Thread: Dining Table

That going to be one hell of a heavy table

Here is the two halves together & then routed & with some glasscoat to fill in the cracks & knots.

& then with some hard burnishing oil. the top is 30mm thick & does weigh quite a bit.

Looks good.

Started on the legs 100 x 100 ironbark with a double taper.
but was wondering if fixing the aprin's to the legs with dowel joints will be strong enough ??

I would use mortise and tenon joints. For a table like that, the base must be as strong as possible.

I agree with Wongo. Definitely M&T.

Well looks like i am doing M/T's !!

the aprins i have cut are 55 x 80mm but when you devide the thickness x 3 im left with only 18.3mm seems a little thin ?? ( forgive my lack of M/T exp ) have not used them since school.

18mm is not that bad. If it is a problem for you then cut 25mm, put the joint together and don't tell any one.

18.3mm seems a little thin

And you were going to use dowels!!

There's no law that says it has to be 1/3. But you want nice thick shoulders to stop it from racking. 18mm seems plenty thick enough to me.

i will brace it anyhow like on this table.
so the racking should be kept to a minimum !!
i dont have a morticing attachment on my hammer so they will have to be made by hand

The racking I'm talking about is between the legs and the apron.

Have you got a router? You can make your mortices with that. Tenons on the table saw.

Yeah i have a couple of routers & a straight bit so i will try & rough the mortice out with that.
but how do i go about cutting the tennon on the table saw ? i know i have to adjust the saw to cut down to the tennon on both sides but cutting from the end grain up to those cuts is going to be hard ???

You can cut very accurate mortices with the router if you make a jig or use an edge guide (most plunge routers come with one).

I use a dado blade to make my tenons but the process is the same with a normal blade, just takes longer. Set the fence to the length of the mortice and the blade height to the width of the shoulder, then use your mitre gauge to run the apron back and forth over the blade to nibble away the waste.

If you find it difficult because of the length of the apron, you can also do it with the router by clamping a fence to the apron.