[ Saw whirs, theme music plays ] It's "The Woodsmith Shop."

Hi, I'm Phil.

On today's episode, we're gonna be building this side table.

Now, it would be great parked next to your favorite chair or a sofa, where it can hold a drink, maybe a magazine, the remote, whatever.

But this table actually has a little bit of a secret to it.

The table top lifts off, there's feet on the bottom, and you can use it as a serving tray.

Then you can use it in entertaining, when you have friends and family over, or the next big event.

This original version we made with a cherry top and used ash for the base.

On today's version, Logan's gonna kick things off by using a piece of ash burl to be able to create a round tabletop over at the lathe.

It's gonna have a different look, and I think it's a great technique to learn.

I'm gonna be making the base, and here I'm gonna use cherry to set off a nice complementary tone to the top that Logan is gonna make.

There's a lot going on in the base.

We're gonna talk about making parts round, but over at the router table, not the lathe.

Then we'll do some router joinery, as well as figure out a way to be able to join the three rails together in the middle.

There's miters and splines, a lot to learn.

if you're ready to build along, the plans for this table are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

It's time to 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, tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond wood glues, the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Theme music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So, our serving tray starts out by making the top.

And I have this piece of ash that I've saved in my shop for a while.

It just had really nice figure, and I roughed it into a circle, not knowing what I was gonna do with it.

And this serving tray top is the perfect use.

So, what I've done is I've started to lay out kind of the position for this top, and I did this just to avoid some defects, like this knot here.

And I went ahead and I pre-drilled three locations at the drill press.

Did this with a big forstner bit, and these are gonna be the holes that we're gonna use to position the tray on the base once it's all said and done.

Now, when we're turning this, that means we are gonna be hitting and missing as we're turning, but I'll show you how we tackle that when we get to the lathe.

But now what I can do is I can rough this out following my layout mark, and I'm gonna leave a little bit of extra room.

That way, we can true it up at the lathe when we get there.

So, now that we have this top roughed out, we can go and figure out how we're gonna hold it on the lathe.

Now, we have a couple of options, but the ultimate goal Is to get a recess in this top that I can expand a 4-jaw chuck into.

That way, I can work on the top side and dish that out, as well as profile the edges.

Now, to get to that point, we're going to use a faceplate.

Now, the faceplate attaches using screws.

I do have to be careful here, though.

This isn't that big a deal because I am dishing the top, but I want to make sure that my screws are not too long.

I want just a little bit of screw to poke through the bottom, just enough to hold this in place, but short enough that when we dish and profile the top, we're gonna remove those screw holes.

So, I've already used a set of dividers and swung an arc in from a couple of different spots around the outside of this.

And that gives me a rough center.

And I can just position that faceplate where it looks pretty centered.

And now we can attach it with screws.

[ Drill whirring ] Okay, with the faceplate attached, I can go ahead and thread it onto the spindle.

Okay, now, at this point, the bottom surface of our top is facing out.

So all I'm going to do here is I'm gonna maybe skim this off just a little bit with a scraper, just to clean it up and make sure it's true.

Now, this is a fairly thick top, but it's not super thick, so I don't want to apply a lot of pressure, or else I'm gonna get a little bit of vibration out here.

The other thing I'm going to do is I'm gonna use a set of dividers to measure the diameter of this 4-jaw chuck.

That's gonna allow me to transfer it to the face here and then create a recess.

Now, this recess will be dovetailed to match the dovetailed jaws on here.

That's gonna provide us a good grip when we flip it around.

While I have it in this position, as well, I might as well work on this lower corner here.

This is gonna get a round-over.

So, the first thing I'm gonna do is adjust the tool rest and slide the banjo over so that I can make a cut straight across the end facing me.

This is gonna true this up and bring this end around.

You can kind of see as it spins.

There's maybe just a little bit of wobble to it because it's not been trued up yet.

So, we'll true it up by making a push cut across there with a bowl gouge.

And then I'm going to make a cut from the bottom side towards the edge to round that over.

Okay, so, as I make those cuts across the front, I can turn the speed up and get a little bit cleaner cut.

And speed's really the key when you are hitting and missing like we are, where these leg holes are.

The faster you can go and the less pressure you put on the tool, the cleaner the resulting cut is gonna be, and you're not gonna get near as much bounce with the tool.

So, what I'm going to do, since I'm here already, is round over this corner the rest of the way.

And I'm gonna profile this edge.

And I think we're gonna do just a plain old cove in here.

It's gonna feel nice when you go to pick it up, and that rounded-over bottom is gonna make it sit nice on a table.

All right, now that I have that recess in place for the jaws of that chuck, I'm gonna go ahead and clean out this center section.

I might just actually dome it so it's a little decorative if you look at the bottom side of this tray.

But then I'm gonna use a skew chisel on its side as a scraper to create that little dovetailed corner on the inside for those jaws to seat into.

Okay, with this bottom side done and ready to flip around, I'm gonna apply a little bit of finish because what that's going to do is that's gonna limit any distortion that this is gonna have in the short time between finishing it right here and starting to work on the bottom.

Plus, if I apply finish and I notice that there's any areas that I need to come back and re-sand, it's much easier to do that now while it's still mounted in this orientation.

All right, now that I have this reversed, it's held securely in the chuck.

And just spinning it by hand, it looks like it's running pretty true.

So, that's good.

Now we're gonna shape the inside.

What I'm going to do is I'm gonna first start with defining a rim.

And I'm going to do that using a parting tool just to kind of define where that is going to start and stop.

And what I'm also probably going to do is I'm gonna shape this rim just a little bit.

On the original, we had this flat.

I might tilt it in just slightly, and I'll do that with a bowl gouge.

And I'll just make a little push cut kind of leading in.

I think visually it looks nice, kind of leads you to the center of the platter.

And then we have to remove this bulk of material away.

And I'm gonna do that using first the parting tool to widen out this area that I defined the rim with, giving me enough room to get my bowl gouge in there.

And then I'll use the bowl gouge to remove the bulk of the material.

All right, now, I've removed most of the material away with that bowl gouge.

And that's just making simple push cuts straight across.

Now, one thing you'll find here is it is easy to get kind of an undulating surface on here.

So, at this point, what I will do is I will switch over to a scraper.

Now, this is actually a bowl scraper.

You can see the curve there.

It works really well to do the insides of bowls, kind of that lower third.

But it also works well on something like this, which is basically a large platter.

What I will do is I'll start back here, and I will engage that edge very lightly.

Now, you don't want to force it because there is some flex here.

And I'm gonna make a push cut all the way across, kind of floating that tool, aiming for a flat surface.

Now, the important thing with scrapers is you always want the handle back here to be above the cutting edge.

You never want that to dip lower because then you're opening yourself up for a catch.

Instead, keeping it up high at a trailing angle is gonna give you a really clean cut.

And I find this is a pretty good way to get a flat surface.

Once again, I mentioned I'll come in with a sanding block with adhesive-backed sandpaper to kind of hit this after I'm done, but this cabinet scraper is a good first step.

Okay, so, as you can see, using that sanding block with some sandpaper on there really helps you identify where those high and low spots are.

Now, this is a serving tray.

I'm not going for absolutely dead flat here, but we want to get it as close as we can.

The benefit of this being a fairly flat surface is that, once we take this off the lathe, we can head to the workbench and use a standard random orbit sander to really smooth this out and polish it highly.

The one thing I will do while I'm at the lathe still is I'll go ahead and sand this rim.

Because there are these leg cutouts, we do have to be kind of careful.

So, as I'm sanding that, I like to lower the sandpaper so that that opening is coming into the sandpaper and it's not kicking me out.

If we tilt it in, we're opening ourselves up for a nasty catch, and that will not feel very great.

So, I like to drag that sandpaper, leave it open, get that sanded, but then it's ready for a finish.

Part two of our project is the base of the table.

That consists of three legs that are joined by two sets of three stretchers, and they'll fit into the notches of the tabletop that Logan turned.

Now, to match that whole round profile that he's got going, the legs are round, as well.

But you'll notice that these legs are square right now.

What I'm gonna do is turn them round here at the router table.

Logan's the turner.

I'm the router table guy.

Now, what you could do if you wanted is to go out and find some dowels of the right size.

I wanted something in cherry with really straight grain.

That would involve a lot of searching to try and find those specific pieces, but I can find and cut the pieces square in the shop here and then make them round.

To do that, I've set up a 3/4" radius round-over bit in the router table, and the legs are 1 1/2" square.

So, what I'll do is route a round-over on each one of these corners, which will create the round dowel profile on here.

The thing is, is that if I did that the whole length of the piece, what I'll end up with is something that's pretty wobbly and difficult to control.

So, I have extra long legs here, and I've marked sections on either end that are gonna remain square.

And that'll be the reference both against the table and the fence of the router table.

This is a lot to remove in a single pass, so I've set the bit low so that I'll just remove a little bit of material on this first pass.

Then I'll raise the bit up, make a pass on each of the four corners again to complete that round profile.

It's time for the joinery on the leg.

What I did first is pulled out the miter saw, and I cut my leg pieces, just one end of them, to use as a reference.

This will become the top end of each of the legs.

Each leg gets two mortises routed into it.

And what I need is, because I have a round leg, a way to keep the leg stable and also to support the router for the mortising part.

That's taken up by this jig here.

It's basically like a big I-beam with a space in the middle.

So I can slip the leg into place from one end here.

To route the mortises, I'm using a router with a guide bushing installed in the base plate, and there's a narrow bit installed in the router.

The guide bushing matches the size of these openings so that I can route a narrow, deep mortise to hold the tenon on the end of the rails.

Because this is a pretty deep mortise, I'm gonna do that in several passes -- make a pass, lower the bit slightly, and make a pass, working my way down.

Once I'm done with that, I'm gonna switch out to a bearing-guided bit that has a shallower cutting depth on it.

And that's gonna create a little bit of a step, kind of a pocket for the end of the rail.

The bearing will follow around the edge of the opening to size that accurately.

The next stage is to work on the rails that connect the legs.

I have blanks here that are extra long so I can get two rails out of each one.

What I want to do is cut a tenon on each end of these blanks.

To do that, I have a straight bit set up in the router table, and the fence is set to match the depth of my mortise.

I'm gonna hold the piece against a backer block and make a pass across each face.

What that does with the backer block is to keep the workpiece square to the bit and prevents tear-out on the back side.

I've set the bit deliberately low so that I can sneak up on a really good fit here.

The last step is to raise the bit and turn the workpiece on edge to form the shoulders on the top and bottom of each piece.

The final step on our rail blanks is to round over the corners.

That'll fit that rounded pocket that I made in each one of the legs.

To do that, I have a 3/8" round-over bit installed in the router table.

I'll use that to make a pass on each of the corners and then give it that nice, rounded shape.

I cut my rail pieces to their final length, making sure to take into account the length of the tenon and how far it fits into the leg.

What we need to do now is address how each set of three rails meets in the middle.

They're gonna meet at angles, but not your usual 45 degrees.

So, what I've done is I've tilted the saw blade 30 degrees.

Using the miter gauge, along with a stop block, I'm gonna trim an angle on each face here without affecting the length of it.

So, I'm gonna leave a nice sharp point on there.

Part two of the joinery for the center of the rails is to cut a slot into each one of those mitered faces.

Those will accept a small spline, which will connect them.

Think of it as, like, a little-bitty loose tenon.

In order to make that cut, I'm changing the orientation of the work piece.

I have a shop-made tenoning jig that slides on the rip fence, and then that holds my work piece here vertically.

And with the way the blade is set, it's gonna cut right into the face of the miter, so that as I pass the jig across the blade, you'll see it cut that slot.

You want to be real careful with the blade height here so you don't end up cutting away the middle piece entirely.

It's done in two passes, one for each of the mitered faces.

It's time for assembly.

I'm gonna work on one set of rails at a time.

And what you can do -- and you'll find with the plans -- is a jig to help clamp everything together.

But I'm gonna go with a different route and show you this one, is to use a quick-setting glue and then bring all the parts together.

In a nutshell, this is what's going on.

I'm gonna brush glue onto the mitered faces here and then get some glue into the spline slots.

As I do that, then I can fit a spline.

That's what these little short pieces of wood are called -- splines.

Put some glue on those, as well, fit them into the slot, and then fit the two pieces together.

And then just kind of Phil-clamp them for about 10 or 15 seconds until it sets up and then work my way.

When you get to this last one, what you'll need to do is fit that top -- the last spline in from the top.

Because I want a snug fit with the splines, but they still need to be able to go in, I have a piece of adhesive-backed sandpaper here that I can use to fine-tune the size of the splines as we're going along.

All right, we're at stage two for the assembly, and that's where we're gonna bring our rails and connect them to the legs.

Couple of things I want to point out, though, about the rails, is, before assembly, I took them over to the drill press and drilled a recess in the upper set of rails.

And these will hold on to a few little rubber feeties that are gonna be attached to the bottom side of the turned tray.

And then with the tenons -- this part applies for here -- I used a rasp and rounded over the top and bottom edges of the tenons to fit into the rounded mortises that I routed here.

Now, this stage is gonna go pretty smoothly, I believe, providing you do a dry run-through without glue.

Check the fit of each one of the tenons into the mortises to see if you need to make any adjustments there.

The other thing that I did you can see is I labeled each of the tenons and then also indicated the direction and then did the same thing with the mortises so that I'm aligning and fitting each tenon to a specific mortise.

I'm gonna use the slow-setting glue here, a liquid hide glue that I have, over some warm water to keep it a little bit easier to brush on and gives me longer open time.

So, I'm gonna brush the glue into the mortises and then fit one tenon at a time as I work my way around.

On the bottom side of the tray, I want to attach some rubber feet that will give the tray a softer cushion on whatever surface you put it on.

Additionally, it's also gonna register the tray in the table base.

Now, to locate where those feet are gonna be, what I did is put some dowel centers into the holes that I drilled in the rails.

Then I can set the tray top over it and then center it and then press down a little bit to create little dimples on the bottom side, which is what you see here.

I then used an awl to make those dimples a little bit larger to be able to drive the screws in place.

Little whacks on the threads of the screws, and they go right in.

There you have it.

Now, when the tray is being used as a serving tray or just sitting on a table, it's not gonna leave any scratches and you're not gonna scratch up the back side of the tray, either.

Logan used an oil finish on the tray top, and that makes sense here, too.

What I like about something like a tung oil or a tung oil varnish is that it helps to draw out the warmer, richer red tones in the cherry here.

So, as you can see, just as a sanded piece, it looks pretty pale.

Once the finish goes on, it's gonna look really great.

Now, what I'm gonna do is brush it on with a foam brush, making a nice wet coat on there, and then after allowing it to soak in for a few minutes, I'll wipe off the excess with a rag.

Now, it is an oil finish, so those rags need to be laid out flat or hung up to dry so that you don't cause a fire from spontaneous combustion.

I wanted to bring in the original version of our tray table just to show you how making a few simple changes and adjustments can really alter the look of a project, even one with as few pieces as this includes.

So, you can see Logan's turned top that he did on there has a different look than the original cherry one, but I think both of them can really stand out on the table.

And then we switch the materials -- ash on the original, cherry on this one, and the result is a table that looks the same, but is actually quite a bit different.

If you're ready to build along, maybe find your own type of modifications and changes that you want to make, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

Then check back in here for another great project on "The Woodsmith Shop."

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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.

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, tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond wood glues, the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪