MattS
Nordic Pine
I'd glue back but not try too hard to close it right up and plane away the marks. So it looks as if the owner fashioned a repair but wasn't a woodworker.
-
Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!
Oak dining table build (complete, and inside)
- Thread starter Mike G
- Start date
HdV
New Shoots
Looking at that last picture I am sure you made the best choice. To me this fits the look of your wonderful table perfectly. 
I think it looks better left out. Nothing you do to put it back in is going to make it looks like it's natural, so make a feature of it.
Mike G
Petrified Pine
Too late Mark. Whilst I agree with you, I'm not the only one who gets a vote.....
As is oft the way Mike, and who are we to argue...
Sheffield Tony
Nordic Pine
You could tell from page 1 of this thread where you discussed it that that knot was going to be trouble. Character, but in the worst possible place. Looks like however you flip or rotate that board it would have ended up at a vulnerable edge !
Woodbloke
Sequoia
I can well imagine that your missus would be distinctly unchuffed with that knot being made to look 'au natural' aka Alan Peters (if you make a cock up, make a feature out of it etc) I might think about removing it in it's entirety by using a 'V' shaped cut and then scarfing in a completely new piece, being very careful to match the grain as closely as possible. If you could find a suitable bit where the grain matches (granted, not easy by any means) and scarf it in, it might get you out of a very deep hole and in addition earn some of those coveted brownie points. Worth having! - Rob
Pete Maddex
Old Oak
Nothing wrong with a knot hole.
Pete
Pete
Woodbloke
Sequoia
Agreed when it (or they) are used deliberately:
However, the knot in Mike's table leg is in an unfortunate position and appears to have been damaged, so somat probably needs to be done about it. The question is what and how? - Rob
Steve Maskery
Old Oak
It looks good, Mike. But make sure that it is well sanded smooth, you don't want ladies snagging their hosiery on anything sharp at leg level.
S
S
Personally, would still like to see it with some fine dark wood (American walnut?) sanding dust fed into the remaining cracks to see how it looks.
If not a acceptable it can be blown out again, if it blends in then can be fixed in place.
If not a acceptable it can be blown out again, if it blends in then can be fixed in place.
Mike, presumably you have already decided what sort of finish you intend to use and how big a part it will play in making this table (and the chairs) look older than they are. I'm guessing it might help play down or emphasise knots and dings. (There was a passing reference to "stain" in post #54.)
I expect it will be a personal preference, supported by experience, not decided by a referendum on here!
But I'll be interested to find out.
I expect it will be a personal preference, supported by experience, not decided by a referendum on here!
But I'll be interested to find out.
Mike G
Petrified Pine
I've had a couple of half days, and the evenings, so have made some good progress this week so far. I had a session of bits-and-pieces. Starting with the wedges, which I realised I couldn't easily remove once driven home. I came up with this solution:
........a wedge to remove a wedge. Now I just have to think of somewhere to store it for the rare occasion when it will be needed.
I finished the little notches on the outside faces of the top of the pedestals. You might want to hazard a guess as to their purpose:
I made more wedges, but this time for the wedged tenons:
Then the big job, which was the final shaping and smoothing of all the pieces I'd made so far. I am doing huge round-overs of the arrises, and in places where wear might have occured if this table were old, I'm taking even more off to simulate it. I just don't want this to look too crisp. It's an awfully difficult thing to steel yourself to do. Here's the top of the stretcher, for instance, where people might have put their feet if this were old:
Cleaning up the curves has been something I've been avoiding. I really, really didn't want the fight! The ends of the stretcher were relatively easy:
Spokeshave, scraper and chisel did the bulk of the work. I'm very much with Rob, who used to have a slogan about sandpaper being the most dangerous thing in the workshop. I have almost no place for it at all, ordinarily. But here, where I'm trying to soften everything, and simulate some wear it had a role:
The faces were all finished with a plane and scraper:
This is where people will be resting their feet:
My next session saw a bout of peg making. After bandsawing the blanks, I roughed of the arrises with a scrub plane to make then roughly octagonal:
The bashed them through a dowel plate a couple of times:
At this point, I expected them to fit. They didn't, and the plate didn't have 1/5mm increments at that size. After some experiments, I took them to the lathe and just sanded them with 40 grit. It took longer to mount them than to do the work:
I then chiseled a point onto them all:
........a wedge to remove a wedge. Now I just have to think of somewhere to store it for the rare occasion when it will be needed.
I finished the little notches on the outside faces of the top of the pedestals. You might want to hazard a guess as to their purpose:
I made more wedges, but this time for the wedged tenons:
Then the big job, which was the final shaping and smoothing of all the pieces I'd made so far. I am doing huge round-overs of the arrises, and in places where wear might have occured if this table were old, I'm taking even more off to simulate it. I just don't want this to look too crisp. It's an awfully difficult thing to steel yourself to do. Here's the top of the stretcher, for instance, where people might have put their feet if this were old:
Cleaning up the curves has been something I've been avoiding. I really, really didn't want the fight! The ends of the stretcher were relatively easy:
Spokeshave, scraper and chisel did the bulk of the work. I'm very much with Rob, who used to have a slogan about sandpaper being the most dangerous thing in the workshop. I have almost no place for it at all, ordinarily. But here, where I'm trying to soften everything, and simulate some wear it had a role:
The faces were all finished with a plane and scraper:
This is where people will be resting their feet:
My next session saw a bout of peg making. After bandsawing the blanks, I roughed of the arrises with a scrub plane to make then roughly octagonal:
The bashed them through a dowel plate a couple of times:
At this point, I expected them to fit. They didn't, and the plate didn't have 1/5mm increments at that size. After some experiments, I took them to the lathe and just sanded them with 40 grit. It took longer to mount them than to do the work:
I then chiseled a point onto them all:
Attachments
Mike G
Petrified Pine
I'm planning on using van Dyke's crystals to stain, and then finishing with a matt-ish version of the 1:1:1 mixture I always use. The latter is all I am any good at. The former is all I have available in the quantity I'll need (remember there are 8 or 10 chairs to match, sometime next year). Obviously I'll be doing some test pieces to get the right colour, but I've done the combination before and it works relatively well.
Mike G
Petrified Pine
The big curves in the brackets were a pain, as I knew they would be. I sanded the first one on a drum sander on the lathe:
But due to the proximity of the wall, it didn't do all of the big curve:
Chisel, spokeshave, rolling pin.....you know, the normal tools:
I carefully cut the quirks. Over-sawing was the issue to avoid:
Then it just became a plane-fest:
The drum sander thrashed itself to death on the second (of 4) brackets:
So I did the rest manually. It took a long time.
When all the brackets were done, it was just about time to glue the first one together (it was at this point that the knot issue arose in the second one, and that would hold up finishing that pedestal for a day or two. The last piece of the puzzle was a little loose tenon to go through the mortices in the leg which would later take the stretcher. This would line all the pieces up properly, and clamp in an area inaccessible to my clamps. Quick-and-dirty:
Glue-ups aren't something I normally take any photos of, but despite the size of this piece, and the number of components, there was actually very little glue involved, and I had got properly organised. So, lucky you, you get to see photos of glue......
I started with the post into the foot:
....which then got pegged:
That's a wax candle to ease the friction on the pegs. It is one of the greatest pleasures in woodworking, I reckon, when a draw-bore peg goes home, pulling the joint up tight.
Next I glued the brackets in. They glue to the post, and the first part of the tenon got a drop too...but the rest is dry to allow for movement:
The heel of that tenon doesn't make contact with the end of its mortice, deliberately, hence the lack of glue. Again, to allow for movement. I whacked a couple of pegs in, and moved to the top of the pedestal:
Finally, I whacked in the rest of the pegs, then glued on the cover pieces of the post, put in the temporary floating tenon, and clamped up:
Today, I de-clamped, and made a few little hardboard spacer thingies so I could saw off the pegs a little proud, and evenly:
I cleaned up the wedged through tenons:
.....and stood back to admire my work:
But due to the proximity of the wall, it didn't do all of the big curve:
Chisel, spokeshave, rolling pin.....you know, the normal tools:
I carefully cut the quirks. Over-sawing was the issue to avoid:
Then it just became a plane-fest:
The drum sander thrashed itself to death on the second (of 4) brackets:
So I did the rest manually. It took a long time.
When all the brackets were done, it was just about time to glue the first one together (it was at this point that the knot issue arose in the second one, and that would hold up finishing that pedestal for a day or two. The last piece of the puzzle was a little loose tenon to go through the mortices in the leg which would later take the stretcher. This would line all the pieces up properly, and clamp in an area inaccessible to my clamps. Quick-and-dirty:
Glue-ups aren't something I normally take any photos of, but despite the size of this piece, and the number of components, there was actually very little glue involved, and I had got properly organised. So, lucky you, you get to see photos of glue......
I started with the post into the foot:
....which then got pegged:
That's a wax candle to ease the friction on the pegs. It is one of the greatest pleasures in woodworking, I reckon, when a draw-bore peg goes home, pulling the joint up tight.
Next I glued the brackets in. They glue to the post, and the first part of the tenon got a drop too...but the rest is dry to allow for movement:
The heel of that tenon doesn't make contact with the end of its mortice, deliberately, hence the lack of glue. Again, to allow for movement. I whacked a couple of pegs in, and moved to the top of the pedestal:
Finally, I whacked in the rest of the pegs, then glued on the cover pieces of the post, put in the temporary floating tenon, and clamped up:
Today, I de-clamped, and made a few little hardboard spacer thingies so I could saw off the pegs a little proud, and evenly:
I cleaned up the wedged through tenons:
.....and stood back to admire my work:
Last edited:
Mike G
Petrified Pine
I had printed out full size the text I planned to carve on the stretcher, and made a start:
There are a lot of very similar cuts with this font, so I did all the 1" vertical cuts in one go:
I then took to the gouges and V chisel, and just started at the left:
I got better and quicker as I moved to the right. This phase is quite convincing. You think the carving looks great, and very neat. When the paper comes off it looks awful, and you spend a long time going over everything again, so this is a roughing-out stage really.
I moved the commas, as they didn't leave enough meat to the gap:
I stopped when my neck started aching. Carving is hard on the body.
There are a lot of very similar cuts with this font, so I did all the 1" vertical cuts in one go:
I then took to the gouges and V chisel, and just started at the left:
I got better and quicker as I moved to the right. This phase is quite convincing. You think the carving looks great, and very neat. When the paper comes off it looks awful, and you spend a long time going over everything again, so this is a roughing-out stage really.
I moved the commas, as they didn't leave enough meat to the gap:
I stopped when my neck started aching. Carving is hard on the body.
Pete Maddex
Old Oak
Mike, Shinto rasp for smoothing the outside curves.
I wouldn't be with out mine.
Pete
I wouldn't be with out mine.
Pete
Mike G
Petrified Pine
I've never heard of such a thing. Does it work better than a rolling pin?
Steve Maskery
Old Oak
It's a brilliant tool. Sadly only flat, so it doesn't do hollows (unless someone else knows differently).
NickM
Old Oak
Looking excellent.
Are the mystery notches where you fit lifting eyes for the crane to attach to when you lift it into the dining room? (Thinking about it, did you have scaffold up so you could remove the house roof in preparation?
).
I agree about carving being hard. I spent a whole day doing some recently and my back was very stiff afterwards!
Are the mystery notches where you fit lifting eyes for the crane to attach to when you lift it into the dining room? (Thinking about it, did you have scaffold up so you could remove the house roof in preparation?
).I agree about carving being hard. I spent a whole day doing some recently and my back was very stiff afterwards!
The wedge to remove a wedge idea is built-in redundancy. All that's needed to remove the wedge that locks the tusk tenon is to tap up or hammer up the bottom small end of the locking wedge. Others would say that the shaped upper part of the wedge is designed specifically to assist its removal.
On the other hand it may be that you simply just like the look of the redundant horizontal wedge. Slainte.
PS. Enjoying the build and seeing how you tackle challenges.
Last edited:
Mike G
Petrified Pine
There's about 60mm of space below the bottom end of the tusk-tenon wedge (above the foot of the pedestal), so even using a hammer sideways in that gap is a challenge. Tapping the top part of the wedge upwards looks like something you could perhaps do 2 or 3 times before the rounded head breaks off along the short bit of grain, and the tusk tenon is in the way anyway. I originally designed the stretcher an inch or two higher for this very reason, but I thought it too high and dropped it back down again, knowing that the wedge would be an issue. I could have made the locking wedge lie horizontally, but didn't like the aesthetics.
Last edited:
Mike G
Petrified Pine
MattS
Nordic Pine
Will those notches have anything to do with the additional leaf you have planned for one end?
Mike G
Petrified Pine
You've got it, Matt. Exactly.
Which says in English?!!
Steve Maskery
Old Oak
It's Latin for "Grub up, my friends".
S
S
Mike G
Petrified Pine
Good friends, good food, good times.
Steve Maskery
Old Oak
That's what I said.
S
S
Cabinetman
Sequoia
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2020
- Messages
- 5,202
- Reaction score
- 972
- Location
- Lincolnshire Wolds + Massachusetts
- Name
- Ian
I’m curious about the pegs Mike, if you now plane them flush they will be proud of the surface in a few months — or will they at 5%? it’s possible they might be under the surface if the wood expands in your home, personally I’ve always done mine like Ercol do, a few whacks with an upturned chisel so that it looks like a rose headed nail, I suspect that’s what you’re planning anyway?
Great wip and the tables turning out really well.
Great wip and the tables turning out really well.
I must admit I hadn't appreciated that the space available was quite so limited.
I suspect you'd get more wedge removals than you expect. I say that because in my experience of a fair number of tusk tenons on tables and workbenches that that shaping is generally pretty tough. It also helps that the blows to remove the wedge aren't generally parallel with the long grain, they're angled somewhat so that you're sort of partly driving the wedge towards the leg. Also, it's often been the case that the wedges have worked a little loose over time through racking and it's been necessary every now and then to tighten them up. You may be right though, so perhaps caution and the wedge to lock a wedge is a good solution. Slainte.
Lurker
Old Oak
Clock is ticking Mike!
Time you pulled your finger out
Time you pulled your finger out
Mike G
Petrified Pine
It's the opposite, Richard. It's only to unlock it. It'll live somewhere else until it's needed.
True, my misspeaking, so a wedge to loosen a wedge. You could screw the 'wedge loosener' to the table top's underside, I suppose. Slainte.
Mike G
Petrified Pine
I hadn't thought of that. I planed them flat with the little off-cut of hardboard around them. I'm quite happy with them like that. All the pegs in the oak framing in the house are left proud, albeit sticking out a bit further and not smoothed off. So it fits in with that.
Surely a couple of little wooden stops under the middle of the table, with a turn-button of some kind to hold it in place is the answer. That way it stays with the table and doesn't disappear into a drawer or just disappear...