Orphaned Oak
A-Frame table
A sturdy table with two chests for seats
A lady said that she wanted a table that would withstand the ministrations of her children, who were, she said, "hard on furniture". She wanted two chest-sized boxes to go with it, to double up as seats.
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For all their simplicity, the spindle tables can be a little wobbly, so I needed a sturdier, more robust arrangement for the legs. I decided to base it on a principle similar to that used in the rectangular stool: slotted-in supports with a bracing strut and pegs - like the one in the background of the picture below. This construction will produce a much more rigid table, although at the expense of extra weight and assembly time.
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First I needed to find a suitable orphan...
And here it is:
This lovely table had a hidden bonus - someone has extended it with a couple of extra oak panels. When you look underneath, you can see the different shade of stain, and the cleverly added extra bracing brackets.
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See also the nice straight legs on the table - not the more usual barley twist ones. I can use these for the A-frames, see below.
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Note the small stool in the background of this picture - two angled supports with a bracing strut and pegs.
It was this method of construction that we wanted to use for the new table.
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The rectangular stool uses two flat pieces of oak as legs, but this will not scale up to table-size, as they would be far too heavy. I decided to build A-frames, roughly the same shape as the stool's tapered flat legs. See here the A-frames initial assembly, all nice oak and elm, using the legs from the table above as the main struts.
The next photos show the A-frames being fitted, starting the wax polishing, and the finished table, all held together by magic. Well, a couple of wooden pegs actually.
And looking good for a coat of beeswax and oil.
The lady wanted two storage chests as well, and the plan is to use the boxes as stools to sit at the table. In case the table is too high to sit at comfortably, I made the A-frames with a length of leg below the cross-bar, such that they could be shortened if required. This is the set now:
Alternatively, rather than lower the table, another option would be to use two stools - there are a few different designs of stool that could be used. I make various types of stool - see the Things I've Made page for links to them and sometimes there may be a new idea in the Current Projects page.