Thread: Advice Needed - Heavy Solid Wood Table

The top will probably weigh around the 40 kg mark all up. Your parents won't be moving it around too much.

Whitewood

Does anyone have any advice?

Arry,

Biscuits and glue. The biscuits help line it up, the glue is the strength part. Haven't had one separate down the glue line yet .

Thanks mate, but do you think biscuits will be strong enough with the glue?

I know Titebond II and III etc are a lot better than glues of yester year though.....

A loose tongue would be marginally better than biscuits, but, as mentioned above, the strength is in the glue.

3 or 4 cross pieces underneath for support would probably be a good idea as well, but don't glue them; just screw them on through oversized clearance holes to allow for the expansion and contraction of the top

Providing the joint edges are a good match as in strait and square then glue is all that is required. Biscuits, dowels or a spline only help line things up so as has been said the strength is in the glue joint.
One alignment trick I got from an old chippie was pannel pins driven part way into one board edge then snip the heads off and leave about 2mm proud. Do a dry clamp with care to line things up. There is no sliding about when dry. On glue up the pins locate in the holes they made the first time round and the glued edges dont slide about.
For a good bond it pays to have clean edges so if they were jointed more than an hour before glue up or if it is an oily wood wipe the edges with acitone or white spirit before the glue goes on.
Regards
John

I agree, if You do a good job of jointing the boards, the glue bond will hold it together. Tightbond III is good stuff.
Unless You've got, or have access to some large machinery, getting the boards perfectly flat is hard. A spline, floating tenons (domino's), or biscuits will help a lot when glue up time comes. A good hand plane or belt sander will be handy after glue up too

Cheers guys

I always thought the strength was in the joint and glue?

What about when you say make a Mortise and Tenon joint, isn't the strength in the joint or is it different when joining a table top?

I have a tablesaw, and jointer and thicknesser and belt sander and biscuit joiner etc...

Only problem is my jointer is only 6 inch.....

M&T joints do get strength from the joint itself as well as the glue, but don't forget that many of the traditional joints were designed around the fact that the glues they had were nowhere near as strong so the joint had to take most of the load.

Table tops are different in that the joint is simply there to widen the piece, it doesn't need the same type of strength as a load-bearing joint. A dovetail shaped tongue and groove would technically be an option to create a widening joint that is not solely glue based, but it would be overkill and really painful to make - especially over that length.

Your other issue will be getting 2 jointed edges. Short of a sliding-table/panel saw, i would say the best option is a router and long straight-edge as you won't be able to support a piece that long on a jointer that small.

Hope this helps a bit and I look forward to seeing some progress shots

Elan

Edge grain to edge grain glue ups are extremely strong

Originally Posted by orraloon

Providing the joint edges are a good match as in strait and square then glue is all that is required. Biscuits, dowels or a spline only help line things up so as has been said the strength is in the glue joint.
One alignment trick I got from an old chippie was pannel pins driven part way into one board edge then snip the heads off and leave about 2mm proud. Do a dry clamp with care to line things up. There is no sliding about when dry. On glue up the pins locate in the holes they made the first time round and the glued edges dont slide about.
For a good bond it pays to have clean edges so if they were jointed more than an hour before glue up or if it is an oily wood wipe the edges with acitone or white spirit before the glue goes on.
Regards
John

Hi Arry and Orraloon

Please please don't even think of using this trick of using the cut off panel pins to align the boards accurately. Just before Xmas I took on a small commission (I thought) of re-joining the boards in a double drop leaf European Oak table about 150 years old. All the boards in the top and two leaves had separated and when I got the 3 sections of the top off the frame and started to separate the boards to re-joint them I was dismayed to find about 2 dozen cut off pins along each board edge. I was able to pull some out but many had rusted off so I couldn't get hold of them. There was no way I was going to put that lot over my planer so I had to attack with a No. 7. Well I reckon I re-sharpened that plane more times in the next 4 hours than in the last 25 years. The next thing was to try to carefully cut domino mortices where it was obvious there were no nails on either joining surface. In the end I just gave up on that and sacrificed a domino cutter to get the job done. All in all a very unhappy experience that leaves a bad taste and not much pay at the end of the day. Think of those who will follow us down the track. Old Pete

If it was me, I'd do a feather joint which is running a trench in both edges to be joined for basically the full length of the timber except for the last 100mm from the finished end of the table and then insert a plywood rip. I would make the ply rip 50mm wide x 6mm or 8mm thick. This link https://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/wo...bit-me-119786/ will give you an indication of what I mean but with this job I ran the joints right to the ends.

Hi Arry,
Biscuits and titebond 3 as suggested by others. On some pieces I also route a groove 90 degrees to the joint and then glue a piece in. You could leave the piece proud for legs etc.
The example shown here is for four pieces of burl (commission) but illustrates the method.

Depth is usually about 3/4 deep of the overall top.

I have made a router guide for this job which I use regularly. On long and thick pieces I use a straight edge and router with flush bit with bearing on the top to create good mating edges.

cheers
conwood

Old Pete,
Sorry to hear of the bad experience with those joints. I had never given any thought as to rejointing down the track. Something to keep in mind.
Regards
John