Oak dining table build (complete, and inside)

[Mike G]

Apparently we need a new dining table before christmas. I'd better get on with it, then.......

This is what I am going to build:


It's an 8 seater trestle table in oak, Jacobean style.

I toddled off to Thorogoods in Ardleigh, and came back with a car full of oak:



It's a mixture of 2" and 1" boards, waney edged, kiln dried (to 5%!!), and many of the thicker boards aren't flat:



The big boards are so heavy that I was never going to manage to carry them 40 metres to the workshop as they were. I decided to rip the wane and sap off in the garage. Everything was already there for use on the teardrop:







They're all good wide boards, as you can see, but I could have done with another few inches of length ideally. Stacked in the workshop they occupy all my working space:



That was on Tuesday. Yesterday morning I made a start. I made a template and cut out the brackets for the trestles. Like the boards for the table top, they're too wide to fit through my planer thicknesser, so they needed flattening by hand. Lot's of scrub planing and checking (straight edge, winding sticks) ensued:






Some of them needed quite a lot of work:



The wood is actually a bit less character-ful than I wanted. I'd have like a few more knots. Here's one, though. I decided to avoid it with the plane, so as to leave the surface undulating:



It took a couple of hours to flatten this lot:



I keep shavings for lighting the fire. We'll be OK for a few days:



I then re-marked the shape from the template:



At this point, I gave my tired shoulders a rest and ripped up some of the smaller components before pushing them through the thicknesser:





As long as got the top and bottoms of the pedestals glued up on Saturday, I'd be happy. I did:





I did a bit of grain matching/ selection, and got a view of the scale of the trestles:



Photo limit. Back with more shortly......

 

[Phil]

Good, another new WIP on its way

Mike, what do you do with the offcuts? Waney edge?

 

[Steve Maskery]

"Apparently we need a new dining table before christmas."

Which Christmas? You are an awful lot faster than I am.
S

 

[Malc2098]

I think it should be 'tempora bona', because 'tempora' is singular.
(amo, amas, amat, amabus, amatis, amant.)

In the words of Celine Deon, 'It's all coming back to me!'

 

[PAC1]

9’ as one solid table! That will be a three shreddies morning.
Well do not let us keep you only 32 days to go.
As long as you are not doing the chairs as well for this Christmas.

 

[Mike G]

Those central posts will be entirely hidden, so I don't mind the bit of sapwood in the previous photo (on the left), but this one is going to need some careful thought:



I flattened the posts off to level with the brackets:



I chopped up some scraps for kindling (there's be plenty of waste keeping us warm for a while):



I was then able to spend an hour on the plane, as described elsewhere. That's a good day.......

Today started by finishing the plane, then de-clamping the top and bottom parts of the pedestal. They then needed bandsawing to final near size , before planing in the thicknesser:



It was a quick job to lay out the ends of the lower piece (using the first round thing I could find of roughly the right size), cut the quirks, then bandsaw off the bulk of waste:









As you can see in that last photo, I also rough-cut some scrap to act as a backer for the next job, which was cross-grain planing:







Yeah, some of that grain-matching leaves a bit to be desired. It won't be too bad, though, as it's all going to have a dark stain.

After finishing the shaping, I clamped the pieces together, and marked out for 22mm diameter holes centred on the "join". Thes I drilled on the pillar drill with a Forstner bnit, and had to come in from both sides as the 125mm width of these peieces is too much for a hole from one side only:





If you look closely you can see I have marked out for cutting between the holes (to form feet)........but opted to leave this until after I had done all the joinery.

Next, I mocked up the post and brackets to work out the joints:





I started with the mortices for the posts. These being big mortices, I drilled out the bulk of the waste, before cleaning up with chisels:



Note the end-grain cuts don't look straight. That's because they aren't. This will be a wedged through-tenon, and I like to have a short part of the joint straight down, before widening out for the wedges.



I carefully cut generous shoulders for the tenons (with a tenon saw), before bandsawing the cheeks:



The strength (and the accuracy) of these joints is in the shoulders, so I took good care to get them right, despite the fact that none of the joint will be seen. I did both posts:





Because of posting about the plane and (who knew it was important) doing some housework, I didn't get quite as far as I had hoped thjis weekend. That's 40 photos. I've got 41......so there follows a random single image.

 

[Mike G]

Here's the underside of one of the joints, showing the gap for the wedges. This joint, and the brackets either side, will also be pegged. Should be strong enough.

 

[Mike G]

Mike, what do you do with the offcuts? Waney edge?

The un-useable off-cuts go in the woodburner in the lounge. There are also quite a few useable offcuts, and they'll be kept for the chairs.

Waney edge means a natural un-sawn edge. They sometimes have the bark on, but usually its just the outside of the tree minus the bark.

 

[JamesHow]

Here's the underside of one of the joints, showing the gap for the wedges. This joint, and the brackets either side, will also be pegged. Should be strong enough.

View attachment 37052

Great work!

If wedged down they need pegging?

 

[Mike G]

"Apparently we need a new dining table before christmas."

Which Christmas? You are an awful lot faster than I am.
S

The one in about 4 weeks time, Steve! I'm hoping to have the woodwork done in the next couple of weeks, and then spend a week on the finishing. I should be back on the teardrop before christmas.

 

[AndyP]

I’m guessing that doesn’t mean Scoff Well & Live Long.

Only 8 seater? looks large enough for 10; one at each end, four either side.

 

[Mike G]

Great work!

If wedged down they need pegging?

No, they don't, but the brackets do, as I've got to allow for quite a lot of movement with them (they're over a foot wide). If the brackets are pegged, then it fits the pattern nicely to peg the post as well.

 

[Mike G]

Only 8 seater? looks large enough for 10; one at each end, four either side.

There's going to be a little extension only a foot or so wide which will take it up to a 10 seater. I was quite happy to make the table that big without an extension, but quite reasonably my wife said that we'd feel a bit silly if there are only 4 of us sitting at such a big table. Each place setting has a generous 625 of width:

 

[Mike G]

9’ as one solid table! That will be a three shreddies morning.
Well do not let us keep you only 32 days to go.
As long as you are not doing the chairs as well for this Christmas.

No, the chairs might well have to wait until next winter.

The table disassembles, and I've already lined up a helper to assist carrying it in. The outer boards may be 2" thick, but the inner ones are only an inch, solely because of the weight. Well, you know.......the cost helps.

 

[AJB Temple]

In reality, you will struggle with that amount of space Mike if you really want to seat 10. I might not be as good a woodworker as you but we have learnt a lot about table spacing since going into fine dining restaurant service.

You need more space. It's not just the place settings, you need to have a water glass, white wine and maybe red wine glass, space for putting serving dishes down (this is space consuming), space for wine bottles and water bottles, table decorations, cruets etc. If it is too cramped it is hard to reach between guests and hard to clear away.

Some people also take up far more room than others. Fat people I am looking at you. I know you are not doing commercial service, but a convivial dinner needs more space than you think.

 

[AndyP]

We obviously like the cozy feel of 8 around a table just a tad over 5’, and are obviously far from overweight.

 

[Mike G]

In reality, you will struggle with that amount of space Mike if you really want to seat 10.

Ten is christmas-only. We normally do 6 for a dinner party, but having the option of 8 is something we've wanted for a while. The place setting as drawn allows for glasses, and the width of the table is is 10" wider than our current one so should be fine for leaving the veggies in the middle of the table.

 

[AJB Temple]

Cool. Your 10 drawing shows the end setting on the left seriously encroaching on the diners to the left and right of that setting. For 10 the table needs to be at least a foot longer IMO. But depends how big the room is.

We can seat and serve 24 max in our space, but if we have a single group bigger than 14 then we really struggle if they all want to be at one long table. (Two tables bigger than yours put together).

But family / friends stuff is different to paying guests stuff and I get that. Space is a luxury though and bigger is usually better. I shall watch with interest and bring some really great wine when we are invited

 

[Mike G]

I used this sizing guide. It's a very helpful resource. I can't find the one for place setting widths, but it's there somewhere.

And I've measured every table in every house I've visited in the last couple of years.......

 

[JamesHow]

Looks fantastic definitely on my long term project list!

Are you breadboarding the ends?

 

[AJB Temple]

I used this sizing guide. It's a very helpful resource. I can't find the one for place setting widths, but it's there somewhere.

And I've measured every table in every house I've visited in the last couple of years.......

Domestic. In a served setting that is very tight. You are domestic and people muck in. If the room is big enough make the table longer I suggest. Feel free to chat to my other half about this Mike - she deals with it constantly and we have learnt not to pack them in. Clearly frequency is relevant here.

 

[Mike G]

.......Are you breadboarding the ends?

Yes. I'm doing quite narrow breadboard ends. I have seen one or two tables I liked with narrower ends than you'd expect.

 

[RogerS]

Another superb tour-de-force of a WIP, Mike.

 

[NickM]

Brilliant project. I'm glad to hear you've designed it to be disassembled as it's going to be very heavy!

 

[wallace]

We have a lovely oak refectory table, wife wanted it spraying white so I took it to bits and hid it in the loft and then bought a cheap one she could tart up. I also just got given an oak table top that was about to get chopped up, probably £150 of oak that was going to be used as fire wood.

 

[AndyP]

Is the furniture that will need the distressed look you were asking about?

 

[Mike G]

Is the furniture that will need the distressed look you were asking about?

Yes, but I have settled for the idea of just leaving it obviously hand-made, and rounding over the edges a little more where they would naturally get worn. Trying not to be perfect isn't as easy as it sounds.

The top is made up of 4 boards which are all too wide to fit through my thicknesser, so it will necessarily be hand planed. That's a hell of a lot of work, but if I do it with a shorter plane, and with a non-straight blade (convex), it should be flat enough, but subtly imperfect. My big decision is whether to chamfer the edges between the individual boards of the top. I haven't done that for years, but it seems like the right look for the table.....but boy, it's a hard thing to accept!!

 

[Malc2098]

In my experience, crumbs, flour, anything the table is used for without a table cloth gets caught in the grooves created between the boards.

 

[AJB Temple]

In my experience, crumbs, flour, anything the table is used for without a table cloth gets caught in the grooves created between the boards.

Yes, but Mike is doing something emulating a Tudor table. The obsession with gap free joinery is quite a modern thing. Old Tudor refectory tables would have hewn boards and there would inevitably be gaps. Our big refectory table from 1500's has three thick wide boards and so there are two gaps along the length. Crumbs drop through and are vacuumed up (or in Mike's case licked up by the dog).

 

[AndyP]

When I butt jointed 4 oak boards together in 2004 a very odd thing happened. One of the joints turned black. All joints were prepared the same way, B&D hand held electric saw, electric hand planer followed by record #7, same glue used (Evostick Resin-W). I've never found out why nor managed to repeat it in other builds.

 

[Lurker]

You could aze the top .
Saves lots of planing plus you get an authentic Tudor vibe.

 

[Mike G]

...... (or in Mike's case licked up by the dog).

Mabel knows far better than to set foot in the dining room! It's off limits, like the stairs and the furniture. But yeah, our kitchen table is like that.

 

[Mike G]

You could aze the top .
Saves lots of planing plus you get an authentic Tudor vibe.

I'd really like that Jim, but I don't have an adze, and this wood is very, very dry. I tend to think of adzes being used on green timber.

 

[Mike G]

In my experience, crumbs, flour, anything the table is used for without a table cloth gets caught in the grooves created between the boards.

This table is in the dining room, and will get used for nothing other than eating. When the grandkids are with us, or we have friends around and exceed the capacity of the kitchen table, then we head to the dining room, which serves no other function. I believe that we are going to be having a "runner", which I understand is a narrow cloth up the middle of the table. That will cover the 2 central joins. The outside ones will be covered in large part by whatever individual place mats we end up with.

 

[Mike G]

When I butt jointed 4 oak boards together in 2004 a very odd thing happened. One of the joints turned black. All joints were prepared the same way, B&D hand held electric saw, electric hand planer followed by record #7, same glue used (Evostick Resin-W). I've never found out why nor managed to repeat it in other builds.
View attachment 37062

Hmmm....thinks........

PVA goes that colour when it contacts steel as it dries on oak. I imagine it's some sort of variation of the ebonising effect of mixing vinegar and steel to blacken oak. Maybe something along those lines was going on. I've no clue, really.

 

[AndyP]

Indeed but why on just one joint and no vinegar was used. I've lived with it for 31 years now (date wrong earlier) and never had the heart to redo

 

[Mike G]

It doesn't need vinegar to turn black. When gluing oak with PVA, if it squeezes out and into contact with a steel clamp (whilst still in contact with the oak) it goes black. As you say, though.......it's a mystery.

 

[Cabinetman]

Missed this and you work so fast Mike you’ve nearly finished it before I’ve caught up, phew!
Great work and much power to your elbow and all other parts hand planing that Oak, it’s nice to work but hard going.
Just a word of caution from one who’s been badly caught out. I used a piece of Oak with sapwood attached under a lovely coffee table I made for myself and was appalled to find fras underneath later that year, doused it with woodworm killer but still extremely annoying.
Hope yours will be ok, particularly as it’s down to 5% mc, that’s very dry I think the lowest I’ve come across is 9% and the rest about 12.

 

[Mike G]

Yep, I don't normally allow sapwood within a mile of my work, but this is going to be fully encased in heartwood. There's no access for a beetle.

And blimey........no, I've not nearly finished!!!! If only.

 

[AndyT]

Mike, I've got an adze you could have, but I think you're right that it would be impractical on dry timber.

And you'd lose a few days waiting for the post...

Seriously though, does this help? It's in the Red Lodge, waiting for your visit to Bristol.







Slightly longer than yours. Visible edges to the boards but no chamfers.