woodwork question  

Simply Gorgeous SDR
Clean, elegant, with just the right amount of "engineering" without being overly fussy. Beautiful! My guess on the wood is poplar

Thanks !
Poplar it is, with no finish yet for this prototype. I'm pondering a wood for the final table. They'll be used in a semi-exposed setting, a street-front covered patio coffee bar. They need to fold because of the storage situation, moving through a narrow doorway. I'll eventually make about a dozen of them.
The table was designed to be made from two 8-foot 1x8 boards. In the end, the top is of 1x4, 1x6 and 1x8's. The hole clears and gives access to the elbow catch when in the closed position. Barely visible in the second photo are 3/8" dowels, unglued, which align the top boards at the centerline.
I rejected thin IKEA butcherblock for the top due to weight, and the observation that an unmounted sample warped considerably. I'd still like to find a plywood panel (?) that wouldn't have to be edgebanded to look good and perform well. I'd also like to try plastic -- I wouldn't mind seeing the table entirely of recycled resin "boards" but I haven't found this material yet. Ipe is too heavy, I judge. There may be another tropical lumber that will fit the bill. Any ideas ?

I would have suggested Ipe also
but rejected it also for weight considerations. Plantation grown teak may only be marginally lighter. Have you thought of redwood.
I recently refurbished an existing collapsable wood table for a friend, (Separated at the center, spun on a dowel and the legs scissored to fold flat.) It was made of pine so it was rather light weight, but many coats of paint over the years, it was built in the sixties, made traditional refinishing a bloody great deal of work and less then worth it.
My solution, old fashioned decoupage. I covered the tops of the slats with old wine bottle labels, razoring the labels between the slats and wrapping and folding the labels over the sides and underneath. Covered the whole thing in about an hour and then three coats of waterproof, clear polyurethane. Beautiful, functional and a great table for a bite and sundowners at the beach.
For a coffee house locale, you might be able to do coffee and tea labels (natch) and if you do go the decoupage route for the table top you can use a lightweight and less expensive wood, and put the money and the finish on a great set of legs.

What
glue did you use for the decoupage ? A good solution to a daunting refinish project !
I wouldn't mind a marked contrast between top and legs, if a mono-material solution eludes me.
I'd like to have made a table similar to the one you redid, but I determined that I wanted a tripod base, for stability on an irregular brick surface (I hate wobbly cafe tables and slopped beverages. . .!)
The redwood that can be had today is so soft as to be useless for a semi-permanent piece of furniture -- and leaving it raw (my preference) would soon have it ugly with stains and weathering, I'm afraid. Cost is another issue, as the client is a non-profit and I'll be paid little enough as it is ! I'd love teak, but. . .
I hope Heath will show us his stools, when they're ready. I wish I could make a companion chair for this table, but the client has already acquired some little painted-steel quasi-Thonet chairs for cheap. I'd better quit while Im behind. . .!

I used the product called Mod Podge.
You can buy it for something like $9.95 a quart at any craft or art store, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc. You can also use the artist gel medium from Golden Artist Colors called "Soft Gel Gloss" it is archival and will not yellow, which I can't say for certain that the Mod Podge can make the same claim. Although the table after two years of 3 to 4 time a week usage, 5 months out of the year, at the beach, in the sand, condensation sweating drinks, food and wine spills, etc., and it still looks great.
I just covered a workable section of the table top at a time, pressed the labels down and then brushed more Mod Podge on top of them. I randomly overlapped the labels making sure to glue down the seams. Let dry a couple of days and then brushed on a few coats of a water based satin polyurethane. Maybe two hours total time to cover a four foot diameter circle.

Very Nice!
Elegant proportions!
For a moment I thought if shouldn,t be oval, (If it,s not a sin to ask that to a ,,square man,,?) because I thought that in the model (perhaps) it looked a bit not practical for a final user.
But now it look great, with a touch of ,,false perspective,, that make it,s ,,I don,t know,,. But with that ,,just a bit,, it,s perfect.

Despite
the position of the legs, there seems to be adequate leg and foot room under the table, in use. On one side, the sitter straddles the single leg, while on the other side, one's feet fit easily between the two legs. Sitters on the other two sides avert their legs as necessary.
The top is 24 1/2" x 25" x 31."

I'm sure the customer will be...
I'm sure the customer will be happy, are you concerned about the sharp corners on the legs? I would be tempted to give just a little round-over.
The stools are getting there, I have done most of a chair aswell, busy with other things though. I have a foolish habit of not drafting my projects in much detail and it allways trips me up towards the end.
Perhaps its silly but if the cafe has table service maybe you could try one different coloured slat in the tops as identifiers for the waiters?

I like that !
Better than car-shop number cones. . .
Most edges have 1/8" roundover at present.

Decoupage
SDR, love the tables and the decoupage idea. Perhaps decoupage one of the coffeebar's menus to the slats? Or, since it's a nonprofit, some of their brochures for customers to peruse? Any way you finish it, they're going to love the tables because of all of the love/heart/angst you have put into them.

.
But what if the menu changes? And you'd have to put two on so people wouldn't have to try and read upside down.

ah plywood top, my sometime...
ah plywood top, my sometime favourite.
Used to be able to get plywood with plenty of fine laminations that looked very nice on edge, like table tennis paddles, its difficlut to get ply like that now, though I have heard of Multiplex? Muliply? A European product I think.
The alternative is to get 2 sheets of say 8mm with 5 laminations and press them together, you can get a nice edge like that, as long as there are no voids. The tops HM use for the elliptical tables looks pretty good, I think it has 17 laminations but is very thick.

Personally I like the top the way it is presently
configured. The random width boards lend it a lot of visual interest. The gaps between the boards allows a bit of light up through the top and seems to me to contribute to the pieces ability to convey a "lightness" in weight but at the same time it's overall design conveys a quiet strength. The gaps also seem to balance the elements in the legs, where they diverge and show gaps.
For me, the top, actually the entire table has a floating quality, a solid top that is also thicker might make it "top heavy".(pun not intended) 🙂

I think
BTM gets where I'm going with this table, which is one of the first to be built of many I've drawn with this kind of top. I like the "transparency" of the perforated top, and don't fear a "picnic table" label even for pieces that never see outdoor use. Also, a solid top glued up of boards needs to be sanded, ideally by an abrasive planer (widebelt), while separate boards can be left as they are if assembled with cleats and/or dowels.
I believe that any piece of furniture could be made either to disassemble or to fold, for ease of moving and storage, and of the two I greatly prefer folding: no loose parts, and it can't be assembled incorrectly !
Thanks for all the nice comments, people. It looks like I've well and truly hijacked Heath's fine thread, and I apologize for that.

Thanks for sharing. Heath and SDR
And i hope you will share the finished product.
The design process is interesting to follow.
SDR. I would think poplar would be fine for a painted finish?
Easy to work with and very stable.
Or mahogany for a natural penetrating finish but more $ to
produce.
I visualize the two legs and wider top edge against the building?
Maybe i am seeing the classic NYC coffee shop where the tables
are lined up against the exterior of the shop. Allowing for two chairs
and a possible third.
And where is the steel plate attached for the chain and lock? 😉
(those puppies are going to be stolen!)...but that's NYC.