fluted table

The design of this table was inspired by Alan Peters furniture. I have been reading his book recently and was taken with his fluted table tops. One day I realized how he had made them so designed a router table sled to allow me to replicate them. I wasn't brave enough to make a fluted tabletop but have incorporated them into the sides of the table.

American Black Walnut is the timber of choice - I wanted something dark and fine grained to show of the polished facets and curves of the piece.

Here is the timber I need for the project - two inch thick American Black Walnut and some ripple sycamore. Let's get to work.....
I re-sawed the sycamore for the drawer sides. Set aside until later in a warm part of the workshop.
The walnut is too wide for my surface planer so I flattened one side by hand using planes.
Then the thicknesser does the rest.
We need eighteen pieces 40mm wide to make the sides of the table. Rip these off on the table saw, removing the saw marks between cuts.
When all the pieces are cut we will taper them in thickness.
But problems - a large amount of sapwood. What to do now?
I've finished ripping the timber into 40mm wide strips. Sadly, eight out of the twenty four pieces have a large amount of sapwood. Eight of these will be for the top and the lower face will be hidden with the drawer. The others will need to be thicknessed undersize and a slice of clear walnut glued on.
I spent some time arranging the parts to get the best grain match and also to make sure the sap is hidden from sight. Here you can see the underside of the top - the other side is clear of sapwood.
When I'm happy with the arrangement I mark it with a cabinetmakers triangle using a white pencil. It is worth spending a little time arranging the boards. Once you glue them up there's no changing them!!
The corner joint. I have been putting some thought into the joint between the top and the two sides. I wanted to use a mitre joint as this has clean simple lines. But the mitre joint is inherently weak as you join end grain to end grain. So I have decided to use this joint (sorry - I don't know what it is called)
The joint is divided into thirds with a mitre on the outside corner. I cut most of the joint on the table saw using the mitre gauge then cleaned up the mitre using chisels and a shoulder plane.
And it's a winner! From the outside it is a simple mitre but is very strong, even without glue. I am much happier after building this test piece. Let's make the table!
I put the components with the most sap through the planer and took off another 6mm on the sap side...
You can see the difference here.
I crosscut all the parts to 800mm length on the table saw. Now to make some strips of walnut to cover the sap.
I cut 6mm strips of walnut on the band saw and then cleaned them up with a handplane.
I glued on two strips at a time, piggy back style...
Make sure the strips are correctly aligned before gluing up.
When the glue has cured plane the strip flush with a hand plane.
Thickness plane the capped pieces to the same thickness as the others. Now we can cut some joinery!

Fluted Table