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This is my first major project with the BT3 and the first time I've worked with cherry. I loved working with this wood and the saw performed very well including cutting through 2" stock. It smells very nice when you cut it! The articles and forums on BT3Central were a great resource for this. I've also enjoyed reading through other member's finished projects, many of which are extremely good and I thought I should outline my own project here.
I looked at a lot of children's table sets online and in stores, but really wanted to design my own from scratch. I started out with a great 3D CAD program called Sketch Up. Although it took awhile to detail everything, the effort was worth it. For the curved back piece on the chair, I printed the template in 1:1 scale out on 2 sheets with my inket printer directly from Sketchup and used that to draw the outline on the 6/4 stock.
With a cut list, my wife and I headed out to Lakeshore Hardwoods in Pulaski, NY and selected the best boards of cherry we could find. We had a great time. They have a large selection of all kinds of woods and they were extremely helpful. They reviewed my plans and explained how to select boards and how the pricing works. We walked out with about $75 of cherry which was luckily a little more than what I actually needed.
I then built a tenon jig (birch plywood) from a BT3 Central article (sorry.. I can't seem to find the article anymore. It might have been Jim Freye's?) I also built a very basic version of the SMT mounted taper jig (on the right) which I just clamped to the SMT. I've got to replace those painful wingnuts with some nice knobs, but it worked great on those 2" thick table legs.
The joints on the table are mortise and tenon. I rounded the table corners because my 2 yr old tends to run into them! The chairs were jointed with dowels and gorilla glue. The seat is 3/8" plywood with some cloth we picked up at Joanne Fabrics. The edges are reinforced with extra cloth. There is a 3" foam padding and the cloth is staped around and under the seat. It was more difficult than I thought to get the corners smooth, but it worked out ok.
For the finish, I sanded up 60,150 to 220 grit and went with 5 coats of Waterlox original which provides a waterproof and hard finish that is child safe. I applied one coat with a china bristle brush every 24 hours with 2 days drying on the final coat. The finish was rubbed out with 000 steel wool between coats and on the final coat. This is the best result I've ever had with a finish and it holds up really well to food, crayons and such. No stains used. I'm going to wait the 2-3 years for it to darken naturally.
Overall, took about 2 months working on it here and there on weekends. Had a great time with it and my daughter loves it! (Loves to color ON it too!)
I looked at a lot of children's table sets online and in stores, but really wanted to design my own from scratch. I started out with a great 3D CAD program called Sketch Up. Although it took awhile to detail everything, the effort was worth it. For the curved back piece on the chair, I printed the template in 1:1 scale out on 2 sheets with my inket printer directly from Sketchup and used that to draw the outline on the 6/4 stock.
With a cut list, my wife and I headed out to Lakeshore Hardwoods in Pulaski, NY and selected the best boards of cherry we could find. We had a great time. They have a large selection of all kinds of woods and they were extremely helpful. They reviewed my plans and explained how to select boards and how the pricing works. We walked out with about $75 of cherry which was luckily a little more than what I actually needed.
I then built a tenon jig (birch plywood) from a BT3 Central article (sorry.. I can't seem to find the article anymore. It might have been Jim Freye's?) I also built a very basic version of the SMT mounted taper jig (on the right) which I just clamped to the SMT. I've got to replace those painful wingnuts with some nice knobs, but it worked great on those 2" thick table legs.
The joints on the table are mortise and tenon. I rounded the table corners because my 2 yr old tends to run into them! The chairs were jointed with dowels and gorilla glue. The seat is 3/8" plywood with some cloth we picked up at Joanne Fabrics. The edges are reinforced with extra cloth. There is a 3" foam padding and the cloth is staped around and under the seat. It was more difficult than I thought to get the corners smooth, but it worked out ok.
For the finish, I sanded up 60,150 to 220 grit and went with 5 coats of Waterlox original which provides a waterproof and hard finish that is child safe. I applied one coat with a china bristle brush every 24 hours with 2 days drying on the final coat. The finish was rubbed out with 000 steel wool between coats and on the final coat. This is the best result I've ever had with a finish and it holds up really well to food, crayons and such. No stains used. I'm going to wait the 2-3 years for it to darken naturally.
Overall, took about 2 months working on it here and there on weekends. Had a great time with it and my daughter loves it! (Loves to color ON it too!)
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