Thread: Live Edge Tables --- Need Help On Base Design

Hi Chris,

You mention table tops being complete, but your photo is of a table base. I'm going to assume that you have made that and are displeased with it?

As far as structural...

If you want to do something like what's in your photo, with M/T along an upper rail, then your best bet is shrinkage buttons. These are discussed at length in the book "The Essential Woodworker", which is available at Carbatec and also via a download directly from Lost Art Press. A highly recommended read. Also, this article is the first hit for "shrinkage buttons" on Google:

Occasional Table Class (Hand Tool Build) #23: Shrinkage Buttons, tapers, and glue up checks - by RGtools @ LumberJocks.com ~ woodworking community

That said, I think a slab/natural edge table looks great with legs which appear to "float". Here are a couple of photos of some I've made in the past:

Two Slab Tables

Full disclosure: That King Billy Pine table looks weird. It's not for everyone and, for a while, I wasn't sure it was even for me. That front leg is funky, and it was actually a turning point in my approach to design. Nonetheless, since no one bought it and it, in turn, became part of my personal furniture, it grew on me. The Blackwood Table, however, is something with which I am very happy, and is actually the most expensive piece I've ever sold to a customer.

That said, I lose sleep over that table, and here's why. It's one of the first things I ever made, and I wasn't quite as savvy about wood movement as I am now. All I did was cut a tenon on those legs, cut the mortises at those "flying V" angles, and glue them in. I had some bad advice that led me down this path. It's only a matter of time (and it may be ten or twenty years) before they come out due to wood movement. If you're going to use a floating leg design like this, you need to find a creative way to attach them via a mortise and tenon which is also secured by mechanical fasteners. There are a number of ways to do it, but it basically involves having a low profile, perpendicular piece at the top of each leg through which you can run some screws into the table top. It's fairly intuitive and commonly done using similar ideas and principles to shrinkage buttons. Since repeatability is one of your requirements, having an efficient system in place for doing this would allow you to repeat the same legs, but have the option of placing them in various positions along the bottom of the table to accommodate different sizes and shapes in slabs.

You could achieve this floating look with something similar to what you have now by simply, as you say, making the rail thinner and then using shrinkage buttons. I don't know if I would mess with tapered or turned legs. I think that leaving the base somewhat geometric on a slab table adds some nice juxtaposition which allows the slab to more easily transition into the right-angled environment of most modern homes. I, for one, loathe the look of a slab supported by other, vertical slabs. That's an outdoor table design... at best. Others would disagree.

Hope that helps. Post photos when you've got some assembled.

Cheers,
Luke

I now see that you're in New Jersey, so "Carbatec" won't mean much to you! You can just order the book directly from LAP.