Oak Table

[Lofty]

Firstly a brief introduction as I don't post here very often. I have been retired for about 5 years and making furniture for about the same time (as a hobby). The furniture I make is mainly copies of old English furniture.

My current project is a large dining room table. The problem is that the table I am copying has legs turned from 5" square timber and I have been unable to source kiln dried oak this thick. Sykes do have some 120mm but they have quoted £460 for four legs which seems excessive to me! Has anyone any experience of buying oak this thick? It must be kiln dried.

The only other thing I can think of doing is to make the size up out of laminations but I am concerned that the join will show badly in the turned parts. Perhaps a piece o 4"x5" with two 1/2" pieces stuck on to two of the faces would work. This would have the advantage that the join would only show in small parts of the turning and only on two faces. Any ideas?

Mike

 

[JoinerySolutions]

Lofty, large section timber is more difficult to dry and wastage is greater hence the prices you have been quoted.
Laminating up is a good way to do what you want, try to stick with an odd number of laminations and try to alternate the direction of the growth rings in the end grain. I would , from what you have written, go for 5 laminations and depending on the turning pattern they could be re-inforced with 'loose' tongues at 90° to the laminations(ply or oak glued in to align the laminations).
Also try to keep the timber aligned by way of how it grew. So all the timber that is at the lower end of the leg is that which would have been at the lower end of the trunk. This end would also be at the headstock end of the lathe making turning easier with less tear out due to grain direction.
Although that would depend on your preferred method of turning.
Rob.

 

[Lofty]

Rob,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I guessed that the waste in drying thick timber was the problem. Do yo think it would be better to use 5 laminations than to use three? I had been wondering if it would be worth trying to make the laminations out of the same board i.e. pieces side by side, to try to get a better grain match. It would be possible to do this with just two thicknesses of 65mm timber or do you think three, an odd number would be better?

Mike

 

[Anonymous]

in my opinion sykes supply v v v v good timber and you pay the premium for it, admittedly i use them a lot, but that price you were quoted is rather excessive i would say. Prime oak i was quoted £57.00 per lm of 5 x 5 which works out at over £3600 a cubic metre.

 

[Richard Findley]

Hi Mike,

I think Rob covered most of the details. To achieve 5" I'd be happy gluing up 3 pieces of 2" in the way Rob suggested. I probably wouldn't bother with the biscuits/tongues though unless you are very sure of your turning pattern and cuts etc. Glue will do a perfectly good job as long as the wood is well prepared, ie put through a sharp thicknesser so faces are parallel and smooth and you account for any snipe that your machine produces.

The only other thing I can offer is that to obtain a good invisible join you need LOTS AND LOTS of cramps, get plenty of pressure all along the work and the join will be vertually invisible.

Best of luck

Richard

 

[JoinerySolutions]

The reason for odd numbers is to reduce problems from wood movement, three would be okay, I mentioned five as that was my gut feeling on reading your post.
As Richard says you don't have to use splines or biscuits etc, it is just something I have done when making columns in the past.
I use them to stop the parts sliding sideways on glue up and to act as an anchor to stop cupping, the groove made when using splines also releases some tension from the wood if using other than quarter sawn.

Good forward planning is needed though if making deeply moulded turnings.

Rob.

 

[Lofty]

Richard, Rob, thanks for your replies. I see now the reason for odd numbers of laminations. My concern about the join showing is not so much the glue line but more the change in grain pattern. It would be good if I could get consecutive planks from a whole trunk, then the grain would match! I will try experimenting with some offcuts to see what I can achieve. Thanks again for your help.

Mike

 

[Lofty]

Mark, I missed your reply earlier somehow. When were you quoted £57 per linear metre for 5"x5" prime oak? I would be happy to pay that but what they quoted me was double that. Perhaps I should talk to them again.

Mike

 

[Offcut]

possibly try here

http://www.uk-oak.co.uk/product-catalog ... _and_Posts!

Andy

 

[Dibs-h]

possibly try here

http://www.uk-oak.co.uk/product-catalog ... _and_Posts!

Andy

I think someone else posted that these folk don't really give a toss for customer service.