Advice on making a table

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Hi

I’d love some advice. I’m planning on making a coffee table out of some rough London plane boards that I got as a gift.

General plan:

Table top

• Cut the two boards down to 100x30 (probably using Mitre saw and handsaws)
• Plane them and try and square them up
• Dowel or domino glue up
• Attach to the legs using Z-clips

Legs

• PAR cherry
• Use dominos or dowels and glue up
• TBD on a shelf

Got a few questions:

1. How would you recommend planing a rough board like this? It’s pretty cracked up
   • Planer thicknesser
   • Hand plane
   • Router sled…
2. When to fill cracks in the wood, before or after planing? Thinking of using a wood filler or an epoxy
3. Any advice on squaring up the combined boards so it’s a proper rectangle? Would a plunge saw be a good choice? It looks fairly straight to the eye already

Thanks!

[Destom (Steven Nicholson)]

My answers (with limited experience)

1. The planer thicknesser would work well if the blades are sharp and you do really thin passes I would suggest Router sled if you are unsure but again shallow passes and bring your own flattening bit as ours aren’t sharp. The best option would be the drum sander but you wouldn’t be the only one waiting for that.

2. Fill after plaining. If you are doing wood filler and you care make your own nothing from a shelf will be the right colour

3. I would draw out your square then cut the edges on the table saw if the piece is not too big, plane the edges as needed

[mbg (Max G)]

1. could also do a rough flattening on the cnc table. If less than 30cm wide, it’ll fit on the planer though

2. square the boards up before joining them, then trim the ends flush on the crosscut sled on the table saw. If your question is about getting a square edge on the unattached boards before joining them, jointer if it’s close enough, track saw first if you need to. To get a seamless panel glue up, joint the facing edges, flip the orient the facing edges over the jointer so whatever error you have in the fence is matched, touch up one of them with the hand plane to match the other perfectly. Use either the domino or biscuit joiner to help with alignment.

If it helps, take a look at my recent table project:

Coffee table

We’d gone too long without a proper coffee table, and it was getting annoying when the cardboard box kept sliding off of the wine box. Before: [image] After: [IMG_6706] Design As is often the case with these projects, I spent much more time fretting over, deliberating and redrawing the design rather than the actual build. The first sketch was on Sketchup, as that’s what I was used to. The thought with this one was to continue with some of the themes on earlier projects like my bookshelf or…

Or this one might get closer to directly answering the question, the boards are squared but of different lengths, they just get trimmed up:

Beech desktop for standing desk frame

Might have seen this one taking up space in the space a couple of weeks ago! I’ve moved flats recently and wanted to upgrade to a nice standing desk. With access to the Space and a desire to get into woodworking, I decided to get a frame and make a tabletop for it. Here’s a few photos of the process, and some of the lessons learned: Decided on using beech as it was the cheapest hardwood I could find (sourced from SL Hardwoods in Croydon, they were very professional), and purchased it PAR. I was…

[mbg (Max G)]

Also, no idea of your woodworking experience so apologies if this is remedial advice or I’m misreading your post, but unless it’s an intentional effect, you should always be flattening and squaring your board, and confirming flatness and squareness at multiple points along the way

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Thanks
Yeah, I’ll definitely play around with making my own wood filler and look into the router sled

[msparker (Matt Parker)]

That’s going to be a beauty! what a gift!

Seems like you’ve got great answers to your questions already. If you’d like help with any of the steps, feel free to shout

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Thanks that’s helpful about the joining the boards. I’ll look into those past projects a bit more. The boards are bit too wide for the planer, unfortunately

Also that coffee table is awesome

Happy to get remedial advice

I’ve made a guitar a while back and a more chunky table so some experience of hand tools, sanders, routers, saws…. This is definitely a new challenge
Not inducted on the planer or jointer, track and table saws so some things for me to look into

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Thanks Matt
Will do

[Destom (Steven Nicholson)]

Shameless self plug I approve

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Thanks for all the advice!
So it’d be good to get this going but figure there’s two pretty key inductions or help I’d need to get going:

1. Table/track saw - to cut it down in size and straighten it out
2. Planer and jointer - to flatten it out

Aware these are pretty chunky inductions but wondering if anyone would be up for inducting me or getting some help.

[msparker (Matt Parker)]

I’m not certain on my timings yet, but I’ll be around the space some of the day tomorrow and can help. I’ll post later when I have a plan

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

That’s great
I’ll keep an eye out

[mbg (Max G)]

If you’re there later today, I plan on planing some stuff down after fixing the extraction motor.

As with any of the other big tools dangerous tools at SLMS, please give the tool pages and associated risk assessment a thorough read.

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Awesome
What time are you thinking of being around later today?

[mbg (Max G)]

Probably getting there in around an hour

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Cool
I’ll pop around and intro myself and see how it’s done
(Haven’t sorted the storage yet so won’t bring the board this time)

[mbg (Max G)]

Go ahead and bring the board if you haven’t left, you’ll want it to acclimate to the shop before planing anyways

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Ok will do
Bit delayed but should be there in 40mins

[msparker (Matt Parker)]

Heading there now. Will be there 3:30 for at least a few hours provided there is some space

[Dan2 (Nandan Kumar)]

Thanks for the heads up
Couldn’t make it today in the end
Planning on heading in next weekend, will ping you nearer the time to check if you’re around