Thread: Ironbark medieval/rectory dining table

It's been a bit hectic to try and finish it and walk away. The table is a wedding gift and has to be delivered next Wednesday and thanks to work getting in the way I only have one more whole day to work on it, next Tuesday. So going back three days ago after the buffing and polishing I thought I'd have one more go using Mastertouch wax. I'll reconstitute the U-beaut stuff later, it'll work well on spindle work, but a few days ago I wanted to try a fresh tub of something. The wax went on well and dried faster, in a way similar to car polish. Using towel like cloths it cut through the dried wax and with some buffing produced a nice shine. A second coat and some machine buffing/polishing later and some more hand buffing when the machine pad got loaded up, I couldn't really notice a difference. It looked good enough and after a quick few photos I draped a sheet over it. I still did a bit more to it, like tapped the pegs out and did the stretcher and legs but this is pretty much it, nearly.
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Here's the "nearly" bit, there's something I promised which I had yet to do. The table top height varies between 723mm to 733ishmm due to the unevenness. I was aiming for that but I don't know why, maybe because I read somewhere that medieval folk were smaller then today's average. Every dining table I've measured since is between 750 and 760mm or more for some outdoor tables I've measured. It doesn't sound much but it feels way different. Every seat I've measured is around the 450mm mark as is the owners chairs from their old table and the difference between sitting at a 720mm table v's 750+ is very noticeable, I prefer the higher top. I planned on making some optional feet and so yesterday and this morning before work I cut four pieces and started shaping them and this is how they're going to look...
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I had a new tool arrive the other day from Timbecon which made dressing rough sawn wood all the more easier. A planing router bit, I can't remember the diameter, 50mm maybe I can't tell from the photo, it beats the 25mm bit I was using. I wish I had it when I was doing the table top.
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Since those photos I've made all four feet, shaped the ends and rounded over edges and the undersides have received an initial epoxy coat. I forgot to mention the feet are 38mm thick so the table will be propped up to avg of 760mm. They'll remain removable rather than permanently attached. I'm thinking of a couple of locating pins, lugs or bumps or hidden nuts/screws, I can't remember their names, complete mental block, but I reckon that if the feet aren't attached somehow the table could slip off the feet with a decent nudge. I dunno, we'll see after I give it some more thought.

Looks very, very nice. You've done a great job!!! Congratulations.

Regards,

Rob

Looks fantastic, especially in the first pic!

It's beautiful.

I'll need to go back and re-read carefully how you went about applying the finish I think. It looks so shiny and lovely (and I've got no idea what I want to do for mine when the time comes)

Who needs a mirror when you have a table top like that? Well done.

Thanks fellas

Yesterday was delivery day. It's taken a while with work and manflu gettin me down but finally we're done.

First though I thought I'd mention a few tools and products I've used. At the beginning of the build I thought of listing everything which I realise now would be overkill. Instead I'll just list the things that made a difference or excelled.

Top of the list is the Torquata Flat Toothed ripping blade from Timbecon I use in the table saw. In 2015 when this Makita 2704 was 5 months old I cooked the motor whilst ripping some railway sleepers with an inferior blade. After a rebuild and adding a thermal cutout switch (the saw had no overload protection), I went about trying some different blades, usually higher tooth count, one had 24 teeth but all were Alternate Tooth Bevel grinds because that's all I could get hold of locally. They all went blunt quickly, seemed to bind despite riving knife attached and at least one was thin kerf. The saw tripped once in that time despite the cooler months.

After learning about Flat Tooth grinds, I saw the Torquata one and bought it about 4 months after the TS motor rebuild. These 250mm ones have 24 teeth, a 3.2mm kerf and 2.2mm body. I found the thickness eliminated binding and kept the blade from warping, making straight cuts during some freehand cuts of heavy timber. The thermal cutout hasn't tripped at all even despite ripping through the ironbark during summer. The idea of thin kerf is advertised for less waste and less load on the TS. I'm not sold. Low teeth count makes a difference for sure but this thicker flat tooth blade outperforms the one thinner ATB 24 teeth blade I tried earlier.

To date I have 4 of these blades. The one purchased in Oct 2015 became damaged a year later with a few teeth notched from some gravel in sleepers, so I bought my second in Oct 2016. It's still on the saw with heaps of redgum, cypress, black wattle and now ironbark under its belt. The first one is still used on suspect timbers that may have nails or other hidden gems but I forget to change sometimes. With this ironbark table in mind I bought two more blades leading up to christmas last year. They have yet to be used.
So yeah in a nutshell, low tooth count, flat tooth grind, thick blade, great for heavy ripping. Not a great shot of the blades but they're on the left.
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Next would be the Henry Bros bandsaw blades. I need 2680mm blades for my BS and have bought ones from Carbatec which are made by Precision Saws. There's nothing wrong with these blades except for my intended use. Advice I'd received along the way for the large timbers I was cutting was for big gullets and small TPI. Prior to trying out Henry Bros I modified one of my blades and found an improvement by removing every second tooth. But nothing compared to these two from HB. I bought them in September 2016 and unfortunately I can't remember the specs. I think they are BiMetal, the one on the left 1" at 1 TPI, the next one 19mm at 1 3/4 TPI. At the time I took the photos I remember the thickness of the blade material being very similar. The second pic is an approx 6" wide piece of ironbark being ripped for the hell of it with the 19mm blade. Neither have been resharpened or show signs of becoming blunt. Fantastic blades.
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The belt sander and planer come in next. I've talked a little bit about each before. The Makita 9910 belt sander takes 75mm belts and has been flawless and used extensively, however, I wish I had a 100mm 9401 or 9403. Maktec or MT now by Makita has a cheap version of the 100mm sander. I nearly bought one but meh. Need vs want. The planer's a cheap 75mm bosch one, it got a hiding but what I would love is the behemoth Makita KP312, a 12inch hand held planer. Drool, but not available here.

That wider 2" torquata planing bit I mentioned in another post worked fantastic, would've been great to do the whole top with it.

I have to mention the Rok polisher in the top pic. It was cheap and coupled with Motocraft polishing pads and velcro sanding discs has been pretty good actually. I've had it for about 18months and went cheap at the time because I baulked at the prices of higher end units. I didn't think I'd be using it much but it hasn't faultered. Plenty of power and yeah, can't complain.
Of the hand planes a 5 and 5 1/2 stanley plus an HNT Gordon 3/4 shoulder plane were really handy. I've got about 4 other Stanleys and an Irwin 7. These are really fiddly and hard to get cutting right due to a variety of issues like quality of chip breakers, yokes, slackness and finishing of frogs. The Irwin's ok after a bit of work but the 5 and 5 1/2 OTOH were pre owned by a carpenter in Sydney that delivered to me not only the sharpest blades I've felt but tuned planes with all the right bits connected. I won them on ebay a few years ago and commented to him that using them was like a eureka moment for me, "so that's what they're supposed to be like". Anyway, on this build they were great in some finer hand planing of planks before the glue up. They simply just worked. The HNT Gordon, I haven't used much cos it's too pretty and it's the only HNT I have. After watching some of their vids I tried it on the leg tenons and it was awsome to use and the ironbark didn't damage the blade like I was worried about. I was looking for some more uses other than using it on scrap for the hell of it. I need to buy some more types of HNT planes.

On to some other products,
Selley's Exterior PVA is a mainstay with me. I simply don't use anything else apart from epoxy for gluing occasionally. But epoxy was for encapsulating and in this build. Bote Cote is all I use. Read their blurb about it on their site, I just prefer it and can recommend it. These are all four litre containers and I've used approx 1L of resin and 500ml of hardener. It goes a long way. No idea how much glue I've used. It was an old bottle with less than half in it and it's close to being empty.
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Back to the build-
Here's the four add on feet after epoxying. Maybe a couple of coats at this stage I'm not sure.
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I decided to use these hidden nuts and bolts to fasten the feet on so they can be removed but the height is so much better.
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A template was made from plywood for drilling holes in the feet and then modified to suit the bottom of the legs.
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I had to countersink the holes for nuts and the screws using a forstner bit. The result of the leg countersinking is on the left and the feet in the blurry distance of the right photo..
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Before assembly the feet had been varnished then waxed. Took about a week then this shot before assembly for some outdoor shots. I was indifferent about them at first. Now I like the bulkier appearance of the bottom of the legs. I don't think it adds or detracts, it's just how it is now.
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And finally, I worked out how to add more than 10 shots in a post so here are the outdoor shots before disassembly and onto the back of the ute. The ute tray is pretty high and although we're two big enough fellas we struggled. Getting it off the ute was worse followed by walking it through the house. The legs were assembled whilst the top was placed on its side. The legs were then attached and the table rolled onto its legs/feet. No photos of the final setup, it looked like it did in the garage shots when it was altogether. I just wanted to show the "in sunlight" shots which were just fantastic. I've said it before but forget the table as such, the timber was the star
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