Making Curved Furniture: Demilune Table

        After studying curved furniture for a few weeks, I decided to take on an American classic: the Demilune table. It took me about 2 weeks of shop time to complete the build, not including around 2-3 days of research, making a drawing package, and a procedure to work from.

        Making this for first time, I was mostly focused on wrapping my head around the complex joinery between the curved and straight components, as well as really perfecting the process of bending wood for this build.

        The next time I make one of these, I would like to add some inlay and marquetry, as was historically done on these tables. It would really take it to the next level, and since I have all the jigs made, it wouldn't take as long.

 Making the Curved Apron

          I decided to do a bent lamination of shopsawn Cherry strips to make the apron. The basic idea of this technique is to glue and clamp thin strips of solid wood around a bending form, which will hold shape once the glue dries.

Re-Sawing & Cherry Strips Before Planing to 1/8" Thickness

         I made a few extra strips to use as cauls to evenly distribute the pressure when clamped around the form. Thankfully, I made the strip much longer than needed as the planer was causing the ends to break apart quite a bit.

        Before gluing anything, I steamed and bent the cherry strips around an mdf form that I made, leaving them overnight (to allow for the increased moisture in the wood to evaporate).

Steam Bending the Cherry Strips

        By steam bending the strips beforehand, there is less risk of any splitting in the wood strips, as well as less tension in the apron, as the lignins in the wood have re-set into the bent shape. This also helped my glue-up go much easier.

Gluing the Cherry Strips in a 'Bent Lamination'

        I had originally planned on jointing one edge then feeding the apron through the planer, however, this didn't work too well when I tried it. The planer knives began pulling it through quite aggressively, without me being able to control the feed by rotating the apron as I had intended. 

         After a close call where the apron nearly snagged the edge of the planer while also being pulled through (risking a breakage), I decided to rip the the apron to final width using a tall fence auxiliary on the table saw. 

Jointing & Ripping the Apron to Width

         After cutting the ends of the apron at 90 degrees, I made a flat spot for the back rail to attach to. I had to add a board to the sled I was using in order to support the apron during the cut. The blade height is raised to equal the thickness of my back rail so that it will be flush with the apron's ends.

Notching a Flat Spot for the Apron to Join the Back Rail

Using Dominoes for Apron - Back Rail Joinery

Leg - Apron Joinery: Bridle Joints

Technical Drawings for Bridle Joints

        I decided to use bridle joints for a few reasons. For starters, the joinery is exceptionally strong, both in compressive strength and resistance to racking. Additionally, the joinery was quite complex to figure out, making it an excellent learning experience.

        Starting with the legs, I used the bandsaw to cut 2 shoulder lines for a slot mortise. I made a spacer to place between my piece and the fence so that I didn't have to re-position the fence every time for the 2nd cut on each leg.

        Afterwards, I used the drill press to separate the middle bit, then cleaned up the bottom with a chisel.

Machining a Slot Mortises on a Leg

 Machining Flat Spots on the Apron

        In order for the slot mortises to be joined to the apron, I needed to make a flat spot on the apron's curve. 

        I decided to make a routing jig for this operation, similar to the one pictured on the right. After marking the leg's outline on the apron's edge, I clamped the apron to the jig and made a few shallow passes with the router until I reached the appropriate depth.

        For the width of the flat spots, I stopped about 1/32" away from the appropriate shoulder length ti fit the legs, and used a test block equal to my leg's width as reference to sand the shoulder to a good fit. 

        I started with the flat spot for the back legs and encountered some issues with the bit getting stuck and making strange circle spots. I switched to a different straight bit and tried to avoid snagging the router's base plate on the ends of the opening when it passed by as well. After making these adjustments for the front leg routing I thankfully didn't have this problem anymore.

        To make the flat spots along the inner curve of the apron, I just used some hand tools, testing with the legs often until I found a good fit.

(Left) Routed Outer Flat Spot
(Middle Pics) Using Hand Tools to Cut Inner Curve Flat Spot
(Right) Test Fit with the Leg

                The flat spots for the front legs were easier going, having 'practiced' on the lesser seen back legs. 

Creating the Flat Spots for the Front Legs
(Left) Outer Flat Spot
(Middle & Right) Inner Flat Spot

Leg Taper & Glue-Up

        After everything fit, I tapered the legs on all four sides using a tapering jig I made. I added a set-screw to the end which could be screwed in and out to control how much material was being taken off, and used various wedges on successive cuts to ensure that equal material was being taken off on each pass.

Tapering Jig for Legs

       
        After tapering the legs, I glued everything up. I tried to use minimal glue because the joinery is plenty strong as is, and cleaning up the squeeze out would be quite a pain.
       
        I must give thanks to my classmate Javad for giving me a hand with the glue-up. Couldn't have done it without him!
 

Glue-Up for Legs / Apron

Making the Tabletop

        The tabletop was actually one of the first things I made in this build. I cut the semicircle from MDF on the CNC and steam-bent 1/8" thick cherry to use for the edging. 

        In order to have pressure along the entire strip, I kept the off-cut for the tabletop to use as a caul and made 3 additional 1/8" cherry strips to use between it and the strip I was actually gluing. This perfectly filled the gap left by the 1/2" CNC router bit that was used to cut the tabletop.

Gluing the Edging on the Tabletop

        After using a hand plane and the time-saver to make the edging flat with the tabletop surface, I added some Sapele veneer on both sides. I think it's a nice accent to the Cherry apron & legs, and it looks amazing when direct sunlight hits it (see final picture).

Veneering the Tabletop

 Finishing

        I used 6 coats of wipe-on poly for the tabletop to give it a bit of extra protection, and 4 coats for everything else. I used figure 8 clips to attach the tabletop to the main body, which also made it easier to remove for sanding & finishing.

After Sanding

After Finishing
(Left / Right) Indoors
(Middle) Outdoors Natural Light