“Roses”, Finished Federal Hall Table

As promised here are some photos of my recently finished hall table. When I posted inlaying the bellflowers, I had planned to take ongoing photos of the progress and write several blog articles along the way, but my time has been so consumed with the making of this piece, that I haven’t been able to take the time to write about!

Well here are a few pictures. All the studio photos were shot by Ben Owen. If you get a chance check out his website, he is a wonderful photographer.

You can tell from the pictures why I entitled it “Roses.” The primary wood for the table is mahogany and Asian satinwood.

The serpentine sides are overlaid with oval satinwood insets then crossbanded with mahogany and laced with holly stringing. All the stringing is holly with ebony and holly banding.

The small roses were done using the piece-by-piece method and the Chevalet.

I did the top rose bouquet entirely with a handheld fret saw, using the bevel method. I used multiple woods for the inlay including holly, maple, box elder, Asian satinwood, pink ivory, Indian rosewood, ebony, poplar, lignum vitae and cherry.  There was no dye, stain, or paint used on any of the inlaid roses, although I used an ancient technique of shading using hot sand to “burn” the wood. All the veneer was shop-sawn and finished to 1/16″ thickness.

The drawers are joined with handcut half blind houndstooth dovetails, whew, what a mouthful, and challenging too! The drawer sides are curly maple.

The drawers are crossbanded in mahogany with double holly stringing and satinwood insets. The knob profile mimics the top edge profile, complete with a bentwood holly inset, about 1/32″ in thickness.

The Finish is Danish oil with a hand rubbed French polish.

Frank Strazza