Things You'll Need

Instructions

1

Assemble your materials. You'll need a piece of heavy plate glass, shaped in a sort of bulbous triangle with one side of about fifty inches, one about forty and one about thirty-six inches, with finished edges. For the base, you'll need two pieces of wood, each about an inch and three-quarters thick. Each of them should be about thirty-six inches long and sixteen inches tall. To join the base, find a hardwood dowel and a matching (very sharp) drill bit for the pivot pin assembly.
2

Shape your wood. The original Herman Miller production line included birch, walnut and cherry. Today the tables are manufactured in lacquered, walnut and cherry finishes. The two "biomorphic" table bases are identical, inverted canoe-shaped pieces with tall, pointed "sterns" about fifteen inches tall when finished. The seven and a half inch tall "bows" are notched on the museum piece just at the breaks on the outer curves. The beauty of the piece depends in large part on the attractiveness and skill of finish on these pieces.
3

Connect your finished base. Drill dowel holes just where the top of the curve breaks and turns down on the shorter ends and connect your pieces by inserting a two-to-three-inch piece of dowel to fit the pieces, one long edge down and the other inverted, with the flat side up. The manufacturer sells replacement pins and dowels, so you might be wise to make several to keep on hand in case your table should need a replacement.
4

Dry fit your table. Open the bases almost a seventy to to eighty degree angle so that the base supports the glass firmly. Check the top to be sure that the table top is level. If not, your two bases are not identical. Take the wood pieces apart and sand down the points where the two pieces meet or the points on the "stern" so that the joined end and the two "stern" ends are all the same height. Dry fit again and check the top with a carpenter's level.
5

Do a final fine sanding and finish your wood with a good ebony lacquer or clear varnish. Reassemble. You can't have a Noguchi but you've got something in the abstract spirit of the piece.