I’ve done a couple of projects for the Roseland Women’s Club. They’re updating their facilities and had been storing tables along the back wall. It was kind of an eyesore—you walk into the building and see tables and chairs leaning against the back wall. So in keeping with the look, as seen here, https://craftisian.com/projects/14505-commemorative-plaque-wall, the request was for a box which could store the folding tables and double as a serving counter when they host catered events.
The box is simple: two 73” long sides put together with halflap joints, joined together with 32” long boards top and bottom, a face frame and door. Screwing the pine boards across the back, coupled with the face frame prevents any racking. The main structure is made using Bigbox 2”X4”X8’ premium white wood. The face frame and door were made using the same material but milled square.
There’s no top yet as the club hasn’t decided if they want to use some old cypress boards which are in storage or new Sapele. They’re in process for designing a new kitchen so they take up the discussion this coming week.
This is the box and door, which opens from the right. The door is basically frame and panel with stub tenons on each horizontal board.
The two dark blue pieces of painter’s tape are covering rare earth magnets which has fresh epoxy. I’m not sure the magnets are strong enough to hold the door closed but it’s worth trying as it’s a clean look. To get the hinges set properly, I laid the door and face frame on a flat surface, put a level along their bottoms, and sat the hinges in place and scored the outlines. Then, I set the fence on the hand held router to the distance needed for the hinge plate. I carefully cut the hinge mortises freehand using the router with the fence. There’s a finger pull routed into the door stile—they didn’t want a handle sticking out. Same basic procedure: set the fence on the router so the core box bit was centered and route a short groove.
Thanks. The club is also deciding how they want to store the chairs. When they first asked me about it, I drew them a wall-attached cabinet having 3 sections with the chairs 2-up. Then, they thought they would just buy a couple of chair racks but they don’t like the look. I think they’re going to do one row of 2-up chairs in a narrow cabinet with 3 rows of chairs on the floor forming bench seating along the back wall. Given the size of the folding chairs, they would have a roughly 10’ long bench next to a 20” wide wall attached cabinet.
At first look I thought that was for the chairs (load from the open top). Then I figured you had the table top hinged over the side and it'd flip up and over to form the table top.
I think your idea is much cleaner and that Sapele will look great (if they say yes!)
Nice job... the next conundrum would be to use one of those stacked tables as the tabletop... just a tiny issue of making what fits inside, fit outside... get any SWMBO onto it and it'll probably be solved in minutes.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Well, the women decided they want the old, old rustic cypress used as the top. 1 board 14-1/2” wide, about 12’ long; the second about 17’ or so. The finished length of the top needs to be about 80” and the width 39-40”. Their instructions were cut the boards as little as possible and make it work.
So, I did. Very uneven glue up. Dramatic cracks which will get butterflied and warpage which required hand planing to get edge to edge contact.
Here we are in the bed of the truck; coming back to the shop after dry fit. They want me to just “make it work.”
Never done something like this; it feels wrong but the customer is always right—even when they not paying.
These two boards were some kind of Roseland town signs—official or otherwise. The town recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. They were found in the rafters of a pole barn by a more recent resident who was doing some cleaning. We’re not sure what they said but the tight growth rings show they’re old growth. The RWC is going to ask the local historian to search for pictures of the boards in use.
The sets of holes show these were bolted to posts—could have been entrance or exit messages.
