For some odd reason, I was enticed by the lure of inexpensive wooden TV trays that appeared several years ago. The species of wood is usually defined no more precisely than "hardwood" or "natural solid wood". I figured for the ten bucks or whatever it cost, I could take up a challenge to make something better looking than a TV tray out of one. Well, I'm pretty sure I managed "different", but maybe not quite "better". I used a portion of the top for the table top, of course. I then cut up the legs and laminated them to make a solid block, which was used to form the central sphere. I used separately-purchased Maple dowels for the legs and top support.
The sphere was made by starting with the laminated cube and cutting all the edges at 45 degrees. I then cut the resulting edges at 22.5 degrees (plus or minus about 5 degrees maybe) resulting in a multifaceted sphere-like shape. I drilled a hole in one face, glued in a dowel and then put the dowel in my drill press. With the piece spinning, it was sanded with the aid of a circular form made to hold sandpaper in the correct shape until it was round in all dimensions (by the way, I wouldn't recommend this as a particularly good way to make a sphere). After that was done, it was a matter of drilling leg and support holes and inserting dowels of the appropriate lengths. It was a good lesson that if you are going to spend many hours making something, you might as well spend a few bucks on decent wood. That would have mattered more to me if the end result was a bit more practical or good looking, but hey, it was a cheap lesson.
| Material: | Cheapo TV tray, maple dowel |
| Finish: | Polyurethane varnish |
| Size: | ~23" tall |
| Done: | December 1997 |
