Thread: knowledge required

I suggest a tressel base

The legs and base look rather chunky; so instead of making them solid I'd build them up as boxes. Still using substantial timbers, of course. I'm not talking about 3 ply.

In theory, with careful grain and colour selection & matching, you could 45° bevel the joining edges of each piece so that it looks as though the base and/or each leg are made from one piece of timber. You'd need to be very, very fussy with your selection, cuts and joints to pull this off successfully, though.

The side boards of the base section could connect to the four face-boards of the ends using lap joints, which should prove fairly solid against racking. You could also incorporate through-tenons for extra strength.

(I'd knock together some sketches to show what I mean 'cept I won't have access to my own puta & software for... quite some time.)


Another advantage of making them box-work is, if you leave the inside leg faces stopping short of the top by, say... oh... 6"... enough to get your hand in with a small screw-driver... then you could use the standard fixings such as buttons or whatever to tie the table top down, concealed inside the legs.

You should only see the gaps when down on hands and knees, looking underneath the table...

I have thought about construction of a big table like this and the best way to support the top on a base without being restricted by conventional design. What I would like to do is to build two supports such that when you look down on the table from the top, the two ends would be opposed such; > <. I would attach the 'legs' to the top with mortises and tenons thru the table top, making the joint a bit of a feature. I think this idea would be great with a big slab for the top and with shorter slabbed pieces for the legs, but it might be adaptable for your job and should remove the need for strechers underneath the table if you want cleaner lines.

Originally Posted by Pappy

hi folks,

The sister-inlaw has put the bite on me to build her a table.

The top will be solid timber @ 1900 x 1000 x 70 mm with solid timber ends and base.

the top will be very heavy, probably in excess of 100kg and requiring 3 or 4 people to move it around. The weight of the base wont be much different.

does it have to be solid timber?

what look is your SIL after? Clean and boxxy lines? or a natural timber edge?

Thanks "Chaps"

At this time I still in the planning stage aas I have a bit on (building new house) put your ideas will be a great help.

"Skew" some sketches would be great.

"Ian" the SIL wants the "chuncky" look with clean and boxxy look. I might be able to get away with using a boxed frame.


Pappy

Originally Posted by Pappy

Thanks "Chaps"

At this time I still in the planning stage aas I have a bit on (building new house) put your ideas will be a great help.

"Skew" some sketches would be great.

"Ian" the SIL wants the "chuncky" look with clean and boxxy look. I might be able to get away with using a boxed frame.

Pappy

some considerations,
70mm timber might be available as a slab, but it will be mighty heavy
a 1900 x 1000 top, 70mm thick made as a glue-up will also be might heavy but more importantly is unlikely to finish "Clean & boxy" unless you spend considerable time choosing the boards -- which might mean you need to buy a whole cubic metre pack. the alternative would be to paint it. Begging the question of why build it out of wood?
the look of a 70mm thick top can be achieved using much thinner construction (say 30mm) and gluing a strip onto each edge to bulk it out to 70mm -- of course, across the ends you would have to use cross grain blocks to create the look

but if I were asked for a clean and "boxy" and 70mm top thick I'd be looking at building a torsion box.
I'd make it out of either 16mm veneered particle board or 12mm furniture ply. I'd edge the exposed edges with solid timber strips (say 25mm thick by 70mm high) applied after the top and bottom faces were glued on.
An important consideration would be how to trim the 70mm top to size before attaching the edging

Torsion boxes could also be used for the other major components -- the legs and rails
I'd stay with a tressle style support -- two beefy legs connected by a single deep rail directly under the table top. Structurally this is known as a portal frame and providing the rail is deep enough, say 300mm, the joint either end will prevent the legs "folding up"

I like the modern design. How about a full box under the table top? Instead of the top alone being the top of the box, creating sort of an apron. Then you could hide some cross bracing across the bottom of the top and then skin it closed to complete the boxy, chunky look.

Thanks chaps for the input.

"Ian" your idea sound like a good way to go. I will do a bit more research on it.



Thanks

Pappy

Originally Posted by Pappy

Thanks chaps for the input.

"Ian" your idea sound like a good way to go. I will do a bit more research on it.

Thanks

Pappy

Pappy

A good place to start your research is page 30 of Australian Wood Review Issue 55. There Anton Gerner describes how he made a 2700x 1200 torsion box table, with torsion box legs.