Maple Dining Room Table - Applying The Finish

Now that the thing is finally constructed, I cleared out a space in the garage and brought it in. First I attached the top to the stand by screwing through the pocketholes on both short aprons into the breadboard ends. Then I screwed the swivel figure eights to the bottom.

At this point I'm just repeating a cycle of applying coats of wiping varnish and sanding. I'm applying the coats once per day. I think I'll put about 8 coats on the top and maybe 3 everywhere else. Then I'll be done!

Maple Dining Room Table - Attaching the Breadboard Ends

I used pocket holes on the bottom centers of each end to hold the breadboard ends to the planks. This will allow the planks to expand and contract. Afterwards, I had a few more hours of sanding, on both sides of the top, to get the breadboard ends to the same thickness as the planks. Someday, I'll buy a planer because that was boring work!

Maple Dining Room Table - Glue-up Redux

While I was dealing with the mis-measured tenons for the short aprons, I neglected the long aprons. The first mistake was that I didn't clamp them. I though I could just pound the joints together and they would hold. Dumb...

The glue dried with gaps, between the apron cheeks and legs, on 3 of the joints.

So I called Brek and told him my glue-up nightmare (described in my previous post too). He convinced me to take it apart and fix it. He said I would feel much better. I hope he was right.

I used a flush saw to cut the tenons to once again separate the long aprons from the legs.

This was a depressing day. Next, I put all four apron ends into my hand-miter saw and trimmed each end about 1/8" to cut the cheeks flush. This will shorten the overall table length by 1/4". I flush sanded the tenon pieces left on the legs with an orbital sander. Then I re-drilled the mortises and re-cut the tenons. After a quick trip to Highland Hardware, I got my first pair of 72" aluminum clamps. Now I'm ready.

So this time, everything went smoothly and I ended up with a nice table stand.

I also cut, drilled, and attached three cross braces for the top. These will use figure-eight screw swivels to hold the top down while allowing for its seasonal expansion and contraction.

Maple Dining Room Table - Glue-up Nightmare

And so I finally reached the glue-up milestone. All the pieces are cut, sanded, drilled, routed, chamfered, planed, and ready to be assembled. It's hard to believe a dining room table can come from that pile of random boring looking boards.

I moved the table top aside to use the particle board on my workbench as a flat surface. I had rags and a squirt bottle ready to sop up glue. I measured the mortises again and cut the floating tenons. Everything was ready. Glue-ups are always a nightmare for me. I wondered what could go wrong this time.

I had 30 minutes left before I had to leave for my Lasik appointment (I know, cool, right?). I figured 30 minutes was more than enough time, so I started. I glued the eight tenons into the 4 aprons. Then I began connecting the aprons to the legs. After banging with a sledge hammer and tightening with a clamp, in an attempt to close the apron-to-leg joints, it hit me. The mortise measurements were correct...until one side of each leg's apron tenons were inserted. Ahhh! I had somehow overlooked the fact that I had cut the tenons such that each would occupy part of the same space; a HUGE mistake!

As the glue was drying, I franticly retrieved my reciprocating saw, clamped the aprons to a porch post, and proceeded to cut 1/2 inch off each tenon. It was a mess. I was dragging the freshly sanded legs across the concrete and banging it all over the place.

Eventually I reconnected the aprons to the legs, and attempted to scrape out half dried glue from the joints I had neglected for that last 15 minutes. That's when Melissa stepped outside and said it's time to go to your Lasik surgery.

Racking. That's the word going through my mind today. I'll have to discuss this with Brek. Most anything can be fixed. I may need to reinforce two of these joints. Glue-ups. The nightmares of amateur woodworkers.

Maple Dining Room Table - Router Work

I finally bought a flush cut bit for my router. This is an amazing little bit, I don't know how I ever got anything built without it. I used it for the final cross cuts on the table top, running it along my piece of particle board for the straight edge. Other than some tear-out on the right corner, it worked great.

Next, I switched to a slot bit with a bearing and cut the groove in each of the breadboard ends. And finally, I cut the tongue on each end of the table top. This part sucked because the table top was not perfectly flat. It has slight dips in a couple areas where I sanded a bit more along the joints. That means the tongue ends up with these same dips. I tried to compensate by making sure the widest sections of the tongue would fit tightly into the breadboard end groove but it became such a pain taking apart my jig each time to check, I ended up taking a bit more than I needed off the tongue. Hopefully, my brother's breadboard end technique allows this. I think it does.

Maple Dining Room Table - Drilling Mortises

While Melissa sanded, I drilled the mortis holes in the legs and aprons using my BeadLock mortis jig system. The holes in the legs were difficult because it was hard to keep track of which sides of the legs needed the holes. Fortunately I pulled it off without mistakes.

Maple Dining Room Table - Working The Top

After careful jointing of the table top plank edges I was finally ready for the top glue-up. I used some pipe clamps I borrowed from my dad, and some other clamps I borrowed from Lowes (I took them back...they were in perfect condition). Beforehand, I bought a piece of 3/4" particle board; it was the flatest thing I could find. I needed a flat surface for the glue-up. It was nightmarish, per my expectations. In the end, I got a table top.

Next, I used a jigsaw to rough cut the ends to within about a 1/4" of the target final length. Just for fun I took one of the 2"-wide end strips I cut off and bent it with my foot until it broke.

My joints for the table top planks were simple butt joints with glue. I wanted to test the theory that simple glued butt joints were stronger than the wood itself. Sure enough, after several tests, the board always broke at the wood instead of the joint.

The surface will require lots of hand planing and sanding. Melissa offered to help, so I put her to work with the orbital palm sander and some 60 grit. Boring....

This will take a while.