're going to cut the tenons, which will fit into our legs.

We're going to add a small 15-degree angled cut on the inside face, and that's going to accept a metal Z clip, which will hold our top down.

After I get done making that cut, I'm going to kick over my fence, raise my blade, and I'm going to go ahead and cut a 15-degree angle on the top of the apron so that it will match the angle of our legs.

Well, with the legs and end aprons all made up, it's time to glue them together.

So, the usual thing here.

We want to make sure we've got glue on all the surfaces before we glue things up.

And, of course, we want to make sure we dry fit everything so we don't run into any problems later on.

These are nice, wide mortises, so they are going to stay put and hold fast.

That's a good thing.

The front and the back apron are basically the same in most respects, except one.

The front apron has to have a hole in it for the drawer.

So, what I've done is I've taken a solid piece and I've simply split it into three individual boards and then cut out the section where the drawer is going to be.

Now, if you are going to make a coffee table that's going to be painted, you don't have to worry about the order of things.

But if you're going to make one that is going to be a natural finish, you want to cut everything out of the same board and keep everything in order so that the grain matches up nicely.

I've done that, and I'm going to go ahead and start to glue things up.

Now, I've got the length of my parts 1 inch longer than our finished...front apron.

That gives me a little bit of wiggle room for cutting the ends and for the joinery later on.

I want to double check to make sure that my parts are all flush on the surface.

And sometimes, when we clamp things up, the parts slide around a little bit.

And that looks pretty good.

Alright, I'm going to let that dry, and then we'll be ready to go ahead and proceed with the joinery, much like we did with the side aprons.

Well, here's the front apron, and here's the rear apron.

You can see I've already cut the ends at 15 degrees to match the splay of the legs.

We've got our opening for the drawer here.

There's a couple of things we need to do.

One, we're going to go ahead and cut a kerf on the top inside edge at each for the Z clips that hold the top on.

Next, we need to go ahead and put a 3/4 inch dado stack on our table saw.

I need to cut a dado across and just outside of our drawer opening on both sides.

And that's going to carry a rail which will help hold the drawer.

We'll have a cleat on the bottom of the rail, and the drawer will slide on that.

Once we're done with that, the next thing will be to go ahead and cut tenons on both ends.

We use the table saw to cut the faces of our tenons, but because these are angled, we can't do the shoulders on the table saw.

But no problem.

I've got it clamped up in the vise, and I'm just going to use this small Japanese saw.

We'll make quick work of it.

Well, it's time for some excitement.

We're going to go ahead and glue up the end panels with our front and side aprons, and it's going to start to look like a table.

So, usual drill.

Plenty of glue inside on the mortises and plenty of glue on the tenons.

Alright, now, to help me put clamps across this, I've got some 15-degree blocks here, and I put a little bit of double-sided tape on them.

And that way I'll have some flat area... to put my clamps on.

Alright, everything's looking pretty good.

Always helps, of course, to check and make sure that things are square.

I'm going to go ahead and measure across the diagonals.

It's looking pretty good.

Alright, then.

I'm going to clean up my glue, give things a chance to dry, and I think we'll be ready to move on to working with the drawer and a few final details.

Alright, the next stage of our project here on building the coffee table is to create the drawer.

And Chris has the framework ready here.

There are a few pieces that we need to add.

We're going to put in a drawer rail that will run kind of front to back on this coffee table.

So, I'm using liquid hide glue here because it's going to help lubricate the part because it's a nice, snug fit, and I want this drawer rail to drop right in there.

So, we'll just line things up.

What I'm looking for is it to be flush with the stretchers on the front here.

Alright, I'm going to clamp that up in a bit.

But before we go any farther, what I want to do is attach a set of runners and kickers for the drawer.

Now, they're identical pieces.

So, one goes in on the bottom here, and I've drawn a line where it needs to be flush with.

Now, the runners support the drawer from below.

And then we're going to add the identical piece just above the drawer pocket.

These are called kickers, and they prevent the drawer from tipping out as you pull the drawer farther out of the coffee table.

Alright, we're going to get started on the joinery for the drawer.

At the front, where the two sides meet the front, we're going to use a locking rabbet joint.

At the back, we're going to use a country cousin of it, just the tongue and dado.

And they're going to start the same way.

So, what I have here are the two drawer sides that we're going to be using.

And what I'm going to do is cut a narrow dado near each end of these pieces.

I'm using just a regular standard width blade here in the table saw, and I've set the rip fence as an end stop to locate it.

And what you want to do is match that location.

So, the outside edge of the blade is flush with one of your side pieces here because that's going to be our gauge for locating that piece.

So, rather than go off of measurements, go off the thickness, the actual thickness of the parts here.

So, what I'm going to do is make sure that I have the inside face of these down, make a cut, flip the piece around and make a second one, and then we're ready to move on to the next step.

Alright, with the dados cut in the drawer sides, we're going to move on to the drawer front to tackle the other part of the joint here.

And you can see the setup is a little bit different.

I've replaced the regular blade with a dado blade -- this time, 3/8 of an inch wide here.

And we're going to cut a slot on the end of both sides of the drawer front.

What that slot is going to do is going to fit over that dado and the end of the drawer side.

The key thing is that we have to hold the workpiece vertically, which can be tough by itself.

So, we have a shop-made tenoning jig.

A regular tenoning jig would do fine here, as well.

Just make sure it's clamped down well and take it easy on the cut here.

So, keep the inside of the drawer up against the tenoning jig.

Make one pass, flip it over, and then cut the other side, as well.

Alright, so now we have that slot cut on the ends of the drawer front.

But in order to accommodate the sides, what we need to do is trim back the thinner of these two edges of the slot flange, I guess.

And what we want is something that looks more like this.

So, that way, when we put the drawer side in place, you can see here that we have a nice, tight joint and the side is flush with the end of the drawer front.

So, in order to do that, what I've done is put a sacrificial fence on the rip fence, and I'm going to guide the piece with the miter gauge and just trim back that inner side.

Alright, we've taken care of the joinery at the front of the drawer.

Now we're going to take care of the joinery at the drawer back.

And we're using a related joint, like I said earlier, the tongue and dado.

So, the dado part, already taken care of on the drawer side.

What we need to do now is to cut a rabbet on the ends of the drawer back like this, in order to create a tongue that will then fit into those dados.

Now, I have this one fit a little tight, have a little refining work to do here, but the process to cut it is pretty simple.

Still using the dado blade, but I've altered the rip fence setting and the blade height in order to get a tongue that's just thin enough to slip into those dados.

Alright, we're down to the final step here on the joinery for the drawer, and that's to cut a groove for the drawer bottom.

Nothing real complicated here.

Just switched out the dado blade to a 1/4 inch dado, and I'm using the rip fence to guide here.

The big thing is on the drawer back, it's really easy to get this flipped around.

You want to have the tongue side down as you're making this cut in order to cut the groove on the correct face.

And we're ready to do the glue-up.

There are a lot of pieces that come together, even though it doesn't seem like much, for a drawer.

So, I'm going to use liquid hide glue just to give me the extra open time.

And for those joints that are still just a little snug, the liquid hide glue won't seize up halfway through the assembly process.

So, I'm just going to run glue in all the grooves here for the drawer bottom.

And then on the sides, not only am I going to put glue for the drawer bottom, but also in these dados.

I'm going to start by putting the drawer bottom into the back.

Then I can add the front, just kind of keeping pieces centered here.

Then I'll add one side at a time, fitting the joinery together.

Alright, once we take the drawer out of the clamps, we just want to clean up any squeeze-out from the glue that's around there.

I also took a sanding block, and I like to just kind of buzz the edges a little bit to take off that sharp edge.

Now, one thing that I discovered when I went to test fit the drawer into the base of the coffee table here -- you just see this... ...is the drawer ended up being a little bit narrower than I would like.

I'd prefer a little bit smaller of a gap on each side here.

It's just a visual thing.

The problem is that it makes the drawer... ...a little sloppy in its opening, and that can mean that the drawer could bind while you're opening or closing it.

So, what I want to do is add a couple of thin strips on either side of the drawer.

I've already glued one in on this side, and what that's going to do is just center the drawer in the opening, so the gaps now are the same, and it's also going to keep the drawer moving consistently and smoothly when you operate it.

When Chris was making the drawer base, and we cut out a section to create the opening for the drawer, Chris saved that piece, and we used it for the drawer front.

So, if you're not going to paint the base of your table, then you can keep that piece.

And now, if you'll notice, we have the grain flowing continuously and smoothly all the way across.

Alright, the last details we need to add on the base of our coffee table are a set of curved brackets.

And these are going to be used to just transition from the legs to the front and back, as well as the ends here.

We'll start with the brackets for the ends.

Now, you can see it's just a square-cut piece of wood with a curve on one end.

I cut the curve, for the most part, over at the band saw, then headed over to our edge sander and smoothed that transition, removing all the blade marks, working down to our layout lines.

Over here on the end, it's really easy to install these.

I'm just going to put a bead of glue on it, line it up, and press it into place.

I'm going to throw a clamp on there just to hold it.

Alright, now, the ones for the front are going to require a little bit more because we have that angle here where the leg meets the front and back stretcher.

So, what I did is just set a bevel gauge to that angle.

Then I can head over to the table saw and use the bevel gauge to set the angle on the miter gauge and then cut my blanks to their size.

And again, it's just that band saw edge sander trick of going back and forth to smooth out that profile, and then I can glue and clamp this one into place, as well.

Alright, the last of the construction steps that we have to take care of on our coffee table here is to attach the base to the top.

So, I flipped the top upside down on the bench here and centered our base assembly on it.

Now, to make that connection, I'm going to use a little piece of hardware called a Z clip, which you can see gets its name from its shape.

On one side, there's a hole that allows you to screw it to the top.

The raised flange you can see here fits into the groove on the inside of the parts that Chris cut earlier.

What we have now is a secure connection between the base and the top.

But with the Z clips, it allows for the top to expand and contract with seasonal changes in humidity.

♪♪ Alright, here it is.

All upright, the way it should be.

Our coffee table is complete.

And now we come to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" section of this project.

You could just put a clear finish on it.

The beech turned out to be a fantastic choice for both the top and the base and would look great with a clear coat, maybe a little bit of oil just to bring out the colors.

The other option is to do like the original and do a distressed painted version.

Now, if you want to see what that looks like, the video and instructions for that, along with the plans to make your own coffee table, they're at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

And while you're there, you can pick up a few more project plans and other great ideas and inspiration to build other projects and build something amazing in your shop.

And then we'll meet right back here for another episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

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Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... ...Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪