Project - Teak Side Table

Several years ago, my wife had to undertake the sad task of disposing off her parents' furniture - her father had passed away and her mother was moving in with us. We had very limited space at home and could not accommodate most of the furniture which had to be sold at throwaway prices. Among the pieces was an old bed made with Burma Teak for which the scrap dealers were offering just Rs 3,000. I knew the wood itself was worth at least twenty times that amount and convinced my wife to let me cut it up and take the pieces home. That wood has gone into several projects and a little bit was still lying around when the Coronavirus pandemic hit. So, I decided to use if for a bedside table that I desperately needed.

I could not bear to cut up the fine Teak leg pieces into slim tapered ones so I decided on a simple, if somewhat clunky, design. In the end, I did not regret it. Almost all the last pieces from the old bed have gone into it and the table has turned out to be a solid heavy object.

The only bit of it which is not Burma Teak is the bottom shelf which I had to make out of some not very nice dark red wood that has been lying around the workshop. I would ideally have liked to make that out of Teak as well but the ongoing lockdown (we stay in a containment zone) ruled that out.

The table was constructed with very traditional joinery methods - mortice and tenons which I hand cut. Chopping the mortices was a little tedious but went quickly once I got into the flow of it. I had to chop a total of twelves mortices including four for the bottom stretchers.
 
I prefer using a regular heavy mortice chisel as it does a good job gouging out the waste. The critical part in cutting mortices by hand is the layout or marking. If that is accurate and the first round of chopping carefully done, the rest of the mortice will usually come out fine.

Cutting the tenons requires more skill, or so I think. The cheeks of the tenons have to be absolutely parallel and a good fit requires a high degree of accuracy. To make things easier, I made a couple of simple sawing guides - one for the cheeks and the other for the shoulders. The final finishing was done with a router plane - using a chisel to finely pare down the tenon cheeks to fit is far more difficult.

A good fit is very rewarding. It feels awful when a piece sits twisted in a mortice hole or is skewed. If this happens it becomes very difficult to assemble the frame properly or keep sides square to each other. I know because I have produced horribly twisted pieces in the past.

After having checked the fit of the frame in a dry assembly, the final glue up is a satisfying process. I could not photograph most steps of this project because I was filming it. Those interested could watch the video of this build (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtyGoQY_UX4&list=PL7Iwnkag-ieSlnoWRb7bfNviZDa3kQsNv&index=2&t=0s).

The top, again made from the same teak bed pieces, was finished with shellac and attached to the frame with turn buttons. The turn buttons allow for the movement of wood and will ensure that the top does not crack over the years. To learn more about turn buttons and how to use them see my blog post: https://indiandiy.blogspot.com/.../how-to-fix-table-top.html

The table now sits happily by my bedside with books, phone, remote and so on. The best part is that another part of the old bed that had served my wife's parents for decades has been recycled for another generation.

Indranil Banerjie

26 May 2020