Wedding gift table

[GaryR]

A nephew is getting married in April. I promised the couple a piece of furniture and they have chosen a smallish table with what I have learned are Louis the 16th features. They sent me this picture of the sort of thing they like, in particular the Greek meandros pattern on the skirt/apron, carved mouldings, a stone top, and fluted legs. (The pic is a piece made in the 1950's, not from the period).




I am not familiar with this style and it seems a surprise choice (to me) for a 30-something couple, but I'm up for giving it a go and they are letting me modify the design to fit my skills, time, and budget.

They have OK'd this slimmed down conception, still in the rough sketching stage. I tried to keep the features they wanted most. Dimensions will be about 32"wide, 32" tall, and 15" deep to fit a space they have in mind. Those will be adjusted as I play with the design.



As I'm still designing I'd be happy to get your suggestions. I already know the meandros carving will get more open space than shown in the sketch, the feet need attention, haven't chosen a moulding profile or pattern yet, etc.

 

[AndyT]

That looks like fun!

I'm a much less experienced woodworker than you, but I have made a grand total of two legs of square section but decorated a little bit like your picture shows. They were on a copy of a Victorian chair which unfolds into a set of library steps.





The one thing I realised is that it's a whole lot easier if your leg design has two full sized square sections to reference against when you are cutting down into all the original surfaces to define locations of mouldings or ends of tapers. In my case, both those square sections stayed in the final legs, but in your case you might need to leave extra bits on the foot ends that you saw off as late as possible.

Of course that's not so relevant if you only want plain legs, but I'll leave it there as friendly encouragement...

 

[Jonathan]

Gary if you want to see more of that style of furniture research the Italian company Versace.
I'm 100% sure that the furniture you produce will be far better quality than Versace

 

[AJB Temple]

I think the fluted legs help a lot. This design could be made a lot more delicate without much extra work and become an heirloom piece. Nice project.

 

[GaryR]

Here is a sketch for fluted leg version (the flutes would be on all four faces of a leg.) I can imagine a router sled to do them. I can also imagine fluting some round legs, but I'm not very confident of my turning skills for something like this.

 

[Mike G]

A nephew is getting married in April. I promised the couple a piece of furniture and they have chosen a smallish table with what I have learned are Louis the 16th features. They sent me this picture of the sort of thing they like, in particular the Greek meandros pattern on the skirt/apron, carved mouldings, a stone top, and fluted legs. (The pic is a piece made in the 1950's, not from the period).

View attachment 37584


I am not familiar with this style and it seems a surprise choice (to me) for a 30-something couple, but I'm up for giving it a go and they are letting me modify the design to fit my skills, time, and budget.

They have OK'd this slimmed down conception, still in the rough sketching stage. I tried to keep the features they wanted most. Dimensions will be about 32"wide, 32" tall, and 15" deep to fit a space they have in mind. Those will be adjusted as I play with the design.

View attachment 37585

As I'm still designing I'd be happy to get your suggestions. I already know the meandros carving will get more open space than shown in the sketch, the feet need attention, haven't chosen a moulding profile or pattern yet, etc.

Oooh, that's tiny! The first image makes it looks like a big kitchen table, or hall table. Is it going up against a wall? (If so, you could save yourself some carving!).

The only comment I've got is that it looks like the legs are tapered on all 4 faces, which I think is fairly unsual.

 

[GaryR]

Yes, going against a wall. Here is a front elevation of the example piece. It is hard to tell from this picture but I believe all four faces of the legs taper to better accommodate the symmetrical fluting. The one pictured is 41" wide, 32" high, 24" deep.

 

[AndyT]

Somewhere in the past I have joined in a conversation about how fluting like that would have been done in the past. Things I remember:
- Antique examples show flutes which get narrower along their length, as you have drawn them. This is actually easier to achieve by carving than with a powered router.
- You will need some sort of guiding box to surround the leg, to make the top surface horizontal. The leg can be simply pivoted at each end, with the pivot for the thin end higher than the other.
- It's easier if all four faces are tapered and fluted the same, symmetrically

When I did my much simpler legs, the transverse convex mouldings were surprisingly straightforward to do. I defined the boundaries by sawcuts and used chisels to pare across the grain, finishing off with a gouge of the right curvature.

 

[GaryR]

- Antique examples show flutes which get narrower along their length, as you have drawn them. This is actually easier to achieve by carving than with a powered router.
- You will need some sort of guiding box to surround the leg, to make the top surface horizontal. The leg can be simply pivoted at each end, with the pivot for the thin end higher than the other.
- It's easier if all four faces are tapered and fluted the same, symmetrically

That is pretty much the process I had in mind. I believe the flutes need to become shallower as they taper, too.

 

[GaryR]

Here's the latest iteration of the table design. My nephew/his fiance said they would like to have a limestone top since I can get that locally. I've checked with some fabricators and they say they would be happy to make one but the minimum thickness they will cut is 2"/50 mm since limestone is too brittle to cut thinner than that. That looks too thick sitting on top of a table this small, and would be quite heavy (about 100 pounds/45 kg. So I'm making the stone smaller and recessing it inside the frame, then surrounding it with a mitred wood frame.