Mike Saville
Established Member
Hi all,
My first major post to the forums. Just wanted to get some feedback on this project - I'd particularly like some pointers on what I could do better next time and what you might have done differently.
Hope the post isn't too long but I've found it a useful exercise to write this description.
The brief:
After knocking a couple of rooms together we were left with a very large kitchen breakfast room. We’d seen some dining tables in a local shop that we really liked, however a couple of things were not ideal. Firstly the exact size we wanted was not available ‘off the shelf’. Secondly if it had been available it would have set us back around £2000!! So the stage was set for my first piece of furniture. It had to be the right size, clean lines and preferably in oak.
I’ve dabbled for a number of years with rough DIY carpentry, kitchen fitting, door hanging etc but have no formal training but thought this was worth a go . . . . I’ve seen the programmes on the TV and can work out angles and use a PC for the design – how hard can it be!
Tooling:
From the couple of house renovations I’ve done in the past 5 years I’ve built up a modest collection of (admittedly cheap and nasty!) power tools – the inaccuracies of which become increasingly apparent. The ones I used in this project were:
* Ferm Biscuit Joiner
* Ferm Table Saw
* B&Q 1600W Router
* Various (Cheap) Chisels
* B&Q Randon Orbital Sander
* Screwfix Sash Clamps
* Quick Grip Clamps
* Irwin Tennon Saw
* Stanley Jetcut Saw
* Bosch 650W Electric Drill#
* Square
* Marking Guage
The finished article:
Below is the finished table. Completed a couple of years ago now (May 2005). There has been some expansion across the breadboard ends – they protrude by a mm or 2 from the edge of the table but otherwise it’s been pretty stable. It gets a coat of wax every few months.
Cutting list:
I knew that I wanted to use oak but of course being naïve didn’t realise the price of English oak! In the end I went for North American White Oak, partly for the colour and partly for the price – also from sustainable source. I also went for PAR as apart from a £6 hand plane I had no means of squaring this up. When it arrived I checked the stock and it was perfectly straight/square, very useful as it saved me jointing the piece later. Final cutting list was:
* 3 x 2.2m x 50mm x 200mm (V) (Bread Boards)
* 5 x 2m x 50mm x 200mm (W) (Table Top)
* 3 x 2.2m x 50mm x 100mm(X) (Rails)
* 3 x 2.2m x 50mm x 50mm (Y)
* 6 x 2.2m x 25mm x 100mm (Z) (Legs)
The above are finished sizes.
The Build:
I began with making the legs which are made up of 4 pieces of the 25mm stock (Z). Using the Jetcut saw I cut the existing 2.2m lengths into 3 equal lengths of about 733mm. I wasn’t worried about the finished length at this stage as I wanted to do this later. Having cut all the lengths of 25mm stock (Z) into 3 I was left with 18 pieces from which to make the legs.
Next I drilled five holes for screws all the way through 4 of these 733mm lengths. I used some scrap on the opposite side to avoid breakout. Once I had drilled these holes I used a counter sink bit to ensure that the screw heads would sit below the surface. Next I glued and screwed these lengths on the wide face with 4 other of the 733mm lenghts. The 4 jobs I then clamped and left to dry. As it turned out this was not the best way to start. . . .
To complete the basic leg construction I cut biscuit slots either side of this glued section and attached 2 more of the 733mm lengths to either side hiding the screw heads in the process. Again glued, clamped and left to dry. I repeated this process for each of the four legs.
Next I used a square to mark the finished length on each leg (700mm). I marked a line round both the top and bottom of the leg. I then cut around this line with my tennon saw.
Next job I had to do was to mortice at the top of the legs for the rails to fit into. This is where my decision to use screws to join the 2 central boards in the legs proved to be a problem. I began by drilling out the mortices with an 18mm forstener bit. I then moved to a chisel to clean out the rest of the material. Whilst removing this material I ruined 2 chisels after hitting screws (doh!). For the remaining mortices I had to hunt around for the screw first, dig around it and then cut of the end with a hacksaw blade . . Eventually I ended up with a couple of motices on each leg, 30mm wide, 50mm tall and 50mm deep. At this point I also added a couple of registration marks to indicate the outside faces of each leg.
All that was needed to complete the legs at this stage was a bit of sanding, the long faces were fine but I wanted to remove the worst of the saw marks from the top and bottom ends. Out with the 60 grit then the 80 grit (I never realised that sanding end grain oak would take quite so long!)
Next job was to cut the rails for the sides and ends of the table to size. I was very careful to make sure I added the extra length needed for the tennons at either end of these rails. I began by cutting the 100mm x 50mm stock (X) to length. For the sides the finished rail length would be 1900mm, add 100mm for the tennons and I needed 2 sides rails of 2m each. For the end rails I needed a finished length of 700mm, add 100mm for the tennons which meant 2 end rails of 800mm each. I cut all these pieces to length from stock (X) with the Jetcut – making sure to mark with my square first to ensure accuracy.
Next I marked out for the tennons with my square, pencil and marking guage. The tennons on the ends of all the rails at this stage were exactly the same. So I marked out 8 tennons like so:
Using a tennon saw I first made the cheek cuts, followed by the shoulders – having used a guage to mark the cuts did help my cuts to stay reasonably straight! With the tennons cut I tried to dry fit to joints together. I was pleased with the fact the I had achieved a snug fit on all the leg to rail joints. What I guess I should have realised was that the mortices were too long and butted against each other inside the mortices I had created. I was able to rectify this by cutting a 45 degree mitre on the end of all the tennons.
With these mitred tennons cut I again did a dry fit. The last step in completing the rails was to make a few small motices in the inside face of the rails to accept some cleats for hold on the top. I cut 3 mortices each of the side rails and 2 in each of the end rails. The mortices were 30mm wide, 10mm high and 25mm deep. I set the motices 15mm below the top of the rail.
Next I made the cleats to go into these mortices. I had a piece of spare oak stock 45mm wide, 25mm tall and around 500mm long. Into this piece of stock I routed a rabbit 15mm deep and 20mm wide along the length. I then cut from this 10 pieces 25mm wide. I ended up with 10 of these:
When finished these cleats will hold the table top onto the base.
With the cleats completed I glued and clamped the base and checked for square:
Now onto the top. I laid out the 2m x 50mm x 200mm stock (W) and checked the edges for fit. Very fortunately the timber supplier had done a good job of squaring this up so the edges all sat together with no gaps. I shuffled the stock to get the grain in alternate directions (to avoid cupping). I then marked for biscuits to join these boards. As the stock was so thick I placed 2 biscuits at each location – top and bottom of the thickness of stock:
About now was when my choice of material and sizes become an issue. Having checked all the joints for fit I had to glue them up. I hadn’t taken into account previously how heavy 2” oak stock was. I also didn’t consider the size of clamps I might need. I ended up doing the gluing/clamping in 2 stages. Firstly I made the top in 2 halfs. The first with 3 boards, the second with just 2 – my clamps could cope with both of these. The next job was to put it honesty a nightmare. I had to clamp the 2 halves I had made together – and the whole was very, very heavy (a 2 man job!). I placed one side on a workmate (the top of which immediately broke under the weight) I then balanced the other half on the edge – the weight of the piece alone was enough to force glue out of the joints. I did though have four 1.5m clamps which I used here – my main concern was keeping the board flat. In the end these four clamps (plus other blocks, wedges supports etc) did the job.
My design called for 2 breadboard ends. In order to fit these I had to cut 2 tennons onto the ends of the glued up table top- manouvering the top into place was a job in itself. Once laid out flat I used a straight edge clamped to the top to guide my router. I had a ¾ “ rabbiting bit which I was going to use to cut the cheeks of the tennons. The idea was to make several passes and remove all the meterial – the top was too big for me to move it to Any other tool. With my straight edge in place I started to make a pass with the router only to find breakout occurring on the cut. To avoid this I scored a line with my utility knife along the edge of my router cut – this fixed the tearout problem and gave me a nice clean cut. I then moved to the other end of the table top and routed the cheek, turning the table over and repeating finished the cheeks:
The length of the top was supposed to be 1800mm at this stage but due to my problems with router breakout it ended up a couple of mm short of this. . . .
I next made the shoulder cuts and also trimmed the tennon down a bit as it looked too large (and would also mean that I would need to make a mortice 100mm deep in the breadboards!
For the breadboard ends I used 2 pieces of stock (V) which I cut in half to give a length of around 1.1m for each end. Into this I cut a long motice to receive the tennon on the end of the table top. The mortice was centered on the side of each piece of stock – 10mm in from each side and 50mm deep. I used a 20mm forstener bit in my electric drill to make this long mortice and will be the first to admit that these cuts may not have been entirely entirely accurate (it’s very hard to keep the drill at a perfect 90 degrees to the workpiece!). I then sawed the breadboard to the finished length. Finished the breadboards looked like this:
When complete I fitted the breadboards onto either end of the table top. From the underside I drilled 3 holes on each end for oak dowels – going through the breadboard and tennon to secure them. I also drilled and screwed through the cleats in the side rail to hold the top on.
Lots and lots of sanding and several costs of wax later the table was finished.
Lessons learned:
1. Firstly don’t hide screws inside legs! Lest you blunt your chisels.
2. Whilst I liked the choice of wood I would in future make the top a lot thinner (and perhaps save the chunky look for the edges only). This table weighs a ton! Gluing the top broke a workbench and also 2 sash clamps. It was also a 2 man job just to lift the top!
3. Get some decent power tools. Those that I used were unreliable in that the cuts were not square/straight and so I invariably used hand tools for a lot of the work – satisfying but very time consuming!
4. I would do some of the joints differently next time (and drawbore (sp?) the breadboard ends.
I'd love to benefit from other experience.
Cheers,
Mike.
My first major post to the forums. Just wanted to get some feedback on this project - I'd particularly like some pointers on what I could do better next time and what you might have done differently.
Hope the post isn't too long but I've found it a useful exercise to write this description.
The brief:
After knocking a couple of rooms together we were left with a very large kitchen breakfast room. We’d seen some dining tables in a local shop that we really liked, however a couple of things were not ideal. Firstly the exact size we wanted was not available ‘off the shelf’. Secondly if it had been available it would have set us back around £2000!! So the stage was set for my first piece of furniture. It had to be the right size, clean lines and preferably in oak.
I’ve dabbled for a number of years with rough DIY carpentry, kitchen fitting, door hanging etc but have no formal training but thought this was worth a go . . . . I’ve seen the programmes on the TV and can work out angles and use a PC for the design – how hard can it be!
Tooling:
From the couple of house renovations I’ve done in the past 5 years I’ve built up a modest collection of (admittedly cheap and nasty!) power tools – the inaccuracies of which become increasingly apparent. The ones I used in this project were:
* Ferm Biscuit Joiner
* Ferm Table Saw
* B&Q 1600W Router
* Various (Cheap) Chisels
* B&Q Randon Orbital Sander
* Screwfix Sash Clamps
* Quick Grip Clamps
* Irwin Tennon Saw
* Stanley Jetcut Saw
* Bosch 650W Electric Drill#
* Square
* Marking Guage
The finished article:
Below is the finished table. Completed a couple of years ago now (May 2005). There has been some expansion across the breadboard ends – they protrude by a mm or 2 from the edge of the table but otherwise it’s been pretty stable. It gets a coat of wax every few months.
Cutting list:
I knew that I wanted to use oak but of course being naïve didn’t realise the price of English oak! In the end I went for North American White Oak, partly for the colour and partly for the price – also from sustainable source. I also went for PAR as apart from a £6 hand plane I had no means of squaring this up. When it arrived I checked the stock and it was perfectly straight/square, very useful as it saved me jointing the piece later. Final cutting list was:
* 3 x 2.2m x 50mm x 200mm (V) (Bread Boards)
* 5 x 2m x 50mm x 200mm (W) (Table Top)
* 3 x 2.2m x 50mm x 100mm(X) (Rails)
* 3 x 2.2m x 50mm x 50mm (Y)
* 6 x 2.2m x 25mm x 100mm (Z) (Legs)
The above are finished sizes.
The Build:
I began with making the legs which are made up of 4 pieces of the 25mm stock (Z). Using the Jetcut saw I cut the existing 2.2m lengths into 3 equal lengths of about 733mm. I wasn’t worried about the finished length at this stage as I wanted to do this later. Having cut all the lengths of 25mm stock (Z) into 3 I was left with 18 pieces from which to make the legs.
Next I drilled five holes for screws all the way through 4 of these 733mm lengths. I used some scrap on the opposite side to avoid breakout. Once I had drilled these holes I used a counter sink bit to ensure that the screw heads would sit below the surface. Next I glued and screwed these lengths on the wide face with 4 other of the 733mm lenghts. The 4 jobs I then clamped and left to dry. As it turned out this was not the best way to start. . . .
To complete the basic leg construction I cut biscuit slots either side of this glued section and attached 2 more of the 733mm lengths to either side hiding the screw heads in the process. Again glued, clamped and left to dry. I repeated this process for each of the four legs.
Next I used a square to mark the finished length on each leg (700mm). I marked a line round both the top and bottom of the leg. I then cut around this line with my tennon saw.
Next job I had to do was to mortice at the top of the legs for the rails to fit into. This is where my decision to use screws to join the 2 central boards in the legs proved to be a problem. I began by drilling out the mortices with an 18mm forstener bit. I then moved to a chisel to clean out the rest of the material. Whilst removing this material I ruined 2 chisels after hitting screws (doh!). For the remaining mortices I had to hunt around for the screw first, dig around it and then cut of the end with a hacksaw blade . . Eventually I ended up with a couple of motices on each leg, 30mm wide, 50mm tall and 50mm deep. At this point I also added a couple of registration marks to indicate the outside faces of each leg.
All that was needed to complete the legs at this stage was a bit of sanding, the long faces were fine but I wanted to remove the worst of the saw marks from the top and bottom ends. Out with the 60 grit then the 80 grit (I never realised that sanding end grain oak would take quite so long!)
Next job was to cut the rails for the sides and ends of the table to size. I was very careful to make sure I added the extra length needed for the tennons at either end of these rails. I began by cutting the 100mm x 50mm stock (X) to length. For the sides the finished rail length would be 1900mm, add 100mm for the tennons and I needed 2 sides rails of 2m each. For the end rails I needed a finished length of 700mm, add 100mm for the tennons which meant 2 end rails of 800mm each. I cut all these pieces to length from stock (X) with the Jetcut – making sure to mark with my square first to ensure accuracy.
Next I marked out for the tennons with my square, pencil and marking guage. The tennons on the ends of all the rails at this stage were exactly the same. So I marked out 8 tennons like so:
Using a tennon saw I first made the cheek cuts, followed by the shoulders – having used a guage to mark the cuts did help my cuts to stay reasonably straight! With the tennons cut I tried to dry fit to joints together. I was pleased with the fact the I had achieved a snug fit on all the leg to rail joints. What I guess I should have realised was that the mortices were too long and butted against each other inside the mortices I had created. I was able to rectify this by cutting a 45 degree mitre on the end of all the tennons.
With these mitred tennons cut I again did a dry fit. The last step in completing the rails was to make a few small motices in the inside face of the rails to accept some cleats for hold on the top. I cut 3 mortices each of the side rails and 2 in each of the end rails. The mortices were 30mm wide, 10mm high and 25mm deep. I set the motices 15mm below the top of the rail.
Next I made the cleats to go into these mortices. I had a piece of spare oak stock 45mm wide, 25mm tall and around 500mm long. Into this piece of stock I routed a rabbit 15mm deep and 20mm wide along the length. I then cut from this 10 pieces 25mm wide. I ended up with 10 of these:
When finished these cleats will hold the table top onto the base.
With the cleats completed I glued and clamped the base and checked for square:
Now onto the top. I laid out the 2m x 50mm x 200mm stock (W) and checked the edges for fit. Very fortunately the timber supplier had done a good job of squaring this up so the edges all sat together with no gaps. I shuffled the stock to get the grain in alternate directions (to avoid cupping). I then marked for biscuits to join these boards. As the stock was so thick I placed 2 biscuits at each location – top and bottom of the thickness of stock:
About now was when my choice of material and sizes become an issue. Having checked all the joints for fit I had to glue them up. I hadn’t taken into account previously how heavy 2” oak stock was. I also didn’t consider the size of clamps I might need. I ended up doing the gluing/clamping in 2 stages. Firstly I made the top in 2 halfs. The first with 3 boards, the second with just 2 – my clamps could cope with both of these. The next job was to put it honesty a nightmare. I had to clamp the 2 halves I had made together – and the whole was very, very heavy (a 2 man job!). I placed one side on a workmate (the top of which immediately broke under the weight) I then balanced the other half on the edge – the weight of the piece alone was enough to force glue out of the joints. I did though have four 1.5m clamps which I used here – my main concern was keeping the board flat. In the end these four clamps (plus other blocks, wedges supports etc) did the job.
My design called for 2 breadboard ends. In order to fit these I had to cut 2 tennons onto the ends of the glued up table top- manouvering the top into place was a job in itself. Once laid out flat I used a straight edge clamped to the top to guide my router. I had a ¾ “ rabbiting bit which I was going to use to cut the cheeks of the tennons. The idea was to make several passes and remove all the meterial – the top was too big for me to move it to Any other tool. With my straight edge in place I started to make a pass with the router only to find breakout occurring on the cut. To avoid this I scored a line with my utility knife along the edge of my router cut – this fixed the tearout problem and gave me a nice clean cut. I then moved to the other end of the table top and routed the cheek, turning the table over and repeating finished the cheeks:
The length of the top was supposed to be 1800mm at this stage but due to my problems with router breakout it ended up a couple of mm short of this. . . .
I next made the shoulder cuts and also trimmed the tennon down a bit as it looked too large (and would also mean that I would need to make a mortice 100mm deep in the breadboards!
For the breadboard ends I used 2 pieces of stock (V) which I cut in half to give a length of around 1.1m for each end. Into this I cut a long motice to receive the tennon on the end of the table top. The mortice was centered on the side of each piece of stock – 10mm in from each side and 50mm deep. I used a 20mm forstener bit in my electric drill to make this long mortice and will be the first to admit that these cuts may not have been entirely entirely accurate (it’s very hard to keep the drill at a perfect 90 degrees to the workpiece!). I then sawed the breadboard to the finished length. Finished the breadboards looked like this:
When complete I fitted the breadboards onto either end of the table top. From the underside I drilled 3 holes on each end for oak dowels – going through the breadboard and tennon to secure them. I also drilled and screwed through the cleats in the side rail to hold the top on.
Lots and lots of sanding and several costs of wax later the table was finished.
Lessons learned:
1. Firstly don’t hide screws inside legs! Lest you blunt your chisels.
2. Whilst I liked the choice of wood I would in future make the top a lot thinner (and perhaps save the chunky look for the edges only). This table weighs a ton! Gluing the top broke a workbench and also 2 sash clamps. It was also a 2 man job just to lift the top!
3. Get some decent power tools. Those that I used were unreliable in that the cuts were not square/straight and so I invariably used hand tools for a lot of the work – satisfying but very time consuming!
4. I would do some of the joints differently next time (and drawbore (sp?) the breadboard ends.
I'd love to benefit from other experience.
Cheers,
Mike.
) your design.
