The Leopardwood Tables
The cat’s meow
What is it?
When I saw Leopardwood for the first time, I can only think about my mother-in-law as she is a BIG fan of leopard print. So after a few sarcastic comments, and some discussion, we decided to make her some tables for her new patio. She had some nice Adirondack chairs, but no place for her drink, book, or phone. So we solved the problem with these twin tables made of Leopardwood and White Oak. The tables are finished with five layers of Spar Urethane (thinned and unthinned).
What did we learn?
This was a fun project. It was our first time working with Leopardwood which is a pretty hard, yet splintery wood. The sawdust from it surprised us and caused many finger splinters as we figured out how to modify our process to handle it a little less. Despite that “feature”, it was relatively easy to work with and sanded pretty smooth.
Outside of working with whiskey barrel staves, it was also our first time working with White Oak. After cutting the legs, we saw what we thought were some kind of strange worm marks in the wood. We put questions out to a couple woodworking groups and learned that they weren’t worm marks, but medullary rays. They are a grain feature of White Oak, as well as some other wood species. This added a neat aesthetic to the overall table as they appear like spots or stripes on the legs to go along with the leopard print of the Leopardwood.
Our biggest learning in this project was joinery. We learned and tried a couple different methods of wood joinery to bind everything together including dowels, half-laps, and, what we think is called, a doweled tenon lock. Even the table top is fastened to the base using oak dowels. We custom-made all the dowels from blocks of White Oak using a dowel bit on the drill press. In the end, with no screws and minimal glue, the tables are strong!
In Closing…
We are thankful for our mom / mother-in-law. We give her grief, sometimes well-deservedly, but she’s a keeper. We are glad we were able to make these for her and make her back patio just a little more utilitarian. This was our first set of tables, but definitely not our last. We thank the Lord for these gifts and maybe even for our sweet lady.
