Woodworker: David Tschirley

Tschirley built this hall table for an auction at his son’s Montessori school. He aimed to create a light and graceful feeling without using curves. The key design element is the set of eight vertical slats joining the rails to the top. Through-tenons expose the slats in the table top; exposed walnut pins fasten the slats and top together. The slats and rails are designed to be flexible enough to accommodate seasonal movement in the top. The table is finished with four coats of Sam Maloof’s mixture of wipeable polyurethane, tung oil, and boiled linseed oil, followed by a top coat of beeswax mixed with small amounts of polyurethane.

Photo: David Tschirley

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