Love wood working but some what a novice

**nam58** · 06-17-2012, 02:13 PM

Hello Everybody, I registered here back about a year ago when I was getting ready to take on a wood boat restore but that project fell through since it was not a original Chris Craft and the new wood would have cost much more that what the boat would have been worth when finished. But I still love the look of wood and am continuning to look with ways to creat things with it. When I started looking at doing the boat I purchsed a planner, a drill press a couple of routers, and band saw and several other wood working tools so other than a good table saw I am in pretty good shape.
I am looking to make a dinning room table for my daughter for christmas, she is married and has eight childern (only 7 at home) so it needs to be a big table. She recently bought a house and I moved the stairs to the basement (which were in the middle of this large space) to the corner and opened up a huge room. The floors are all natural maple and so I which yo contrast but complament that light color (wood) in the table and also various trim I still have to install.
I have seen post saying that mixing woods in a table top is not good because of the varing shrinkage/expanding rates of various woods. But I want to try it because I would like to use a maple that is close to what is on the floor and another wood for the trim and bread boards and leags and maybe aprons on the table. She rerally like the smaller planks in construction so I am figuring 4 in planks and 6 in trim or bread bosrds arounf them. All of these plans are just visual plans at this time so I am open for comments and suggestions. Any help?

**FrankC** · 06-19-2012, 09:10 PM

As long as you design it to allow for expansion and contraction you should be okay, with the bread board ends you are on the right track.

**country boy** · 06-23-2012, 01:59 AM

That's a great project for sure.

As Frank mentioned, if you have the expansion problems factored in, you can do whatever you want. I like multiple woods. Makes for a nice finished look.

Spend some time thinking ahead. A large table can get pretty heavy. Can two people move it through the doorways? Is the table gonna be one piece (4 legs and aprons, a simple box). Or a shorter table with glides that slide out of the ends to support leaves? Or is it 2 or three tables that fasten together with some kind of hooks? Are the legs mortise-and-tenoned into the aprons (permanent) ? Or do they bolt into the apron box? (can take the table apart).

Tools: you mentioned having a planer. Great, but do you have a jointer (6" preferable)? That's a lot of board widths to glue up in that table top. You can also joint boards with a hand plane, but that's a lot of work, takes a lot of practice and knowledge about sharpening plane blades.

If you have never made a table before, perhaps make a small one first (e.g. a coffee table)

Think through all the steps you need to do to make the table. Sometimes planning a project is almost as much work as making it.

**AndyD** · 06-23-2012, 10:08 PM

Originally Posted by nam58

...getting ready to take on a wood boat restore but that project fell through since it was not a original Chris Craft and the new wood would have cost much more that what the boat would have been worth when finished.

Sorry to stray from your original question, but I'm intrigued about your boat restoration work. Here's a photo of one of the many wooden boats I saw in Venice a couple years ago. How they keep them in this good of shape is a mystery to me!

venice-boats-04.jpg