We’ve arrived at the final part of this series.
I left off last week with Table 1 complete (other than the legs) and Table 2 yet to assemble.
Based on the darkness of the stain, the number and depth of the water rings, and then the warping of the wood, I was thrilled at how clear I got the wood to be.
When I dry fit the pieces together, I was happy at the coloration and the fit of the drawer with the dangly knobs cut off.
And remember how I made my own wood filler? Many people do it wrong, but I thought I’d done it right. And when I applied teak oil, this is what I got:
Yeah, I’m stoked at the result. It’s noticeable if you know where to look, but it’s not calling attention to itself.
So for the last component: The legs!
Now, I had gotten legs for the first step-up end table from a distributor in the south. After delays for the maple legs for that table, I ended up with walnut legs, but the bolts were too long and attached at wrong angles. I had to add a block of wood to make the bolts fit.
Now, this was before I got anything that could grind down the bolt, but still, I ordered legs to get legs, and I got things that had been manufactured poorly.
I contacted different hardwood suppliers and furniture manufacturers in the Los Angeles area to see if they had legs or could recommend a place for hardwood legs.
I really didn’t want rubberwood legs.
What I heard from many sources was, “We don’t do that.”
But others told me to go to tablelegs.com.
I saw the prices for legs and started sweating pretty good. But for me not to have to delay and to get it right the first time, I figured it was worth it.
I ordered the legs, and they arrived looking pretty good!
The mounting plates for the legs were the Waddell ones that I had received for the prior set that included some mismanufactured ones. But maybe the place I’d ordered from opted to get the cheapest items or just dumped them on me because I order at tiny quantities.
I tried to fit the legs to the mounting plates and found that…
Once again the legs and the mounting plates didn’t fit flush.
The culprit?
Both the legs and the mounts! The bolts for the legs frequently were not centered. But this is tablelegs.com! They should be perfect at table legs. And they came highly recommended!
And the Waddell mounting plates just seem to be crap at a high rate.
I wrote to tablelegs.com because I’d spent way too many hundreds of dollars to get things I couldn’t use.
To the credit of tablelegs.com they replaced the legs and the mount plates.
The legs I received the second time around still weren’t perfect, but they were better. As for the mounting plates, I got mostly more garbage.
I was able to cobble together eight matching-ish pairs from the first and second shipments from tablelegs.com. They weren’t perfect, though, and it wasn’t tablelegs.com’s fault.
And the amount of work I had to put into something I’d paid a bunch of money for in order not to do more work bugged me to the point of contacting the Waddell brand.
My first email was on March 18.
No reply.
I tried again on March 30. Still nil.
Third time’s the charm because my April 5 email received a response.
I didn’t care much for how this was going. It made no sense.
Clearly, they were not interested in helping me.
Finally, the two side by side:
I like the one without the dangly knobs better.
At some point, I may cut off the dangly knobs of the other table.
A new project starts next week!
