The third coat went on the drawers last night, and this morning I light sanded with 320 and applied a coat of Feed ‘n’ Wax! The extra effort to get a good grain match finally pays off, as the drawers sort of blend into the panels around them:

The table has been sitting in the garage for a while and so the coat of Feed ‘n’ Wax that everything has has noticeably faded, so the drawers are a little more conspicuous at the moment. Once I bring everything into the house I’ll do another hit of Feed ‘n’ Wax to bring everything back to life.

Before installing each drawer I rubbed some parrafin wax against the edges of the drawer pocket in the table where any wood-to-wood contact would happen to really help them slide around as friction-free as possible. I also stuck a little metal plate to the back of each drawer which connects with the magnet at the end of each spring latch to hold the drawer in place when it’s closed so they don’t bounce off and re-open themselves:

• 
• 

My fabric order should be delivered today so if everything goes well I should be able to move this into the house this weekend! The only things left at that point will be the top leaves and the dice towers.

This weekend was a flurry of activity to try and get the table inside the house! There were several things going on simultaneously (switching between projects as I waited for glue or finish to dry) but I’ll put the various parts together into single posts. First, the drawer bottoms.

I started down the path of making the table top a bright red, but after looking at some samples we realized that having the whole table that color might burn into our retinas, so we decided on a navy blue for the top. I still loved that red though, so I lined the bottom of the drawers with it instead!

I did all of this outside to make sure that any sawdust floating around the shop didn’t get embedded into the suede, never to be removed.

First, I glued a piece of the suede to a thin foam pad using 3M Super 77, a maker’s best friend:

• 
• 

The pad makes sure the surface has a little bit of give to it, which makes it easier to pick up flat things like playing cards. After drying for 30 minutes or so, I cut the sandwich using a template I cut that matched the size of the bottom of the drawer:

• 
• 

Turns out that cutting fabric with a razor blade is not the best way to do things. If it didn’t cut perfectly through everything, it ended up pulling out threads and turning into a mess. I eventually just used the blade to cut through the foam, and then picked the piece up and cut through the fabric with scissors, using the size of the cut foam as the guide.

I did that five more times and the drawers were officially done!

The foam/fabric sandwich is just sitting on the bottom of the drawer, not glued down. This makes them easy to remove/replace if the time ever comes.

It’s finally time. Here’s the old dining table:

I’ve owned that for almost 20 years at this point, even before I met my wife! It was a good, solid table, but it’s time for it to find a new home (we gave it away on Craig’s List). We’re going to keep the chairs for now, but I’m thinking about building some to match the table. Chairmaking is a whole other branch of woodworking that I’ve never got into, but it looks like it’s time.

As I thought about moving the new table into the house I figured it should be as light as possible, since it’s already pretty massive as is (84” long by 54” wide). I removed all of the modules and ended up with a huge pile of bolts:

• 
• 

This worked out okay because I also wanted to apply another coat of Feed ‘n’ Wax as it had been a couple of months since the original coat for some of the pieces.

Then I unscrewed the legs and my brother-in-law and I lifted it off the legs and carried it into the house through the front door. We propped it up on the dining chairs until I could get the legs back on, then set it down, officially in the dining room! After a coat of wax I put in the drawers:

Next up, the play surface!

This step is one I had been dreading for months now. I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to get the fabric smooth enough, or that the insert wouldn’t fit in the vault area, or that the drawers would scrape against the underside when opening and closing…but it was finally time to just build it and see what happens.

I originally had a sheet of 1/8” hardboard for the bottom, but I found that it was so thin that it started to sag where the drawer pockets were, the drawers would drag against it. I decided to upgrade to 1/4” plywood for more stiffness. I picked up a piece from Home Depot and cut it to size. I don’t know how I went so long without a good track saw…I love this thing:

• 
• 

Then into the back yard with the Super 77. The first layer would be 2mm neoprene so that surface had some give:

There were some wrinkles, but I hoped that as I glued it down and stretched it they’d come out. For the most part they did, but in retrospect I probably should have tried to steam them out first. I figured that once the suede was over top that the crazy color variations based on what direction the fabric was laying down would hide any remaining issues.

I’d spray about 12” or so, smooth down the neoprene, then roll up the remaining part to around the edge of the glue line, and repeat.

I let that sit for an hour or so, then brought out the micro suede. It had some wrinkles from shipping so I put in the dryer on the steam cycle (testing on a smaller scrap first to make sure nothing bad happened!). It came out perfectly smooth, which was a huge relief.

I laid it down over the neoprene and cut it fit, then got to gluing, using the same technique as the neoprene, but this time I sprayed both surfaces to really get a good hold:

• 
• 
• 

I left about an inch and a half around the edges, gave them a blast of glue, then rolled the fabric of the edge and gave it a good stretch as I pressed it into the glue. I was really worried about this part, making sure the fabric didn’t have any weird puckers at the very edge, but it ended up laying down super smooth!

Now came the moment of truth. I cut the board about 1/16” short on both edges, figuring that the fabric wrapped around the edge would make that up and give me a snug fit. I put the long edge down and dropped the other, and as it sloooowly fell into place I knew it was good: the air underneath was cushioning the fall because the fit was tight enough that it could just barely find its way out.

It came out so good, I just kept walking back into the room to stare at it! I’ll have more beauty shots later, but now I need to finish the leaves so that we can actually use it for Thanksgiving!

Okay, one more shot:

Yesterday I went by my local hardwood store to look for some boards for the table leaves. The sapele selection was pretty bad: there were only one or two boards I’d consider acceptable for the top. I spoke with Dan, my favorite sales guy there, and he said they weren’t getting any more until next Friday (Nov. 17). That doesn’t give me enough time to build the leaves in time for Thanksgiving…

He mentioned that they did have some 1/4” sapele plywood though. I was going to need some for an upcoming project anyway, so I quickly thought up an alternate top in my head: cut the 1/4” ply to fit the vault opening of the table, and then build a simple support frame underneath (out of 2x4s probably) to support it and bring it up to the level of the rest of the table. That should work just fine for a couple of weeks until I can go through the new sapele stock and pick out some good boards!