Help me find ideas for an oak trestle table

[AJBaker]

I have part of a huge old oak barrel that I got for free about two years ago. It was going to be thrown away or turned into firewood!

I'd like to get around to making a dining table out of this wood, but I'll need to first come up with a design, and also figure out how I plan to work this lumber into a piece of furniture.

Here's the material I've got (more or less, I haven't yet taken precise measurements):

- The bottom of the oak barrel, which is an oval of about 2.20m x 1.50m. Each board is about 65mm thick and the whole oval is chamfered at the edge.

- a handful of boards from the side of the barrel. They're curved, about 2m long, and thinner in the middle.

- a 2m x 40cm oak board probably from the top of the barrel. It has an extra hole with some kind of tap.


I'm thinking of using the oval as the tabletop, but maybe leaving off parts of the side to make the table less wide (shaoe would be an oval with straight sides). I could also leave the shape as is, but maybe have an excessively wide table.

This tabletop would also be massively heavy, so it would in theory make sense to resaw the boards to gain inch thick boards and still have a 40mm tabletop, but I don't think I have the kit for that kind of job. Also, I've been told that old oak from barrels is particularly rough on saw blades.

It would be cool to use the curved sides to somehow make legs or trestles, but it'll be a challenge to make something that isn't too lightweight compared to the top.

What do you think? A project worth starting, and any cool ideas? Thanks!

 

[Eshmiel]

I have part of a huge old oak barrel that I got for free about two years ago. It was going to be thrown away or turned into firewood!

I'd like to get around to making a dining table out of this wood, but I'll need to first come up with a design, and also figure out how I plan to work this lumber into a piece of furniture.

Here's the material I've got (more or less, I haven't yet taken precise measurements):

- The bottom of the oak barrel, which is an oval of about 2.20m x 1.50m. Each board is about 65mm thick and the whole oval is chamfered at the edge.

- a handful of boards from the side of the barrel. They're curved, about 2m long, and thinner in the middle.

- a 2m x 40cm oak board probably from the top of the barrel. It has an extra hole with some kind of tap.


I'm thinking of using the oval as the tabletop, but maybe leaving off parts of the side to make the table less wide (shaoe would be an oval with straight sides). I could also leave the shape as is, but maybe have an excessively wide table.

This tabletop would also be massively heavy, so it would in theory make sense to resaw the boards to gain inch thick boards and still have a 40mm tabletop, but I don't think I have the kit for that kind of job. Also, I've been told that old oak from barrels is particularly rough on saw blades.

It would be cool to use the curved sides to somehow make legs or trestles, but it'll be a challenge to make something that isn't too lightweight compared to the top.

What do you think? A project worth starting, and any cool ideas? Thanks!

I've made two oak tables that might appeal and be possible from what you have in that barrel - a 3ft X 6ft trestle table and a smaller round-top table-for-four inspired by a Gimson design. Both are over-engineered as part of their style. Mortise & tenon and housing joints are the main construction theme. Decorative effects are minimal - chamfers and lambs tongues for the most part.

 

[AJBaker]

Nice! I especially like the double columns on the trestle table, they look good.

 

[Orraloon]

Can you post pics of the barrel wood so we can have a better idea of how the bent staves may be used. Seeing is understanding. A lot of wine barrels are fired so the inside is scorched black charcoal. Thats likely why its bad for blades. Still the sacrifice of of a blade or two would be worth it for a project of this scale.
Regards
John

 

[TRITON]

As above ^ pics so we know what were dealing with.

 

[Cabinetman]

You weren’t joking when you said the barrel was HUGE, made me think of a huge desk I made, the pics show the three barrels that held it up, I was wondering if you could remake the staves back into a barrel to hold the top off the floor.

 

[AJBaker]

Yes, sorry about the lack of pictures. I sent the first post from my phone and was struggling a bit.

Here you go:
To the right is the bottom, roughly in position. Next to it to the left are the handfull of side staves. To the very left are the pieces from the top.

Unfortunately I don't have the whole barrel. Back when I had access, I was actually there to get a second hand kitchen. Some guy was remodelling his home and wanted the oak kitchen cabinets and grantite counter top removed. Instead of hiring a company, we agreed that I'd do the work, and I'd keep the cabinets (for a remodelling I was doing at home). He also had this great big barrel he wanted to get rid of. On the last day, I had finished loading my car and I filled the remaining space with the planks from the barrel. I was running out of space and by the end of the day I was knackered from the other work. In the end, I had to leave most of the side staves behind.

It doesn't look like it was charred, but it does look handmade. The outside surfaces were clearly done with a scrub plane and the staves seem to have been formed with an adze.

I'll take more pictures soon.

 

[AJBaker]

Here's a trestle table from 1stdibs. I was thinking of something like this for making curved legs with the side staves, but I'm worried it'll look top heavy.


Otherwise, I could probably find some oak beams and make a different base, maybe something like this (1stdibs):

 

[Jameshow]

Yes, sorry about the lack of pictures. I sent the first post from my phone and was struggling a bit.

Here you go:
To the right is the bottom, roughly in position. Next to it to the left are the handfull of side staves. To the very left are the pieces from the top.

Unfortunately I don't have the whole barrel. Back when I had access, I was actually there to get a second hand kitchen. Some guy was remodelling his home and wanted the oak kitchen cabinets and grantite counter top removed. Instead of hiring a company, we agreed that I'd do the work, and I'd keep the cabinets (for a remodelling I was doing at home). He also had this great big barrel he wanted to get rid of. On the last day, I had finished loading my car and I filled the remaining space with the planks from the barrel. I was running out of space and by the end of the day I was knackered from the other work. In the end, I had to leave most of the side staves behind.

It doesn't look like it was charred, but it does look handmade. The outside surfaces were clearly done with a scrub plane and the staves seem to have been formed with an adze.

I'll take more pictures soon.

View attachment 197201

I think a splayed leg table would look fine the staves look pretty substantial and keeps the materials unified? Could you take a bit of material ott the top for the stretchers?

 

[Fitzroy]

Wow! what a brilliant project. Likely difficult and challenging but the end result could be stunning and with an awesome story. Wish I was closer and could help you out with resawing but Aberdeen and Switzerland are rather distant. Regards top thickness and resawing, i wonder how much movement you would have in the timber after being in contact with liquid all its life. If you do resaw then I'd leave it a little thick incase of movement.

I love your idea of leaving a few of the side boards off the top and keeping the oval ends, I'd also try to leave the hand planed bevel so you can see what it was.

The staves look really chunky and i wonder if you could make a frame similar to the one in this thread, you'd need to adjust the shape to suit curved members but I think it could work. The joinery would be interesting with so many curves to incorporate but a few gaps here and there in such a reused piece would be ok.

What do you think? A project worth starting

YES! and worth finishing also.

F.