My Designs,  Woodworking

The “Eider” Sofa Table

What is a sofa table? Well, it’s a wee table that aims to slide in beside you when you are sitting on the sofa to give you somewhere flat to put your mug. No more trying to balance your mug on the cushion next to you! No more biscuits sliding off your plate!

And here it is. It looks relatively simple – but the cantilever design needs to have a secure join where the legs meet the top and base. For these joints I chose to make half dovetail joints – these give a slightly larger glue area, a shoulder and look nice. I further reinforced them with some Miller dowels – probably overkill but they have the advantage of also adding a nice little detail in oak.

It’s all very well drawing a curve on the computer but then you need to actually make it! But a wee bit of Pythagoras was able to yield the radius from the chord length and arc height. The radius of the curve on each leg is 135 cm.

The top and base are made from some of my olive ash – a stunningly figured wood with amazing colours from pale cream right through to dark chocolate which matches the walnut legs perfectly. Four low profile feet create a shadow gap so that the base ‘floats’ on the ground (and also slides a little better on the carpet).

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