Inside-out barrel

Have to admit I stole the concept for the design from a design spotlight in Fine Woodworking (Adrian Ferrazzutti  page 83 April 2012).  It was the most challenging project I have encountered in nearly 50 years of destroying forest resources.

16 ribs were steam bent from 3/8 inch cherry and white oak 2 inches wide slats.  The fourteen inch radius was an easy bent.  The cherry and oak pieces were bent together (cherry to the form, oak away from form) and the resulting “matched pair” formed a good glue bonding surface.  I found that bending the pieces and letting them cool – resteam and glue while the piece was still warm and clamped to the template created 16 rib pieces with essential similar spring-back.

The other cutting and milling was straightforward if you use a cutting template shown by Mr. Ferrazzutti.  I followed a well learned mantra – never route what you can saw – I opted for a table saw bevel instead of using the suggested router table.

The real challenge of this project was gluing it together.  It took about 6 attempts and 5 failures to get it right.  The portion of the project took almost as much time as the creation of the ribs.  Scraping and sanding cleaned it to round shape.

A 36 inches diameter glass top seated between homemade walnut pegs finished the table.

Phenol resin glue was need to hold the stress and create a rigid joint. Disadvantage is the cost of the raw material and the realistic 24 hour set time

Four identical bending jig were made from lamination of 3/4 inch plywood and router with a pattern bit.