Hayrake Stretcher Table

My second oldest son is heavy into woodturning and is currently selling some of his bowl and vase type turnings at a local country store. He needed to supply his own table to display things on. Not having a spare table handy he borrowed an old card table from a friend of my wife. The card table worked but it had splotches of paint all over the top and legs so it was a chore trying to hide the table using various table cloths.

Here is one of his recent bowls that he made a few weeks ago from a piece of ambrosia maple. Not bad for a fourteen year old :-)

I decided to make him a table that I had seen on the Fine Woodworking's website. However the plans there were for a full sized dining table - just a tad too big to fit his needs. I took the plans and reduced them to 78% of the original - except of course the height. Because the table is in the Arts and Crafts style, I also chose to go with bread board ends instead of the arched ends the plans called for. I always wanted to try a bread board end. So while the style and the basic measurements came from the Fine Woodworking plan set I did some improvising and experimentation on my own.

Here is the stretcher from which the table gets its name:

All the parts are mortise and tenon together, with the majority of tenon's being through tenons that are wedged. I have to admit this table covered a lot of new ground for me. I've never wedged a tenon before and its amazing how tight they can get - the final assembly required no clamps at all. Also all the tenons in addition to being wedged were also draw bored using through dowels. Again this was a first for me. I did manage to make a couple of errors in the process that really disappointed me but I'll chalk them up to learning new things and trying to get something done in record time (2 wks to of evenings to complete it). Below shows the table partially assembled as I fitted all the pieces together for the first time.

Here are all the major pieces of the table minus the top in a blown up perspective to see all the joints and the draw bore holes.

Here is the bread board end and before you say anything, yes the pin holes are wrong but alas I didn't have the heart nor the time to start over. What happened was I assembled the bread board ends onto the table and went to drill the holes. Without thinking I went with center of the bread board end and even spaced holes.  Instead I should have layed out where then center of each tenon was and measured in evenly from the edges. Once the table comes back I'll route off the bread board ends and redrill the holes and fill in the existing holes in the tenons. I just needed to get the table done for him. Again this was the first time I've done a table like this and I just plain wasn't thinking.

Here is the table frame all assembled and the finish on. I use a multi-step finish the same as I did for the living room furniture I built a couple of years ago - analine dye, oil stain, amber shellac, poly. The little squares on the table are used to attach the top to the frame - the frame has slots routed in and these pieces have a little lip on them that fit in the slot and then the body is screwed into the bottom of the table top. This allows for expansion and contraction during seasonal wood movements.

Here is the finished table top.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the finished table. I'll have to go over to the store and snap a picture of it with Mattheus' bowls on it.