# Wine Barrel Table Top



## tdwhiteknight (Jul 7, 2009)

I am wanting to make a tabletop out of the staves of a wine barrel. The table top will be 36" in diameter. The staves are 34" long, but of course very curved. They range in width from 1 in to 6 inches. The thickness is about 1 inch to 3/4 inch. My plan is to cut the staves into shorter pieces , hopefully around 10 to 12 inches in order to get flatter pieces that i will be able to true up a little easier. My question is what would be the best method to put the pieces together in order to make the table top? I am assuming I need to put 4 or 5 pieces of the same widths end to end in order to make longer boards. After that, i would need to use join up this longer boards. I have always thought of this as laminating wood, but I can not find anything on the net about how to go about it.


so here are some questions:
Would I put the small pieces together with the grain running the same way?
Would i put the long boards together with alternating grains (that is if the answer to question 1 is the grain should run the same way)?
Will gluing and clamping suffice?
Is 3/4 of an inch thick enough for a 36 inch table top or should I attach this top to a piece of plywood (if so, is just gluing it to the plywood good enough)?
Ideally, I would like to inlay the barrel head (22 inch dia.) into the center of the table, but I am not exactly sure what the best method would be to go about this.
I realize I have a lot of questions, but I am a newbie into all of this. I have power hand tools, but I do not have table equipment yet. I do plan on getting a table saw and router though. I am also working in limited space. I have refinished a number of different of pieces, including 2 wine barrels, but this is the first time I have thought about doing something like this.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have.

Tim


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## tdwhiteknight (Jul 7, 2009)

*???*

Did I post this badly? I realize I am new to this forum, but I thought I would get at least a couple of suggestions. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## frankp (Oct 29, 2007)

whiteknight, sometimes posts just don't get noticed, especially in times like now where lots of people are posting less and working more on projects.

First, laminating is usually stacking layers together, not boards end to end, so if you've not had a lot of luck, that may be why. Second, I would recommend scarfing the shorter pieces together to get the lengths you want. I use at least a 4:1 ratio when scarfing, but I've heard of 7:1 and 12:1. That's usually on much thinner material though. 4:1 should be plenty on 3/4 or 4/4 material.

Now to answer your specific questions:

1. I would think orienting the grain the same way would look the best.
2. I'm not sure what you mean by alternating grains unless you mean at 90 degrees to each other. That obviously contradicts 1 so I would avoid it unless you like the aesthetic of it. If you do then you'll have to consider how the differing grains will join but that isn't a major issue. If you mean 180 degrees to each other, then that's effectively the same as 1, so that would be fine. 
3. I haven't made anything quite 36" but all the glue ups I've done similar to what you're suggesting have had no jointing or biscuits and have worked fine.
4. I suspect you'd be better off putting this on another layer of something else. 3/4" is fairly thick but for a table with that kind of span I'd worry about some deflection in the center. (If you use a single post design with stringers it would probably be fine with the 3/4".)
5. There are a couple ways to do this. I'd recommend looking into some strip built kayak websites as a good starting place on how to inlay the head into this table. Basically you build the table as sections around the head and glue them up a little at a time. Or if you use the underlayment layer you can just route out the spot for the head and easily glue all the pieces to the underlayment and then match the thickness of the head to the rest of the table. If you don't have a router yet it can also be done with a hand held jig saw, you just have to be a bit more careful when making your cuts.

Hopefully that will help you get started. Sounds like an interesting project... I know a couple friends of mine would love something like that as they use wine barrels as end tables all around their living room.


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

*WELCOME TO THE FORUM*

My first thoughts are to find different stock suitable for the top. For the staves to be used for that purpose, they would have to be planed and jointed so you wind up with flat pieces with square parallel edges.

For those sizes of pieces, in order to get them flat, the thickness may suffer by the time you're done machining them. One thought though, if you do machine them, they could be mounted to a substrate, like plywood or MDF and appear as a structural top when it would be only decorative. Doing it that way, you wouldn't have to worry about joints breaking. That method leaves open a variety of layout patterns which could be very interesting.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*I agree with cabinetman*

The barrel staves are too curved to get any usable flat pieces to glue together. Without a power planer, bandsaw and table saw you asking for "trouble" many if not countless hours trying to make curved boards flat. Not very practicle. Find another wood for the top, if you want a laminated look. There was a post on a walnut cutting board that look nice. I'll look for the link. :thumbsup: bill
http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f2/what-could-cause-table-saw-question-11351/


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## WINEWOODWORKER (Jul 31, 2009)

*WINE WOOD Question*

Barrel staves will never unbend. What you should use is the tops (Head) and bottoms. See what can be done at my Blog

http://winewood.wordpress.com/products/custom-bars/making-of-a-bar/

Let me know if I can help 

Robert
Wine Wood Creations


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