Today we are going to be starting a mission style end table build.  I’m going to try doing things a little differently this time by doing a multi-part video, rather than cramming everything into one, so hopefully you like the format.  If so, or not, let me know down in the comments. I hope that this gives a little better insight into the whole design and build process.

The first step is the initial planning and design.

I actually have fairly specific parameters and dimensions for this build because I’m making it mainly to hold a dollhouse for my daughter.  My grandfather actually made this dollhouse a number of years ago before he passed away with the intention of giving it to my children, so I think it deserves something special to sit on.

I don’t have a whole lot of criteria for the overall style, the room that it’s going in is fairly non-descript, so I thought this would be a good chance to do a mission style – arts and crafts piece.  My goal is to do a Morris chair eventually, so this should be a good introduction.

I use Blender just because it’s what I’m familiar with, but you could use Sketchup or any other modeling program.  Obviously this step isn’t necessary if you’re already working off a plan, but I’m putting my own design together, so wanted to try to get the dimensions correct before cutting the wood.

I started with the top because I knew the dimensions I needed to match the dollhouse.  I also knew how high I wanted it, so adding the legs was easy, but getting the proportions looking right was tricky.  I played around with different leg thicknesses until I got something that I think should look nice, then started adding some other elements.

I knew that I wanted to add a drawer, but with the short table I didn’t want it too tall, so I played around a little bit with the apron height.  Then finally, because this is a mission style piece, I added in the slats on the sides and played around with the number and width of them.

Once I was happy with the overall proportions, I cleaned up the mesh a little bit off camera and did a few renders to show off the final design.  Overall I think it looks nice and should fit the need well – it’s always interesting to see how 3D models look in real life, so I’m excited to get started building.

With all the pieces cut to rough size, I work on planing everything down to their final dimensions.  This step is quite tedious, so I typically don’t do this all at once, but rather as I need the pieces.  This part is in real time so you can see how long it takes to get a couple of flat faces and a square edge.  For this small piece, which is one of the front rails, it takes about 4 or 5 minutes to get close enough.

I normally start with a couple swipes of the jack plane with a cambered iron to get rid of the saw marks, then switch to the jointer plane to get a nice flat face.  If you listen to the sound that the plane makes and also look at the shaving to make sure I have a full length, full width shaving, then I know I have a flat face.

Once that’s established I mark the thickness with a marking gauge and flip it over to plane it down to final thickness.  I actually don’t need a 4-squared board for this piece, so don’t really bother checking the squareness at this point – it’s fairly close, which is all I really care about.

As I plane down to the right thickness you can see that I’m constantly checking the marks both by eye and by feel.  Sometimes the marks can be hard to see, but as you get close to the marks you can typically feel the gauge line. You know you’re pretty much done when you get little strings on the corners of the face.

After a quick square check, I mark the flat faces and move on to the next one.

That’s it for the first part and if you found this section a little slow, hopefully the joinery and assembly in the next part will be a little more exciting.