Woodworkers Fighting Cancer - Shaker Table Build Part II

A few issues have come up during the rough dimensioning that have steered my design in a new direction. Originally, I planned to have the entire table made of the Cherry board from the first post, with a small Mahogany band running up the outside of all the legs and terminating to the Mahogany breadboard ends for the top. Either because I'm fairly new to this or just an oversight (probably both), I found I didn't have enough Cherry to also do the top.

I also found one of my legs had a check running much higher than I originally anticipated. Due to these challenges, I decided to rethink my approach. During Wednesday night's The Woodwhisper Guild meeting, I was able to bounce the idea off of Shannon Rogers of The Renaissance Woodworker, Rob Bois from The Bois Shop and Nabil, who is a prolific woodworker from The Woodwhisperer Chatroom. Thanks to their advice and encouragement, I've decided to go with this approach: From the floor up; Mahogany feet will be attached to the bottom of the Cherry legs to reach the length the legs need to be; I will still be banding the outside of all the legs up to the top of the piece; The top will now be veneered with the Canoe Birch on the bottom, a "breadboard" border of Mahogany and a "sunburst" cut from a piece of Osage I recently picked up at Jensen Hardwoods in Walla Walla, WA for the top.

Woodworkers Fighting Cancer - Shaker Table Build

I thought this would be a good time to start blogging again. Marc Spagnuolo of The Woodwhisperer recently challenged all of his TWW Guild members to join in a community build to raise money for cancer. Marc himself is donating $5 for every member that completes this month's build and he has also got several companies on board. In the short time that he has had a donation button on his podcast sight, he has raised over $1670 in cash.

While I was not really ready to start building anything and still getting the shop "just so", I thought this was a good reason to get off the pot, as it were. So, this will be my actual first piece of "fine" (hopefully) furniture. It's gonna be great that so many are building along. If I, or any of my fellow guild members get stuck, we all have each other for support. It is really a great community Marc and his wife Nicole have built.

About a month ago I picked up several pieces of very nice lumber at Jensen's Hardwoods in Walla Walla, WA. This is the piece I'm going to use for the build. I'm heading to Portland, OR mid-March and will pick up some mahogany for accents.

Wish me luck!! I certainly hope I don't just end up butchering this beautiful piece of cherry!!