Samurai Helmet Display Table

The design on this display table was inspired by a cast iron Samurai Helmet. My grandfather was given the helmet by a merchant in Japan while he was station there for the Navy. It has since been passed on to me, and since I think it is a cool looking piece, I decided to make a display table for it.

When deciding on the design, the main thought was that I wanted it to feel like the two pieces always belonged together. I knew that to accomplish that I would need to incorporate some hand joinery. Up until this point, the majority of my builds have been power tool focused, so the idea of doing some hand chiseled mortise and tenon joints was both exciting and frightening at the same time. But I knew that adding in through tenon joints was going to be visually interesting, and more importantly, they would give the table the feel of a Japanese inspired design.

After deciding on the general structure, next up was picking the wood to use. Walnut is definitely one of my favorite species of wood to use, and I already had the storage bench I made from walnut in the same room, so that made the decision for me. But that alone felt bland. I wanted to have some contrast that would bring more interest and highlight the joinery. I have wanted to use Birdseye Maple for a while, but never found the right project for it. My wife and I lean to clean lines and less “busy” looking furniture, and Birdseye Maple is very busy. However, since this table would be anchored by the walnut and the Maple used sparingly for contrast, it was the perfect chance to give it a try. So with that decided, the build began.

Whenever I am trying to learn a new skill, I tend to just jump right in instead of slowly working my way in. In that style, the first mortise I made was for a through tenon on 3-inch-thick solid Walnut. I was extremely careful in marking both sides and used a scrap block to help keep my chisel in line. It was slow work at first, but with each mortise I was able to gain confidence and pick up the pace. This carried over to the through tenon mortises in the Birdseye Maple as well.

All the confidence gained from the mortises going well melted away when I tried the tenons. I do not have a vice on my workbench now, and that definitely was a problem. I intended to simple clamp the work piece to the top of my workbench, but there was a lot of movement and vibration. That combined with my lack of experience left a very rough tenon. Since these would not only be visible, but highlighted in the finished piece, I needed to pivot from my plan and ended up doing all the through tenons with my table saw and cleaned them up with a pull saw along with some chisels. Even if the hand sawing went well, the first tenons needed to be 5 inches long for my design, and my saw wasn’t even big enough to accomplish that. However, I continued to try and with the leg supports I was able to get an accurate enough tenon. It was still a little rough, but since it is not a through tenon, that did not really matter.

The rest of the shaping went smoothly. There were a couple small imperfections on the shoulders of the aprons from cutting too deep with my table saw, but I was able to add in some wedges from scrap pieces to conceal those.

Then came the glue up. In a near disastrous rush, I got two of the legs onto the aprons backwards. This is the tenon that is nearly 5 inches long, and if it was on there for another minute or two, would have never come off. Luckily, I noticed the mistake just in time.

The result of the build is a beautiful display table that exceeded my expectations. I learned a lot, and look forward to honing the new skills I acquired.

For the inside we used a dog bed pad to lie in the bottom and make it more comfortable for him. And since this is mainly just for a comfortable and private sleeping spot we did not make any locking mechanism for it. Is meant to remain open so he can go in and out as he pleases.

Once he saw the end result, but Barker gave me his paw of approval.

Full build video on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/mwAX_dMrBUc