Elm Dining Table - WIP (sort of!)

[jkljosh]

Hello Guys and Gals

I thought I'd try to post my first WIP, albeit just as I'm completing the project!

I had a fairly open brief from a client to design and make a dining table to seat 8. They wanted something "interesting" to sit centre stage in their large garden room adjacent to their open plan kitchen, replacing a worn traditional style large pine job that they’d had since getting married. The only thing they were adamant about was the need for a “substantial” top. Lots of sketching and a 1/10th scale macquette later we settled upon the idea of “slabby” legs and gently curved top.

Typically the lovely straight grained elm log that I’d seen at Prime Timber in Fareham early in the design process had sold by the time the design was finalised. However, seeing my disappointment Andy mentioned that he had a nice section of burr elm from the Holyrood Estate in Scotland, that might fit the bill. I wasn’t convinced that I could risk such a radical departure from the broadly agreed design, however a phone call to the client generated a very generous response – “we’ll go with what you think best”! No pressure then as I handed over the ££ for the complete air dried (2.5yrs) 8.5 ft burr elm log. It was just over 2ft in diameter at it's widest and converted through and through into 8 x 2.25" boards. The figure, even in the rough sawn timber looked incredible.

I needed to get the MC down, so had the whole log cluttering up my heated workshop for the best part of 6 months.

In the absence of a moisture meter, I decided to weigh the boards on a regular basis until their weight stabilised – I’m not sure how valid that is as an approach, but it seemed better to do that than start working “wet” boards. Eventually they seemed to settle around 45-50kg a board and so it was time to start work in anger.

Originally I had intended to create the top in reasonably conventional style – cutting the boards down to a size that would fit through my planer/thicknesser. However the figure in the log was so spectacular I decided that it needed to be made into a feature by book matching adjacent boards, for both the top and the legs, while using the waney edge to provide interest for the edge of the table. The only problem with doing so was that it left me tricky challenge of flattening/thicknessing 24” wide boards. I’d seen an article in FWW about flattening large slabs using a router and sledge arrangement and so set about some 18mm ply to make the jig. If I was to achieve anything close to two parallel and flat surfaces I also had to make up accurate support beams and rails on which to run the sledge. It was only once I sat down and thought about it, that I realised that the size of the set up needed (to make a 7.5ft x 3.5ft tabletop) was going to be a real challenge in my small workshop.

Many passes of a Wealden 3 wing surface trimming bit and several bags of router shavings later I had 4 reasonably flat and parallel planks to play with!

More to follow including - the joys of hand planning/scraping wild grain table tops, donkeys ears and wobbly edges, preparing the edge joint using Veritas' bevel up jointer, manufacturing brass fitments, and most exciting of all - the miraculous reveal when I first applied oil to the top.........
Cheers
John

 

[Baldhead]

John

This is one WIP I will definitely follow, can't wait for the next installment

Baldhead

 

[vinnie_chip]

MORE!!!!

 

[blackrodd]

Elm is one of my favourite wood's.
An interesting design,This is going to look spectacular, When is the next episode?
Regards Rodders

 

[Racers]

Lovely lumps of wood! are you leaving the hole between the planks or should I say did you?

Pete

 

[jkljosh]

thanks for your comments folks, the next instalment starts here with a couple of more detailed shots of the sledge I made to flatten the boards.

As I was trying to maintain as much thickness in the boards as possible I didn’t want to take them to final thickness in case the initial removal of surface material released any inherent stresses within the timber. Sure enough, one of the top boards warped pretty much immediately, so I left them to settle for a couple of weeks before returning to the fray. One of the biggest challenges in this has been manhandling the large boards on my own in a small space, so before taking things further reduce the dimensions as much as I could by ripping the boards close to final width for the bookmatching, and just over length for the legs and top. I needed the assistance of a friend to manage the 8ft boards as I ripped to a chalk line by eye on my bandsaw, and did the cross cutting with a plunge saw guided by a baton clamped across the boards, ending up with slightly more readily manageable boards.

Then it was a further round of sledge router assisted thicknessing, this time with the bookmatched boards paired up on the supporting rails, so that the top and each set of legs were of consistent thickness.

This was hot and dusty work, despite the use of 2 chip extractors mounted in the ends of the sledge. I didn't want to over burden the set up, so was only removing about 1.5mm in depth at any one pass, so it took some considerable time to take out the 10-15 mm of warp along the length of the table top boards.

Fortunately everything stayed largely stable this second time around so it was time to turn to cutting everything to final dimensions. Sadly I was so engrossed in the whole measure twice cut once stuff that I completely failed to take any photos at this stage. My decision to retain the waney-edges on both the outside edge of the table top and the outer edges of the legs left me with a bit of head scratching. The top was relatively straight-forward - working backwards from the average table width I was after (around 3' 6") I thence established the "mirror line" on both boards to achieve the book matching. It was relatively simple, given all the features I had to work off (knots and interesting swirly grain points). One snapped chalk line later and the addition of a Festool plunge saw and guide rail borrowed from a friend, enabled me to achieve a really good straight cut, without having to wrestle the boards through my table saw.

The slab legs proved a little more complicated due to the need to get the top and bottom edges perpendicular to the vertical bookmatch line. I ended up mounting each leg (using blocks and toggle clamps) on a sacrificial sheet of MDF that I could run along the rip fence on my table saw, with the blade set at 30 degrees to give me the basis for the butt joint between them. I then used my cross cut fence to take the legs exactly to length. I'm really sorry I forgot to take photos during this phase, but I was so concerned about Cucumbering up these key components it was the last thing on my mind!

I decided that I would butt joint the legs with 10mm dowels to assist in holding things aligned during glue up. The table saw bevels along the leg's spine were pretty accurate and needed the lightest of cleaning up with my trusty Clifton No. 6. Once I had two "perfect" surfaces, I then made a simple MDF jig (the one in the foreground) to align the holes in either leg - these being drilled out using a spiral dowel drill mounted in my router aligned in the jig with a fixed guide bush in the router base.

I worried that clamping up to close the joint on such a shallow mitre would be troublesome, particularly as the outer edge of the legs weren't square to the joint along the spine (due to the waney edges!). Donkey's ears were the obvious solution, but I didn't want to glue them to the outside of the legs, as is recommended in some texts. More jig making required! I could have used blocks but instead chose to use eccentric cams that I made up - as this meant that the different waney edges could be accommodated on the two pairs of legs.

Several dry runs, and the addition of some additional belt and braces clamps later, it was time to up the adrenaline levels and try to do it with glue in the mix! Is it just me or does everyone find one man glue ups a really stressful time in any project?

I lost my first attempt at this earlier, so I'll post this now and continue once I know it's lodged!

TTFN
John

 

[jkljosh]

That seems to have worked, although my photo formatting seems to be getting messed up - although they are all the right way up in my pictures folder, some seem to be rotated when attached to these posts - apologies for those getting stiff necks while trying to view things from the right perspective. On, on....

Jointing the long edges of the table top was a challenge - I've never done anything on this scale before. Right tool for the job has to be a good place to start, so with birthday money accumulated over several years I bit the bullet and purchased a veritas BU jointer and the associated fence. I've got several of their planes and once again I have been mightily impressed with the quality and effectiveness of their wares. Using this tool was a dream - even with the really mixed grain that that burrs in the elm presented on the edges. I used the top as my reference surface against which I ran the plane fence to ensure that both edges were perpendicular and true. That said the process wasn't without it's dramas. The boards were clearly too big to hold on my bench and so I used wedges and some floor dollies to hold the boards upright on their waney edge.

The other difficulty I ran into was the absence in my workshop of a really accurate 8 foot straight edge with which to monitor my progress! I knew what I had to achieve - two perfectly flat and straight 7' 6"edges perpendicular to the surface of each board. Simples! In the end I just had to get things as close as I could judge (using my 1m straight edge) before butting the boards together to see where things weren't right, and then putting them back on edge to trim a little here and a little there, before lying them back down to see how they married up. Easy when dealing with a couple of 500mm chunks of anything, but rather more difficult given the 45kg lumps I was battling with! I start to question my sanity in taking on this commission while I was single-handedly man-handling these huge boards into the dollies for the nth time, wedging them, and then taking a couple of passes of the plane before lying them back down again to see whether the "fit" was any better. Ho hum - perhaps I shouldn't be such a perfectionist where seamless joints are concerned.

Eventually I was satisfied with things and so turned my mind to how the **** I would manage to handle the top if I glued it into a single piece! Clearly a glued butt joint would end up being invisible, but I wondered whether the table might be more manageable if I made it so that the top could be split in two. A colleague persuaded me that "posh" worktop connector bolts were the solution, although in retrospect I wish I'd stuck to my purist roots and just done as I had on the legs.

Another MDF router guide jig later and I was in a position to drill the 10mm holes for the threaded inserts

In the absence of a kitchen fitter's router jig, the "cups and channels" on the other half of the top were cut with a forstner bit and trimming router.

It was only after cutting all these holes and channels, and trying to pull the boards up using the fittings, that I realised that they really aren't designed to do this kind of thing. Yes they do the job, but it was just impossible to get a "repeatable" seamless surface on the table top. Ah well, we live and learn eh? Out glue pot, sash cramps and large parallel jaw clamps after all!!

Good grief, look at the time - better get on and do some Christmas cards :ho2. I'll get to the next instalment as soon as I can.

Cheers
John

 

[AndyT]

Lots more good stuff there! I especially like your eccentric cams for glueing up the waney edged boards. Very ingenious.

 

[jkljosh]

Christmas cards despatched, so time to try and conclude this. Where was I? Ah yes, top glued up and now one **** of an unmanageable lump in the centre of my workshop! At least is wasn't going to go moving around as I attacked it with planes, scraper planes and card scrapers in order to remove the router lines, and generate that all important invisible glue line along the bookmatching. Initial work was done with a Quanseng bevel up No.5 jack plane, supplemented by my Clifton 4 1/2. Wild grain everywhere caused a few problems, and kept me honest where sharpening was concerned - regular visits to my sharpening stones and a Veritas Mk 2 honing guide that I've been experimenting with (although I've just acquired a Richard Kell, which I'm looking forward to testing out during my next project). Even with really sharp tools, the odd patch of tear out was impossible to avoid. Even with really sharp tools it was physically really hard work covering a surface this large! Ah well, it is probably cheaper than going to the gym.

I'd invested in a second hand Veritas Scraper Plane with the express intention of using it on this top, but, try as I might on some off cuts I couldn't get it working sufficiently cleanly to risk on my prize top! Isn't it odd that as the opportunity cost of making mistakes goes up as a project progresses, you become increasingly paranoid about cocking things up in the final phases of creation. So it was back to card scrapers and aching thumbs for the most trickily grained elements and as a means of easing out the odd bits of tear out. I was really pleased with the eventual outcome, even though it took the best part of a couple of days work to clean up both sides of the table top.

I decided that the ends of the table top needed softening a little - the square ends just jarred with all the waney edges on legs and the long edges of the top. I sketched free hand some curves on a sheet of MDF to work out how much of an arc I needed, and then some O level maths later had calculated the radius of the arc I'd drawn - marked it out on some 6mm MDF with a home made beam compass (2m long steel rod with some suitable bits of aluminium for point and pencil holding); ripped the curve rough through the bandsaw, and then blended to the line with a compass plane and spokeshave. The resulting template is at the back of the earlier picture of jigs which I'll repeat here to spare any unnecessary scrolling too and fro.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice there are two templates at the back, the second was used to shape the bottom of the legs (before glueing up of course). In both cases I mounted the templates under the items to be shaped and used a massive a Wealden bottom bearing guided straight cutter in my 1/2" ELU MOF router. On thinner work I might have mounted the templates above, but the boards in this case were too think to go that way round. It seemed to work in both cases and left the ends of the table top nicely curved as planned.

Amazingly there was still quite a lot of bark on the waney edges of both the legs and the table top. I didn't like the dark wood contrast, and was concerned about having such a "soft" element on the outside edges - liable to falling off and generally looking scruffy as the table got used. So I attacked the edges with a combination of drill mounted wire brushes, grinding wheels and sanding stars, ultimately finishing with webrax pads to leave a smooth finish, whilst retaining the interest of some of the burry bits!

The final problem to resolve before getting on with finishing was how best to attach the top to the legs. I was (am nervous) about how much a top of this size would move in a centrally heated house, particularly as the timber had only been air dried as described earlier. Having been impressed with the broad depth of knowledge he'd displayed in some of his forum posts, I decided to approach Richard Jones (Sgian Dubh) via PM for advice. He very kindly provided a really comprehensive response that suggested the top might move by as much as an inch over the course of it's first year in a heated environment. Traditional buttons were the obvious solution, but then it struck me that the legs were set at 30 degrees to the direction of movement, so any wooden buttons would be massive (and hence ugly) things spoiling the line on the underside of the table. I decided that a locating dowel at the apex of the legs was a good place to start, with some sort of attachment towards the outer edges. Much head scratching later, it was clear that there wasn't anything suitable off the shelf, so it was out metal working kit and onto ebay to find some brass 4mm brass plate! Here's what I came up with.....

As I suggested about I didn't want any clutter on the underside of the table top, so some studious work with a small router bit and 1" chisel later........

 

[Nippychippy]

Loving this wip great work

 

[Wood Monkey]

I'm completely hooked. And no, you are not the only one who gets stressed at glue up time.

Looking forward to the next instalment.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I'd invested in a second hand Veritas Scraper Plane with the express intention of using it on this top, but, try as I might on some off cuts I couldn't get it working sufficiently cleanly to risk on my prize top!

Keep persevering with the scraper plane. There's a bit of a knack in setting them up but once you get it, it's easily repeatable and they are a joy to use.

Nice project.

Cheers :ho2

Paul

 

[jkljosh]

Opps, didn't realise that there was a limit to 10 attachments per post.

And finally one with the plates attached to the legs..

And so to the really fun and exciting part of any project - the finishing, hopefully with a view to revealing the wood in all it's natural glory. I decided that using traditional abrasive paper on such a large surface would be inappropriate, so I opted for Mirka Abranet - that in my experience really does what it says on the tin: "dust free sanding with no clogging". You have to be careful with this stuff as it cuts really quickly, and so it is very easy to take things out of shape if you aren't paying attention, particularly if you run off of square edges. I used a the sheets mounted on both the bespoke Mirka sanding block (attached to my shop vac), and also on a small palm sander (again connected to the vaccum). As the surfaces were fundamentally smooth from the plane/scraper, I just went through 180, 240, 320 grades, so achieve a flat matt surface in readiness for the oil/wax finish I had planned.

After much deliberation (my first time using oil!) I settled on Liberon Danish Oil - for no other reason than I've used their stains, waxes and shellac and always been very happy with their products. Who says brand loyalty is dead! I followed the usual advice - applying a flood coat with a brush, leaving it to soak in and then wiping off the excess after 10-15 mins, leaving it to harden/cure overnight and then repeating the process. It was amazing to see how variably porous the wood was - some sections in the outer layers drinking the oil straight down, while other denser elements in the burrs hardly accepting anything. I was careful to ensure the same number of applications on either side of all pieces, so as to maintain balance in the timber. The top ended up having 8 applications, just because it would be the wearing surface, as for the legs I restricted myself to 6 applications before being happy with the finish achieved. The grain did not raise much at all with the oiling, so I did not sand back between the early coats. However, I did lightly hand sand between the last 3 applications, just to ensure a silky smooth touch. The wood had a wonderful soft sheen to it by this stage and felt as wonderful as it looked (imho). Finally I ran the lightest of coats of Liberon Black Bison Fine Paste Wax (neutral) over the whole shebang and buffed it to a glow with some lint free cloths.

Here's an idea of what I enjoyed when applying the oil for the first time.

Don't get caught out looking at the last image - it's not the flash washing out the wood around where the brush and pot of oil are - the line is actually that between oiled and sanded surface!

 

[thick_mike]

Wow! Get your 3D glasses on folks!

8)

 

[jkljosh]

The legs ended up looking like this:

With the top coming out in even more spectacular fashion:

Sadly the space constraints in my workshop made it pretty tricky to get any decent shots of the completed table. However, here are a few snaps that I took while doing the final test assembly, before breaking it back into it's component parts for delivery.

The rather glossy look in these photos is most assuredly down to the inadequacy of my photography - the actual finish was much more satin than gloss!

 

[jkljosh]

And so some images I took once the table had been delivered. Once again they aren't great, but hopefully give you folks an idea of what the final thing looked like. I'm hoping to go back in due course (with someone who knows what they are doing) in order to take some better shots for my portfolio.

Overall I'm pretty chuffed with how it's all worked out. Given the spectacular timber, it's hard not to come up with a nice looking piece. That said I was concerned that I might end up making a "posh picnic/pub table" given my clients insistence on slab legs. As it turned out (even if the photos don't convey it very well) when viewed from a distance the organic lines of the legs and table top really do seem to work well. I surprised myself when looking at it as I could genuinely feel a connection with the tree (LOL, sorry I don't mean to go all zen on you), but the natural sweep of the legs into the top came out even better than I had hoped.

Key lessons learned for me? Making big stuff on your own is damned difficult - solely because of the weight and unwieldy nature of big lumps of timber. Manhandling them on one's own ain't easy! I should have greater confidence in the strength of butt joints, and my ability to plane a long and square straight edge - mechanical fixings were an unnecessary complication in this case. Oil finishing is simple, if time consuming (solely because of the drying time between coats), but it does give a wonderful look and feel to good wood. You can successfully flatten big slabs with a router - if you have the patience and a jig! Where appropriate home made brass fittings give a satisfyingly bespoke twist to these things, particularly where OTS alternatives aren't available.

Apologies for all the wittering and the detail I ended up going into, by way of an excuse, this is my first WIP, so I wasn't quite sure how to approach it. I would like to thank those forum members who responded to my earlier queries (about finishing and wood movement), this site is a genuinely invaluable resource for people like me who are learning as we go. Enough from me, hopefully some of you will have found something of value/interest in what I've presented. Here's to everyone having a peaceful and healthy Christmas. Now then, what am I going to make next I wonder...........

 

[JustBen]

That is truly a work of art!
I want that table!!

 

[vinnie_chip]

STUNNING!!!! Very impres =D> =D> sed!!

 

[Nippychippy]

No apologise needed it's was great to watch something amazing coming to life =D> =D> =D> :ho2

 

[Wood Monkey]

Great post. People shouldn't underestimate the effort required to put posts like this together.

Fab piece of woodwork.