Thread: Quick question on laying up a table top

G'day Scott,
I have almost finished watching a copy of a Sam Maloof dvd, where he is doing a workshop, for want of a better word.

Someone from the audience asked this very question.

His reply basically was that he always places the best face up.

He explained that if you have them all radial up, you get a bow, radial down - a cup. Alternating, you would get a wave. So it didn't really matter.

As long as it looked good.

Regards

Stuart

Originally Posted by scottbr

My question is whether I have to assemble them so the growth rings go in alternate directions for each piece.
Scott

Many years ago I made a hardwood table 1.7m x 900mm, and alternated the grain. It was double biscuit joined every 200mm, and planed flat. It only took a few months before I had a discernible wave In retrospect, biscuits were not suitable, so I commend your use of dowel, good luck with it.

However, I suspect that with narrow recycled and resawn timber, you're unlikely to see any movement, so it's probably all academic anyway.

Thanks guys.

I was hoping for that answer.

The timber came out of the ceiling of the space the tables will go in - see attached.

It's over 100 years old, so should be pretty well acclimatised. The only time it has left the space was when it was taken to get dressed. It's been back there and sitting on the floor waiting to be assembled for a year or so.

It's my Easter project - probably appropriate to do some DIY timber work over Easter with Jesus being a failed carpenter and all.

Originally Posted by brizylad

G'day Scott,
I have almost finished watching a copy of a Sam Maloof dvd, where he is doing a workshop, for want of a better word.

Someone from the audience asked this very question.

His reply basically was that he always places the best face up.

He explained that if you have them all radial up, you get a bow, radial down - a cup. Alternating, you would get a wave. So it didn't really matter.

As long as it looked good.

Regards

Stuart

This is exactly the reasoning I have heard from several other professional makers too. If you do them all up or down, you get a wide cup or bow which is easy to restrain with buttons. The up/down gives you a wave which you can't do much about. Just make it look purdy.

Originally Posted by sjm

Many years ago I made a hardwood table 1.7m x 900mm, and alternated the grain. It was double biscuit joined every 200mm, and planed flat. It only took a few months before I had a discernible wave In retrospect, biscuits were not suitable, so I commend your use of dowel, good luck with it.

However, I suspect that with narrow recycled and resawn timber, you're unlikely to see any movement, so it's probably all academic anyway.

With all respect, biscuits or dowells will not make a hoot of difference. Basically all they do is help you to align the timber during glue up.

I don't believe they have any effect at all on whether a timber will cup or bow.

Originally Posted by Geoff Dean

With all respect, biscuits or dowells will not make a hoot of difference. Basically all they do is help you to align the timber during glue up.

I don't believe they have any effect at all on whether a timber will cup or bow.

Agree with that, any amount of dowels or biscuits is not going to change the nature of what the timber may want to do. Having all the joins straight and square is the main thing.

That very dry oregon shouldn't move too much but I would still make sure that all the boards are not one way or the other.

Thanks all.

Another quick one: Do the dowels need to be glued in?

They don't NEED to be, it would make little difference either way, but a bit of extra glue surface always helps

Dowels glued across grain have no strength anyway. It is only long grain to long grain that has any glueable strength.

The glue up went well - thanks for the tips.

I made template out of aluminium angle to drill the dowel holes.

Got both tops glued up.

The first one I did all in one go. I had glue everywhere. I suspect I'm lucky it didn't all go horribly wrong.

The second one I did in two parts and it was a lot more manageable.

When I started spreading the glue on the first one, I realised it was taking too long so I raced into the kitchen, got a plastic tomato sauce squeeze bottle from the fridge, tipped the sauce out, washed it, filled it up with glue and it worked a treat.

The when the kids went looking for the tomato sauce at dinner time, I had to tell them that they must have used it all the day before. Luckily they're at that age where they believe me.

Okay, so with the glue-up all done it's time for the next step - and the next batch of questions.

1. I suspect one of the tops has a slight twist in it, but I think I'll live with that.

2. The jig I made was from 1.6mm thick aluminium angle and repeated drilling caused some of the holes to enlarge slightly so not all the timber strips aligned perfectly. I'm going to call this 'jig creep'. Between some boards there is a step of up to 3mm along part of the length. Am I better off tackling this with my belt sander, or having a go with a hand plane?
NB. I had a go with the plane, and of course it dug in to the surface and gouged a chunk out. Luckily the top will have that sort of reclaimed look anyway.

If you blokes reckon planning is the way to go, I'll have to sharpen the thing and work out how to do it properly.

Scott

Not having much luck with the questions, but I'll have another go.

Table tops are all sanded (after a few hours of hand planing with my newly sharpened plane.

The tops will be stained lightly with a Sikkens product and then coated with something durable.

Do the undersides of each top need to be finished in exactly the same way as the top to avoid problems?

I've got half a can of Proofseal that has been hanging around. Would it suffice to give the undersides two coats of this?

Scott have a quick look at my thread here,may answer some of your questions
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f187/b...ckwood-134359/

I've been following that Blackwood table thread (along with dozens of other amateurs, no doubt). Thanks for taking the time to post your projects.

So I'm assuming that the underside of a table ust needs a bit of a seal to stop it taking in moisture from the air?

The Proofseal should do that, I hope.