joints opening on a table top

[grainoftruth]

In my fledgling enthusiasm I have embarked upon a nest of tables and started with the tops. They are circular and the largest is 21" diameter. I have used Japanese oak that has been air dried in an attached garage for 15 years - so pretty stable though moisture content uncertain. It certainly seemed bone dry. The board was 11" wide and just over an inch thick. I guess my first mistake may have been a single central joint with boards too wide.

Anyway, a seemingly perfect table top has begun to open at the glued joint and after a week in the house has a gap of about 1/16" at the very end and extending in about 3" into the top. The joint is cross tongued with 8mm ply and I glued and cramped with Titebond.

So my question - does anyone know of a filler or repair that will look high quality and can salvage the top without dismantling? Or, if I do cut the table in half along the joint and re-joint will I be able to rout out the cross tongue and glue. I do not have the option of reducing the table size as the tongues extend to within less than an inch of the edge.

Help!

 

[bjm]

Sorry to hear about your woes. Also sorry to say that you may be better off re-making the top - once the timber has acclimatised indoors and stabilised (stopped shrinking). It could shrink by another 1-2% and may distort depending on the cut of the boards. This seems quite likely as well given the width of the board.

Although the wood may have 'felt' dry, if it has been stored in an 'outdoors' environment (such as an unheated garage) it will not have dried below ~15% mc. For a centrally heated indoor environment wood needs to be around 8-10% mc.


Brian

 

[grainoftruth]

Thanks Brian,

I think that's what I feared was the case but just hoped there may be a miracle cure. I guess I'll have to put that down to more valuable experience.

Steve

 

[Steve Maskery]

This is a bugger for all of us at one time or another.
My only suggestion is that when you renmake them, make sure that your joints are VERY slightly hollow - just a shaving or so - and at least any shrinkage will have to be that more severe before it results in the sort of disappointment you have experienced.

Cheers
Steve

 

[John. B]

Another suggestion if I may,
would be to cut them in half leave them for a couple months in the room where they going to reside for acclimatization,
true up the cut, laminate a centre piece of dark hardwood, (As a design feature)
ie sapele,mahogany, or maybe iroko. Glue them all together with aerolite 306 which I have used in boatbuilding and it will not break.
It does require clamping to set, but the wood fibres will break before the glueline does.

Just a thought :?

John. B

 

[RobertMP]

On the subject of acclimatising the wood first...

The sideboard in my avatar picture was made using beech that had been left in the room where the sideboard is located for 3 months or more. 2 years later the breadboard ends reveal the main boards of the top have shrunk about a millimetre on the width - which is fine.

Last year I made a matching coffee table but did not leave the wood to acclimatise. The top on that has shrunk by over 4mm and the breadboard ends show a good 2mm proud of the main panel and need trimming back.

Needless to say acclimatising the wood is something I will always do now whenever possible.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

grainoftruth, I've posted the link below before in the forum. You may not have seen it but you might find my discussion on edge joinery useful. Slainte.

http://www.richardjonesfurniture.com/Ar ... e-ups.html

 

[2020]

In this month's British Woodworking,the author, Gordon Fry, describes a fix for a similar problem on an oak column.

He routed a groove on the hairline cracks and glued in a fillet of the same wood.

May not be a solution for an "in your face" table-top, but if the table is for your own use, it could be effective.

Good Luck

Dave

 

[grainoftruth]

Some really interesting stuff here then.

I'm going to cut the two larger tops in half again as both have split, but I'll leave them inside for another week before I plane up the joint faces. I will try and rout out the old plywood cross tongues and put new ones back; if that doesn't work I'll put a contrasting dark hardwood strip down the middle. I'm also giving up on Titebond as I had plenty of glue in the joints and had clamped them for 18 hours but the splits are still exactly on the joints and there is no sign of the grain separatung instead.

Many thanks for the responses - really apprecaited

Steve