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Modern Sofa | Plans

My first attempt at a modern sofa! I was inspired by a modern sofa I saw with the “N” shaped leg and took my own spin at it. The other design feature of this modern sofa is the orange heart pinstripe on the walnut legs, which really pops!

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Materials Used:

I found a deal on some walnut beams and because I need some thicker than normal pieces for this build, I’ll just resaw what I need from these. I could’ve started from regular 4/4 and 6/4 stock, but this is my only chance to know I have big wood.

After jointing to get two flat faces that are square to each other. That way I have a flat surface on both the table and fence of the bandsaw. I resaw some pieces about 1 3/8” thick and some 1” thick boards as well.

The bandsaw leaves a rough surface, so after each cut I go back to the jointer before cutting the next board.

Because I jointed between each cut, each board has a good face and a rough face. I’ll run them through the planer to get them. But before breaking down the material anymore, I need to mark out my pieces.

I spray glued the new paper templates to some scrap 1/2” plywood I had and then set to cutting them out.

See this gallery in the original post

For the long straight cut I decided to try out my new track saw, and it worked great at giving me a straight cut.

For the angles on the end I use the laser on my miter saw to match the angle and then cut.

But some angles were greater than my miter saw could go. So I made a quick wedge to clamp against my fence that would bring the angle into my saws range and snuck up on the line.

For the curves, I go over to the bandsaw and cut just outside the line. For long fair curves like these, I find it easiest to stay on track by using one hand to move the piece forward and keep the other hand stationary on the bed to steer the piece.

Of course the bandsaw is a bit rough, so I smooth the curves on my oscillating a sander. Hand sanding, like all other forms is masochsim, is always an option if you don’t have a spindle sander - you do you.

Now I can mark out each of my leg pieces. I take care to avoid any defects and also pick where the grain matches the piece. So the pieces that are curved, I try to lay out with curving grain. They’ll be a bit stronger this way, but mostly just look better.

For the orange heart the layout is all about maximing material. It’s crazy expensive so I’m jigsawing the pieces out of the board I have and don’t have much margin for error.

So I’m not doing much larger glue ups than I need, and because I need some of the orange heart off cuts in order to make all my pieces.. I tape the legs together and rough cut them on the bandsaw.

Here I’m using the orange heart offcuts from the long pieces to make the blanks for the small pieces. A wiser man would’ve cut down the walnut to match the orange heart first, but what could go wrong.

Anyway, orange heart is a tropical oily wood so to make sure I won’t have any issues with the glue I wipe it down with mineral spirits to remove any surface oil and remove the residue once it dries. Then I mix up some 2:1 Total Boat Epoxy and spread it. Because it’s not water based like regular PVA wood glue, the epoxy is another extra bit of insurance that I won’t have any issues gluing the oily orange heart.

To adhere the templates to my material I’m using the ole tape and CA glue trick that everyone is in love with. For CA glue I’ve been using Starbond for a few months now and it’s been great. I have a discount code below that’ll get you a 10% discount on their website.

Then onto the bandsaw to cut close to the template before using a template bit at the router table.

And for final shaping, everything finally makes it to the router template to be template routed. A freehand router would also work, but my router table has pretty good dust collection when I remember to open the blast gate to it.. and I want to keep selling plans for this on my website.

With the leg pieces to final shape, I put the drum sander head in my Woodmaster and give them a quick sand. I also hit the straight edges with my jointer plane just to make sure they’re dead straight and smooth.

And I start the joinery process for these legs. I’m going to use dowels. I made some spacer blocks to make sure my doweling jig was properly positioned and consistent on both sides.

To layout the long arch on the board I marked the midpoint and then used a long piece of aluminum as a drawing bow. And if you don’t happen to have a jigsaw, just use a bandsaw to cut the curve.

To smooth out the cut I used a card scraper. Handing sand is also an option, but that doesn’t give me the same burning in my thumbs as a good scraping.

Onto the back frame. To make sure everything fits well, I use relative measurements to mark all of my cuts.

The top piece gets glued on. I use some brad nails to hold it together so I can keep moving.

The bottom section of the back frame will entirely sit between the sides of the frame. So I drill the pockets holes and glue and brad it together before adding it to the sides.

If you’re wondering what the cushions will sit on, this is it. I’m using a piece of walnut plywood that I’ll edge band in walnut. My track saw and table saw make quick work of breaking it down to size. And glue and brad nails handle the edge banding. To make sure everything is flush I install the edge banding long and flush cut to fit.

The back cushions will fit on slats. So I cut them and then brad nail them into place. Seeing how these fit explain why the back frame was made the way it was.

And now for finishing. I’m using Total Boat Amber Halcyon finish that’s thinned 20% and spraying it on. It is water based, so off camera I misted everything with water and then sanded it down. Pre-finishing everything before assembly probably would have been better. But I was working against a deadline to bring this to a local show so for speed I sprayed it after assembly.

And for the final assembly and reveal.. don’t forget this is part of a set, so if you want to see the coffee table and console table, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell so you don’t miss them. Thanks for watching, until next time, make time to make something.