Thread: Advice on Building Table

IMO, 75mm is way too thick to use for a dining table, or anything other than a work bench.
You should plan on getting most the beams resawn,
some to yield dressed stock around 30-33mm thick, for the top.
Some to yield dressed stock approximately 20-22mm thick, ideal for table aprons.

depending on your design, you may want to keep one beam at 75mm for the table's legs

Here's a plan table (table for reading building plans on) made from Oregon that I did for my bosses office. The top on this is 55mm thick and the timber had a lot of holes, cracks etc that were filled with Plastibond tinted with a little bit of black cement oxide.

I think that the thick elements of this piece add to it's rustic nature. Be aware though that you need some serious gear and muscle to machine, glue up, assemble and finish something like this. I'm no weedy little man but the the top was almost too heavy for me to move around by myself, it required some careful handling to avoid damaging it or me during the project.

Plan Table.jpg

The timber should be quite stable as-is. In my experience, recycled oregon is qiute well behaved, but resawing might cause it to move and carry on a bit as the internal stresses are released; I'd allow about 6-10mm over finished thickness when resawing just in case (the longer/wider the board, the more you should leave). I have used epoxy resin with black pigment many times to fill bolt and screw holes in recycled timber, the results on oregon look quite good IMO.

Top thickness really depends on the overall size of the table and the look you're after. For the chunky/rustic look, I wouldn't go thinner than 45mm, maybe down to 42mm for a small table and up to 60mm for a really large one.

Also, be aware that dressed oregon gets light-stained very quickly, you'll end up with shadowing around any object left on it for extended periods (even one day is enough), so keep it all covered with a sheet or at least out of bright light when you're not working on it.

Thanks for your comments. The weight of the top is definitely a concern. I have access to a reasonable size table saw to cut the boards to width and clean up the edges for straight glue joint. One of the wide boards is a little more cupped then the one I uploaded a photo of, but it is further down in the stack. At a guess I would end up with 60-65mm left once I flatten the worst one out.

I wasn't aware of it getting light-stained so quick, I will definitely keep that in mind. Does the same happen once it it finished? I was thinking about using some Black Japan thinned down a bit to hopefully give it a bit of an aged look.

This is a picture of the concept I'm going for, just not the I-beam legs as that is going to weigh too much.

Thanks again

Marty

Originally Posted by stevo81

I wasn't aware of it getting light-stained so quick, I will definitely keep that in mind. Does the same happen once it it finished?

Unfortunately, yes it does (as does all timber). It doesn't happen as fast, but it's pretty much inevitable.
As long as the table doesn't get much direct sunlight, any shadowing should even out (more or less) with time.

Originally Posted by stevo81

Thanks for your comments. The weight of the top is definitely a concern. I have access to a reasonable size table saw to cut the boards to width and clean up the edges for straight glue joint. One of the wide boards is a little more cupped then the one I uploaded a photo of, but it is further down in the stack. At a guess I would end up with 60-65mm left once I flatten the worst one out.

Hi Marty

Thanks for including the picture of what you're planning to make.



some comments.
you will need more than a table saw to get your planks to a condition where building a table like that will be straight forward. Especially if you're keeping thh bread board ends.

Yes you could saw the long edges sort of straight, glue the planks together and then flatten and dimension the slab. But flattening would be largely a hand tool operation, even if you used a power planner and belt sander for most of the grunt work. And moving and turning such a large slab will be difficult. Creating the breadboard ends really needs a consistent thickness in all the pieces.
My advice is to first get your planks cleaned up, to consistent thickness with true 90 degree edges. Doing so will make subsequent steps so much easier.
If you mill more planks than you strictly need you should be able, when gluing up, to achieve a grain match which makes the glued up planks look like full width timber, or a least timber twice as wide as it really is.

In respect to the base, I'd make it as a three piece trestle -- two leg frames held together with a horizontal brace immediately under the top.
You might like to experiment, but I suspect the weight of the top will be sufficient to hold it place, especially if you place a strip of 150 grit sandpaper along the top face of each leg frame to increase the horizontal friction.

It looks like you have the pith of the tree in one of the boards. Might be worth using either side of that board for the legs.

There is a bit of pith in some of them. I have a decent amount of it so I'm hoping i will have enough to cut those bits out and use the for other things. I have also just picked up some 35mm thick boards that will hopefully be ok to make matching chairs out of it. I definitely have my work cut out for me. Will be a very rewarding piece of furniture providing i can pull it off.

Cheers

Marty