# Help me build a table (pic heavy)



## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Per previous post, my chairs are done, but table is missing.









Table design is done, help me build it, you may have better ideas?
I always do 3D design, make my mistakes on the computer, not in the shop, did some Engineering drawings for the board, normally I just build from the 3D on my laptop.

Very simple easy project, objective is to do this fast and watch the clock. I'll attach PDF files for those who want to check full details.

Assembly

































Eng drawings follow in next post


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

eng drawings


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Last eng drawing


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

WillemJM said:


> Help me build a table


Chairs look good...well done. You ask for help in building a table...doesn't look like you need any.:laughing: Nice drawings BTW.












 







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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Thx for the inspiration Cabinet Man.

The real trouble started tonight, so the clock started ticking.

2 hours 8 minutes for the drawings.

23 minutes to select the boards which will yield best lumber usage for the table base. Picture shows the lot, from this one cut board will remain for the top. Those 4" legs are lumber thirsty. That's it for today.

2 hours 31 minutes into the project so far.


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## Dominick (May 2, 2011)

Very nice. Looks like cherry.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Dominick said:


> Very nice. Looks like cherry.


:smile:LOL

To make it sound nice, I call it "Country Maple", but actually it is paint grade Maple. Got this six years ago for 98c a BF. Love the grain and colors in this stuff, beats me why people paint it, or even stain.


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## Dominick (May 2, 2011)

Oh ok looked like some cherry I just had. pics were kind of limited. Looks good keep us posted. Thanks


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## lawrence (Nov 14, 2009)

you do very nice work


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## Taylormade (Feb 3, 2011)

Well them thar fancy computer drawins is pretty n all, but you outta see what I can do with a post it note and a charcoal pencil! :cowboy:


Is this a joke? You're not a CAD technician or structural engineer by trade? You're drawing elevations and then asking for advice? Hahahahaha. I'm looking forward to seeing this one come together. If you execute half as good as you plan, we're in for a real treat. 

Thanks for sharing. :thumbsup:


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Taylormade said:


> Is this a joke? You're not a CAD technician or structural engineer by trade? You're drawing elevations and then asking for advice? Hahahahaha. I'm looking forward to seeing this one come together. If you execute half as good as you plan, we're in for a real treat.
> 
> Thanks for sharing. :thumbsup:


Whoa Nellie...back up the truck. My last X-Rays don't show the real me.:laughing:












 







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## Taylormade (Feb 3, 2011)

cabinetman said:


> Whoa Nellie...back up the truck. My last X-Rays don't show the real me.:laughing:
> 
> .


Hmmm, not sure I follow this c-man, but if my post was taken as anything other than complimentary, I apologize. I'm blown away by this and embarrassed at how I "plan" out my work. 

Perhaps I should reword it.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Taylormade said:


> Well them thar fancy computer drawins is pretty n all, but you outta see what I can do with a post it note and a charcoal pencil! :cowboy:
> 
> 
> Is this a joke? You're not a CAD technician or structural engineer by trade? You're drawing elevations and then asking for advice? Hahahahaha. I'm looking forward to seeing this one come together. If you execute half as good as you plan, we're in for a real treat.
> ...


 :laughing::laughing::laughing:
Sometimes I build without drawings and post my sketches on the boards before they get planed. Somehow I always screw-up tough, and then beat myself up for milling things wrong. In the end it always takes me longer and my designs end up with modifications to hide the errors.


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## Taylormade (Feb 3, 2011)

Well, you, sir, have done an outstanding job so far and I'm excited to see it come together. I liked the chairs a lot. Sorry I have nothing to offer in the way of help, other than encouragement, which you definitely have.


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Taylormade said:


> Hmmm, not sure I follow this c-man, but if my post was taken as anything other than complimentary, I apologize. I'm blown away by this and embarrassed at how I "plan" out my work.
> 
> Perhaps I should reword it.


Nothing wrong with your post. It was complimentary. My comment was sort of an analogy. OP posted an engineering type of schematic, which reminded me of my X-Rays. He hasn't made the final product, which prompted my remark about "the real me".:laughing:












 







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## Taylormade (Feb 3, 2011)

Ok whew. Thanks for clarifying. I certainly didn't mean to come across as anything but positive.


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## Texas Sawduster (Apr 27, 2009)

*Nice Work*

Nice work on those chairs !!!
I like the drawings.
I don't think you will need my help with anything. :yes:

Which CAD package are you using?


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## beelzerob (May 2, 2010)

My "plans" usually end up either sketched on a post-it note, or drawn on a dry-erase board. And then when it actually comes time to cut, I just stand there for about 10 minutes looking at the board and the saw trying to picture how it all goes together....

Your way seems a tad better.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Starting with the table legs.

If you are bored and have some bandwidth and can unzip, then download this file in attachments on bottom of the linky page and you can look at what the leg should look like from any angle as you wish.

Linky

https://sites.google.com/site/willemjmartins/home

Five minutes on the clock to set this up, started at 12:00, two 8" wide boards need to be cut for all the table leg laminations. Rough cuts, at this stage, as the laminations will be milled later. 16 laminations in total.

Tip, if your drill press is next to your miter saw, you have a shoulder to lean on.:icon_cool:









Boards now go to the table saw, to rip in 4" pieces.









16 x laminations now to the jointer. We only joint the glue faces, everything else left in rough. Darn, big cuts shavings blocked the inlet to my dust collector. Hate it when that happens, you know when the jointer starts spitting shavings at you.









Glue up starts, I always buy the small bottles, Lowes just up the street. Ask me why I know not to store glue, learnt the hard way.









Three glue up's done, ran out of 4" clamps, so one more tonight after I get some clamps undone. Clock says 1 hour 40 minutes. 4 hours 10 minutes into this project so far, that's it for today.

You can never have enough clamps.


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## Texas Sawduster (Apr 27, 2009)

*Shop Helper*

Hey, nice work so far. 
Nice layout on the shop.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

All laminations glued up, top glued up and rough cut-list complete.

7 hours 14 minutes into the project so far, not sure I'm happy with that, some indecisiveness on the table top approach slowed me down a little.

After gluing, I always wait a week before milling, this time for two reasons:

1.) Milling too soon, glue lines sometimes show.

2.) We have great weather in NC today, guess what I will be doing?









Later


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

*Prepping for the Breadboard ends*

About 35 minutes of hand plane work tonight, just to thickness where the bread board ends go. I'm within about 0.002" should be good enough.

Here is my plan, would you do it different?

1.) I have both ends thicknessed with my Stanley #7.

2.) Will cut both ends square to the one jointed side, to dimension.

3.) Router both sides bread board tenons, running against a straight edge and milling slightly 0.010" larger than the cut milled in the ends.

4.) Tune with a test piece and a shoulder plane.

5.) Cut the tenons to length but leave the top too wide, to trim later.

6.) Clamp both bread boards to the top.

7.) Instead of using dowels, I plan using my hollow chisel mortising machine, to pin the breadboards, blind on top side.

Later.









Ps. No matter what Mr Nielsen says, those vintage Stanley blades have steel that cuts better. Knew what it was once, but forgotten.


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## mike1950 (Aug 29, 2010)

Your chairs look great-can't wait to see table. Nice plane. Your plans make mine look bad-why-cause they are almost non existent.


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## marioleal (Nov 9, 2010)

The chairs are amazing. I really like them. My wife likes them too! Anyway, thank you for posting this...


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## info (Oct 3, 2011)

I love what you done so far . 
P.S your wife is pretty


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## Fudwrecker (Jan 27, 2011)

beelzerob said:


> My "plans" usually end up either sketched on a post-it note, or drawn on a dry-erase board. And then when it actually comes time to cut, I just stand there for about 10 minutes looking at the board and the saw trying to picture how it all goes together....
> 
> Your way seems a tad better.


Hmm 2 hours (is that actually autoCad?) 

I sort of use graph paper and once I buy the wood - the "plans" get buried in tools and project carnage. never to be used again
I'm going to open a software design tool in "tools" if any of you can offer up some advice 

BTW - I think your shop is fantastic - and a helper too!


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

This is looking great. Loving this build. Looking forward to the next installment.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

When one does this as a hobby, an hour here a couple there, it always poses a small problem. I can get terribly out of practice.

The last time I did breadboard ends, was in the 80's and I used a massive CNC mill in the prototype build section of a factory.

So I learnt, doing bread board ends using a hand held circular saw and a router is not easy, when your top is rough and you want a tight doweled joint with no gaps whatsover. I ended up having to make both breadboard ends over after a number of screw-ups, best not mentioned. I learned though, next time it will be easy.

In the end my Lee Nielsen and Lee Valley planes did the tuning with the desired results.

Pic of the top with the breadboard ends. I always leave the top rough and do final sizing, planing and touch up after it is affixed to the base, for various reasons. So we are done with this for now.









Starting with the base, the leg blanks have been milled square.

I always use stops on my my machines, to make sure each leg measures exactly the same. Wing it with boards and clamps, but it works. On my Dewalt miter saw, I have to always use a board against the fence, as the aluminum casting is not true enough, to give a perfectly square cut.









All blanks are now ready for the lathe, some real pretty grain starting to show up.









Turning is about to start, always a bit nervous I'm going to screw-up one of my purty blanks. I'm by no means an expert turner, some turning and any risky areas I scrape. I sharpen using a water wheel and my U gouge ground to a 50 degree angle does 95% of the work.


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## Texas Sawduster (Apr 27, 2009)

*Looking good !*

Looking good so far. :thumbsup:


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

First table leg milled, to match chair legs, following drawings exactly.


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## Lola Ranch (Mar 22, 2010)

I would plan angle corner blocks to lock the aprons to the legs. It will make the table twice as strong.

IMHO of course.

Bret


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Lola Ranch said:


> I would plan angle corner blocks to lock the aprons to the legs. It will make the table twice as strong.
> 
> IMHO of course.
> 
> Bret


Thx Bret, that will help.

Was that for a knock down (can be taken apart for transport), or a glued-up joint on the legs?


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## Lola Ranch (Mar 22, 2010)

WillemJM said:


> Thx Bret, that will help.
> 
> Was that for a knock down (can be taken apart for transport), or a glued-up joint on the legs?


It could be knock down, but I glued it up.

Bret


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

*Aprons and top done*

For this project the aprons/legs and the top is complete. What remains is spraying and assembly which is built for knock-down.

Aprons/legs









Quick and dirty strength calculation.

For Maple tensile strength perpendicular to the grain is 750 psi

We have to drop the square inches to get to lbs.

Mortises are 1/2" x 2 1/4" giving us a cross sectional area of say 1" to make things easy.

Multiply 750 lbs/sq inch by 1 sq inch and we have 750 lbs. Two tenons on each side gives us 1500 lbs. In short it means a 800lb lady can dance on the table across the apron and we should be good. :laughing:

To calculate bending stresses including the top means a bit more math, but probably the top will fail long before the aprons do.

Picture of the finished top.









Short explantion of how we finished the top:

This top was glued up using a joint bit and gluing up the boards without milling. They basically had both rough sawn marks as well as waves of different thickness from a double sided planer at the lumber yard. I'm pleased I took this route as I ended up with the top face as flat as glass and got very close to 15/16 from 4/4 lumber. Final measurements are 23.7mm.

After glue-up I used a portable belt sander on the bottom of the table top, using a ceramic 37 grit belt. It smoothed the top within 25 minutes. I followed up with 80 grit, and the finish is good enough for the underside.

The top was hand planed as follows, it took me close to 3 1/2 hours.

I used a no 7 vintage Stanley jointer plane across the grain, taking cuts of 0.0035" per stroke. The jointer plane being of some length is handy here, as I can use it to plane as well as a straigth edge to check for high or low spots.









Across the grain, I got everyting clean except for one litte spot, which measured 0.011".









Based on the this being the only unfinished area left I decided to take two more passes across the grain covering the entire top, which would remove roughly 0.006". Then I changed to a no 6 Stanley smoothing plane and started planing with the grain. It took me two passes and the top was close to being flat. Using a blade angle of 32 degrees on the bevel still gave me a little tearout though, so I had this to deal with. The cross grain on this Maple made it impossible to not get tearout with the 6 Stanley.

To get rid of the tearout, i used a short Lee Valley smoothing plane, taking cuts of approximately 0.002". For this I used a blade angle of 32 degrees, but with a back bevel of 15 degrees, which did the trick within two passes, no tearout and the top looked like glass after the second pass.









Finally, I used a finish sander with 220 grit to prepare for spraying.

Without a wide belt sander, which I have no intentions of getting, I do not know how else I would have gotten to the same results. Power planing would have given tearout, which would need the same cleanup as I did with this approach, but with reduced top thickness. Granted the cleanup would have been less. The rest of this lumber which I used on the chairs, was face jointed and thickness plane. It all ended up being around 3/4" some less.

Hand planing a top is fun, but we need razor sharp and accurate plane irons. I'll post my method below, but there are many ways to skin a cat and each woodworker has his own tricks.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

*How I do my plane irons*

My sharpening.

I use a Lee Valley guide with an angle adjustment by clicking a knob, to hone.

I start at 28 degrees and re-do the main bevel with each sharpening, untill the back of the iron shows a micro curl. I use a diamond plate stone for this think around 300 grit. It goes real fast.









Next I use 30 degrees by adjusting a click on the honing tool, this time on a 750 grit diamond plate. This gives me a secondary bevel, within about 4 strokes.









Now I adjust the honing guide to 32 degrees and do the final micro bevel on 2000 Norton paper, glued to a granite block. Most people use glass, the reason i don't is the breaking risk and handling. I use to use a 8000 water stone, but found to keep it accurately flat to within a 1/1000 of an inch was a hassle, so I no longer use it.









Finally, I flatten the back of the cutting edge on the 2000 Norton paper. The iron shaves hair after this.


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## haugerm (Nov 19, 2009)

Thanks for the sharpening tips. I always say I'm going to get around to learning hand planes, but I never seem to. The table looking great by the way. 
--Matt


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Project complete.


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## Dominick (May 2, 2011)

Hey that table came out beautiful. 
Nice touch on the gold detail. 
Also, if that's your home its beautiful as well. great job thanks for sharing.


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## woodmeistro (Jul 9, 2010)

WOW! awsome table set. beautiful work. 
I made my table as well but only have one chair that i made, the rest were made in some 3rd world jungle clearing. I am working on a full set.


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## MastersHand (Nov 28, 2010)

Gorgeous build must be very rewarding to sit at that for dinner with the family

Sent from my iPhone using Wood Forum


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## Eric13 (Jan 15, 2012)

That is beautiful, the top looks like it's got glass on it. And those chairs! :thumbsup: 
How did you do the sayings on the chairs?


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## Bvh56 (Nov 8, 2011)

Nice Hayabusa.


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## btreadway2003 (Sep 25, 2012)

thats amazing thanks for sharing!


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## Domer (Mar 23, 2008)

Your hairs are very well done. 

I am also not sure why you are asking for help as it is apparent that you are a fine crafts-person. The quality on your chairs is excellent.

If you were asking for design comments here is my 2 cents worth. My questions about the table is the turned legs matching the chairs. I would think it simpler and looking better with the chairs if you simply had slightly tapered legs. 

Domer


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