Here is the biggest project I have ever worked on - well at least the heaviest. This is an almost 10' long (116") kitchen table that is 40" wide and has a 2" thick table top. I have documented the process details and will describe that in subsequent posts.
and the piece at its destination:
The material is primarily reclaimed heartwood pine - obtained from the relatively nearby Heartwood Pine Floors, Inc. in Pittsboro NC. http://www.heartwoodpine.com/
That was only a 45 minute drive for me, much closer than other options. They were a great company to work with - they primarily supply flooring, as their website shows, but they had no difficulty processing the material to the thicker dimensions I needed.
The exception to the heartwood pine material is the turned legs. The intended home for this table has a kitchen island with several turned posts. I found matching posts at Osborne Wood Products and ordered them in knotty pine.
http://www.osbornewood.com
The delivered posts were not all that knotty, since only two knots showed in the four posts I received. Next time I might choose (harder) maple instead, since I was staining the posts to match anyways.
For me the biggest challenge in building something this big and heavy was the scale - quite a revelation there wasn't it?! The weight and scale of these pieces changed my work flow. Several times I needed to take the tool to the work instead of the wood to the tool.
- The most obvious example of this was the table top. To crosscut the glue-up to length, I had to use a circular saw, not my table saw. The length and weight meant that once glued up I needed many more hands to move the table top - good thing I have some HS and college sons around at times.
- A second example was cross cuts on the posts - both the through cuts to define the length and partial depth cuts to define the tenon shoulders. The posts were too long and heavy to use a miter gauge and too thick for my cross cut sled. I also did not have sufficient depth of cut to cut even halfway through the through the post. Using the bandsaw was an option, but I am far less familiar and comfortable with the BS; I also quickly realized that making cut on these posts required a much larger BS table or outrigger support than I had available.
The other aspect of working on pieces this size is that my shop space was dominated by the parts - nothing else could happen when they were in there. When I sanded and stained the table top, it bridged my bench and TS. I could walk around the whole piece, and I could reach everything, but I certainly could not work on anything else with a several hundred pound, 40 SF table top on my TS and bench. I was happy to move that to the basement for further finishing.
A few other lessons learned:
- I am a poor estimator of how long a project like this might take. I estimated a 3 week minimum, and it took 4.5 weeks. It was actually 6 total weeks including 1.5 week Christmas break.
- making the table base became an exercise in pattern routing. I wore through a cheap Woodcraft pattern bit (was still a good value considering I paid $5 for it) and now I am in the market for more routers. I have a PC 690 router with 3 bases regular, D handle and plunge, but I changed bases, base plates, collets and bits more times than I care to remember in one project. Like I said, I am on the look out for another router.
I 'll stop here and inject more commentary on the "table process" threads that I will continue with later.
Henry W
and the piece at its destination:
The material is primarily reclaimed heartwood pine - obtained from the relatively nearby Heartwood Pine Floors, Inc. in Pittsboro NC. http://www.heartwoodpine.com/
That was only a 45 minute drive for me, much closer than other options. They were a great company to work with - they primarily supply flooring, as their website shows, but they had no difficulty processing the material to the thicker dimensions I needed.
The exception to the heartwood pine material is the turned legs. The intended home for this table has a kitchen island with several turned posts. I found matching posts at Osborne Wood Products and ordered them in knotty pine.
http://www.osbornewood.com
The delivered posts were not all that knotty, since only two knots showed in the four posts I received. Next time I might choose (harder) maple instead, since I was staining the posts to match anyways.
For me the biggest challenge in building something this big and heavy was the scale - quite a revelation there wasn't it?! The weight and scale of these pieces changed my work flow. Several times I needed to take the tool to the work instead of the wood to the tool.
- The most obvious example of this was the table top. To crosscut the glue-up to length, I had to use a circular saw, not my table saw. The length and weight meant that once glued up I needed many more hands to move the table top - good thing I have some HS and college sons around at times.
- A second example was cross cuts on the posts - both the through cuts to define the length and partial depth cuts to define the tenon shoulders. The posts were too long and heavy to use a miter gauge and too thick for my cross cut sled. I also did not have sufficient depth of cut to cut even halfway through the through the post. Using the bandsaw was an option, but I am far less familiar and comfortable with the BS; I also quickly realized that making cut on these posts required a much larger BS table or outrigger support than I had available.
The other aspect of working on pieces this size is that my shop space was dominated by the parts - nothing else could happen when they were in there. When I sanded and stained the table top, it bridged my bench and TS. I could walk around the whole piece, and I could reach everything, but I certainly could not work on anything else with a several hundred pound, 40 SF table top on my TS and bench. I was happy to move that to the basement for further finishing.
A few other lessons learned:
- I am a poor estimator of how long a project like this might take. I estimated a 3 week minimum, and it took 4.5 weeks. It was actually 6 total weeks including 1.5 week Christmas break.
- making the table base became an exercise in pattern routing. I wore through a cheap Woodcraft pattern bit (was still a good value considering I paid $5 for it) and now I am in the market for more routers. I have a PC 690 router with 3 bases regular, D handle and plunge, but I changed bases, base plates, collets and bits more times than I care to remember in one project. Like I said, I am on the look out for another router.
I 'll stop here and inject more commentary on the "table process" threads that I will continue with later.
Henry W
ccasion1
