Help me choose a knob...

[afterglow]

I'm on the home straight now for my wee side table and just need to make a decision about which knob to go with - traditional shaker mushroom pull or funky modern triangle.

I've made them both and would like opinions please...

Table is made from American white oak and knobs are both some dark stuff I've got lying around - probably mahogany I think. Polishes up very dark nutty brown anyway, which goes nicely with the oak as an accent detail.

Table with round knob (bit fuzzy - sorry about that):




Triangular knob:




Close-up of triangle:




Side-on shot of shaker-style turned knob:





I prefer the round knob, but Mrs Afterglow and our two offspring both prefer the triangle. I had my heart set on triangular knobs right up until I put the round one on, which I just loved.

Main reason I haven't stuck the triangle in place yet is that it's not perfectly made. It isn't properly symmetrical because I hand-carved the underneath to give something to grip onto. I'm bugged by my lack of carving ability

Cheers,

Lee - looking forward to finishing this long-awaited table.

[wizer]

Must admit the triangle does it for me

[Alf]

Hmm... Lot of angles going on there, what with the chamfer on the underside of the top and the tapering legs. But on the other hand I like the idea of continuing that theme rather than introducing a curve... Have you considered an isosceles trapezium instead? (long edge uppermost) Angled to tie in with that chamfer? No, perhaps angled ends midway twixt the chamfer and the taper? Hard to tell if it'd work from the pics, but it suddenly struck me as maybe worth trying. Not helpful when you're trying to get the FT finished, I know.

Cheers, Alf

P.S. Nice dovetails - forgotten them.

[promhandicam]

Hi Lee. Nice looking table

Regarding the knobs, the triangular one doesn't do it for me - it just doesn't look right. I also agree with Alf's comment about not introducing curves into something so angular. So . . . . how about a square knob with a similar profile to the table top - ie 45deg chamfer. I think I'd be tempted to do it in white oak rather than a contrasting wood but it would be interesting to compare the two. IIRC, Lord Nibbo did some drawers with square knobs not too long ago and posted some pictures - not here but on the UKW forum. Might be worth a look.

HTH,

Steve

[paulchapman]

I don't like the triangular one at all. The round one looks much better, in my view - it's how you would expect a drawer knob to look.

Cheers

Paul

PS Nice table

[dom]

Traditionally it should be round.
But I like the triangular one, or as Alf said how about trapezoidal with the sides of the knob at the same angle as the tapers, but splayed in the opposite direction.
Could you route the curves underneath from a larger piece of wood and then cut the knob out ?

[evergreen]

Lee

Looks like you've bookmatched the grain on the top - very nice. And the dovetails are very tidy too. Now, about this knob. If you want Shaker, then it would have to be a round knob. I've just flipped through "Shaker - life, work and art" by June Sprigg and David Larkin. Acres of cupboards and drawers - all fitted with round knobs. And they just look right.

If you've got doubts, then I'd go for the safety shot - fit the round one. If you do decide to fit the triangular one, use a screw so you can change it later.

Regards.

[afterglow]

Wizer said

Must admit the triangle does it for me

which is precisely what the Afterglow clan have agreed too. When I saw your reply this morning, I began to feel I was destined to follow through with my drawer handle of triangular goodness (anybody else remember the Dairylea adverts of the '80's?)


Meanwhile Alf uttered the stutter-inducing

Hmm... Lot of angles going on there, what with the chamfer on the underside of the top and the tapering legs.

And the funny thing is, I'd never really paid any attention to this whatsoever. But she's right. I hate it when that happens, which with Alf, is pretty often

But then she leapt in with the masterful idea of an isosausages trapeze-act, or some-such sounding idea. I like this idea. I like it rather a lot, in fact.

and then she kindly signed off with

P.S. Nice dovetails - forgotten them

and I confess it wasn't entirely an innocent camera angle that showed them off ;D It was 4 years since I last looked and I thought they deserved a wider public viewing


Steve chipped in with

Hi Lee. Nice looking table

which is the sort of comment I'm happy to receive all day long. And while you're at it, feel free to exalt me ;D - I have been brave enough to post pictures of work that is developing a lovely patina from its age before it's even finished.

In fact, Steve suggested a square knob. Which takes me right back to the original December 2002 design I found last night for this table, which has exactly that on it. Although it's still in a contrasting wood. Too many issues of Furniture & Cabinetmaking gone into the throne room with me over the years, I'm afraid Steve.


Paul thinks the table should have the round knob, since that's the traditional way. And given that it didn't explode in my hands while I took the skew chisel to it (a real novelty in these parts) it does deserve better than second place. I got the design from Christian Becksvoort's book, "The Shaker Legacy" - one of my favourite furniture-porn books.

So, I think I'll have a go at making both a trapezoid and a square knob and will post those for your further delectation at the weekend. I'll use Dom's suggestion of routing a larger piece of stock before cutting it down.

Ooh, nearly forgot - Evergreen's comments about the top -

Looks like you've bookmatched the grain on the top - very nice

is spot on. I can remember reading a couple of Krenov books at the time I was making this and was so inspired I spent a good hour or two just trying to get the right grain match for the top. Here's another view of the table-top



It's actually made from a thick piece of oak that I resawed on my dinky bandsaw and then a third board was split down the middle, jointed up and glued onto either side of the top. The result is the bookmatched arching feature in the middle and the wider matching up at the edges of the sapwood, which I turned in towards the centre of the table for a more pleasing look.

There's no finish on any of the table surfaces yet, although straight from the plane they're pretty good. It'll probably get a few coats of a danish oil or similar.

When trying to see how I'd made the top, it took me a couple of minutes to find all 3 joints and I realised that I'd got a piece up to the level I'd love to work all the time. My 13yr old son, AG Junior, didn't believe it was more than 1 plank until I showed him the details :DI

I really think I "get" what Krenov talks about when selecting and using wood.

I'll post more piccies at the weekend of the yet-to-be-made alternative knobs.


Cheers,

Lee

P.S. Thanks for all your help and kind words. It really does encourage and reward my efforts.

[modernist]

Despite the wise opinions above I'm with you on the triangle. It gives the whole piece an edge which is missing with the round one and harmonises with the other features.

Lovely table, particularly the top.

Brian

[jaco]

Lee, very nice looking table!

I would go with the triangle. To hell with traditional looking things. You are creating an art work. Individualism!

[Alf]

I wonder if there's any way of getting the contrast but by using oak with the end grain showing - to pick up the design feature of the end grain of the top also showing at the front. Only problem may be ensuring the knob doesn't just break into a thousand tiny pieces (or just in half).

Now I must go and find a handy wall against which to repeatedly place my head; fancy walking right into that dovetail drive-by trap.

Cheers, Alf

[afterglow]

Right then - that's a couple more votes for the triangle (popular with friends as well as family, it now seems). I'm also warming to the triangle the more times I look at it on screen and because several more pieces I'm musing over making for the lounge are sketched with trianglular knobs and they do get that definite "edge" that Brian mentioned and that certainly appeals. I just want to be sure I can live with it!

Alf mused on the possibility of using oak...

I wonder if there's any way of getting the contrast but by using oak with the end grain showing - to pick up the design feature of the end grain of the top also showing at the front.

Since my original design had a square knob that got switched to triangular half-way through, I'm going to have a go at a square end-grain knob out of oak, just to see what I'd originally got in mind.

So, be prepared for more viewing of knobs at the weekend.

Cheers,

Lee - looking forward to a bit more workshop time tomorrow.

[thallow]

Lee - just my tuppen'worth - beautiful piece, but please anything but the triangle for me...

I would love to see the 'square end grain out of oak' - nice idea!

[afterglow]

Update!

The table knobs didn't happen at the weekend - I got side-tracked by the challenge of mounting the table-top to the frame (didn't actually plan this from the start). I also discovered a really nasty scratch in the top that I had to get out using a scraper plane. Rather pleased with the results which I'll post pictures of sometime.

Finally figured out how to make buttons and cut some rather unpleasant looking slots for them to fit into with a biscuit-cutting router bit. The good thing is that I got to play with my Woodrat for the first time in 4 years in the process of making the buttons.

So, next weekend I'll be making some knobs. Probably. At least, if I don't get distracted by something else first.

Thanks for all your opinions and thoughts - I've also shown it a bunch of folks I know and got very mixed views - some love the triangle, others love the round.

Current plan is to switch the contrasting wood from the mahogany you've all seen to some cocobolo that I bought just for the purpose. There will be a square version and possibly a triangular one, with a definite maybe on the isosceles trapezium too.

I'm rather stuck on the contrasting woods idea, it's something I really like seeing, but the mahogany's fine grain just doesn't work with the oak. The cocobolo is much darker and has a much more complementary colour tone and a more dramatic grain pattern that I figure will work very well with the oak. We'll see...

Cheers,

Lee

[mel]

well if i had a choice

id choose a BIG one ;D

well someone had to say it ;D ;D

[afterglow]

Now then, the table remains knobless for the moment but I have begun putting the finish onto it.

Hunting around the workshop, I came across a tin of Organoil Hard Burnishing Oil, which I used several years ago to finish a marking gauge I made.

Well, I applied this to the table and it came up beautifully - not darkened significantly but really bringing out the grain in a most pleasing manner. However, it was only after getting her all oiled up that I found the data sheet on the Internet, from which I now quote...

"[the] oil, once cured, is hard and water resistant. It contains Tung oil which by nature is a resinous oil. This means it will harden by itself, but this curing can take up to 8 weeks to occur (12 in winter). Burnishing reduces this curing time dramatically. The term burnishing refers to finishing oiled timber by using heat and friction (by wet sanding) to speed up the curing time - without the use of chemicals or chemical reactions as in a polyurethane."

Now, I put the finish on yesterday with the idle thought that I'd be able to bring it into the house next weekend and get it out of my workshop! But 8-12 weeks sounds a bit ludicrous.

I have wiped it on and not gone for the huge soaking that I have done in the past, and it's not gone blotchy at all yet, so the finish has coated well.

My question is simply - if I give it another coat or two this week, how long should I leave it before putting it onto a carpeted floor? I want rid of it from my workshop to avoid it getting damaged and to clear the space for my next project.

Ideas? Thoughts? Experiences? All welcome...

Lee

[wizer]

just stick some paper under it for a couple of week, it it absorbs the finish then you know it's got to go back in the workshop.

[afterglow]

Finally got it finished (well, thought it was anyway, but more of that later...).

Here are a couple of shots - first one with the celebratory drink on top - really pleased with the way the top has come up with this oil, especially the stripe of sapwood down each side. Of course, I have yet to learn why sapwood is generally left out of furniture




Next is just another gratuitous shot of the table with the drawer open:




And following in the trend of Craig's list of things he's learnt from the bathroom cabinet (great idea & helpful, btw Craig) I shall offer my thoughts on this table...

1. Square is a real world, measurable thing, not something I can expect to happen straight off my planer/thicknesser.

2. Square is very important - in fact, table legs might wobble even if they're all the same length if the assembly isn't 100% square.

3. Just because a tool is called a square, it doesn't mean it's actually square

4. Whatever method you use to prepare a large panel, make sure you use it across the whole panel. I had to scrape out a deep and nasty scratch from the top; the scraped area took the oil better than the non-scraped bits.

5. Think through the whole project methodically before cutting it or joining it. For example I didn't cut slots for the buttons to fix the top until the frame was glued up. Made a bit of a mess with a slotting router bit that's a great pity to have to admit

6. The job isn't finished until the drawer stop is fitted too

Cheers,

Lee

[johnboy]

Nice table Lee, I like the contrast of the sapwood on the top.

A biscuit jointer can be used to cut the slots for buttons if you forget them before asy (not that I have had to do that you understand)

John

[paulchapman]

Very nice, Lee - and I'm glad to see it has a round knob

Cheers

Paul

[engineerone]

looks nice mate,

like you i like sapwood as a contrast. my understanding is that

a/ it might be weaker than heartwood, and break across the intersection

b/ it takes more stain to get it the same colour as the rest of the piece, however, now more of us like light wood, it offers a difference to allow us to show that it is hand made, not machine.

i agree wholeheartedly about square sometimes you have to make your tenons a little smaller than the mortices to ensure
the legs match at the bottom

like the dovetails on the drawer, nice pattern looks very hand made.
paul

[Alf]

By gum, It Lives!

Looks great, matey. Although are you sure about that knob...

Cheers, Alf

[dom]

Nice one Lee,

[modernist]

Dairy Lee lives on to fight another day.

V Nice.

Brian