Oval Coffee Table

Probably 45% of the bundle of pipe strapping blocks that Dad brought me turned out to be red oak. All of it was nominally 2-inches wide by 1-1/4 inches tall by 30 inches long. However, most of it also had many imperfections that had to be dealt with. Most have some measure of bowing, many throw in some twist as well. I cleaned up the wood using my jointer and the resulting usable wood was pretty consistently 1-inch thick.

The hardest part of the project was getting a clean oval. I was not totally satisfied with the end result. The assembly used pocket hole joinery. I has just bought the jig used to create pocket holes, and the tempation to use it overwhelmed my better judgement! The finish used Watco Cherry Danish Oil and a top-coat of water-based polyurathane.

If I was to revisit the project today:

• I would cut out a template of the oval top and use my router with a guide bushing to follow that template. (At the time of the project I did not have guide bushings for my Bosch 1613 router.)
• I would have avoided the pocket joinery, and instead attached skirt-to-leg via sliding dovetails or mortise and tenon.