"greene & greene" inspired dining table with oval top

[fritter63]

Today I hit a milestone on one of those LONG running projects - a new dining table.

A little background, as I don't usually let projects run on for 7 years like this one....

This table was originally conceived for the "dining nook" in our Denver McMansion. It had a bank of semi curved windows that popped out
from the house and I had already made built in setting which followed the curves (three sided to be honest). So an ellipse was the only shape
that would people to reach the table while sitting on the built-in.

I got the base done quickly, which is laminated 3/4 QS white oak. The shapes were template routed, and the quad tenons were cut on the Leigh FMT. The jig was pretty maxed out with the size of the legs (3 1/2" x 3").

The top is what slowed me down. I'd decided to make a nomex laminated top (for weight) with inlaid granite hot pads, but that meant I'd need to vacuum bag veneer the whole thing together. So I still had to assemble all the equipment for doing that. Then other projects came up with higher priority from "the boss", and then we decided to move back to California and build our own house. Once that decision was made, I lost all motivation for finishing it, and the base was moved out here in pieces in the back of my truck, then stacked in the wall of the barn for 5 years.

One of the casualties of our 1000 mile (and poor DIY packing) was our current dining table which I'd put together entirely with biscuits. Many of them cracked under the weight of everything that got stacked on top of it (and all the road jiggles). I patched it with pocket screws to get it to hold up, but it still is wobbly. So I decided to repurpose this base into our main dining table.

Then ensued a debate with the wife about how big it should be. I want 4x8 for portability (and ease of construction), she thought it should be 10 feet long (like our current table with both leaves in place). So I decided to make a temp "prototype" top out of plywood so we can try it out for size.

Will have to make another post about the top, but here are pictures of the base (this is what I was sanding in my RO 90 demo vid)

BTW, what I find most amazing about those M&T joints is that after being cut in (dry!) Denver, moving to the coast, and sitting all those years, they still "clicked" together with the .05" tolerance I set them for.

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[fritter63]

So onto making the top.

I have a woodhaven oval jig that I bought when the project was started, maybe 2004. This is not the one you can buy currently, it seems to have been improved some. I tapped the base for the Festool 1400.

At first I thought the jig couldn't handle the differential of this oval (almost 50"), but then realized that I just had to swap the jig between halves. Ie, the track on the short side of the oval needed to overhang the workpiece so the slide could extend about 6" over the edge during the sweep. THis means that only one side of the minor axis track could be cut short enough for the router base to clear. So I cut one half of the ellipse, then switched the minor axis tracks, and then continued cutting the second side.

THis worked pretty well actually.

Here are some pics of the setup (note that the latches on the Festool First Aid kit have been left open in anticipation of any unexpected problems...  [eek])

 

[fritter63]

Finally, here's a video of the oval jig in use. I had quite a bit of trouble with it. The "test run" (sans bit) seemed to move smooth with only a minor amount of work needed to get the minor axis slide across the center joint.

However, once the real cutting began, I was getting serious resistance and had to really strain to get it to move smoothly. You'll notice I keep trying to apply pressure on both sides of fulcrum hoping that would help. THis resulted in a few spots where the router wandered from the curve (tilting a little  I think?). Good thing this is just a prototype, as the quality of the cut is unacceptable even after smoothing with the sander.

So, I'd appreciate any advice from those of you that have used this jig (or similar ones).

I used a 5/16" bit, two flute, at full depth. THoughts I've had on improving it:

1) use a spiral cut bit?
2) Make multiple shallow cuts (to reduce drag/resistance)
3) use a larger diameter bit?
4) trim with jig saw close to line, so bit is not making the entire cut?
5) some kind of lubricant on the tracks/ base plate?

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Oval jig in use

 

[fritter63]

And finally, here is the top installed, what do y'all think?

What I like already: It seats our regular six chairs with lots of room, and we could easily squeeze in four more chairs if needed, which means we can now seat 10 at an 8 foot table whereas the current table takes 10 feet to do the same.

I also like the way the oval breaks up all the straight lines of the rest of the A&C furniture I've built.

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[Jay Knoll]

Looks great!  I would appreciate some detailed pics of those chairs.  Did you do those as well?  Shades of McCormick (sp?)!

Thanks for the post

Jay

 

[gckc117]

That base is awesome.  If I were you I would use the prototype as a pattern - rough out the next top with a jigsaw and flush-trim to the prototype.  I've also routed circles into floors with a homemade jig and cutting in multiple passes worked great.  I used an mdf pattern in that instance.

 

[benwhaley80]

Very nice!

 

[ajones]

Hi
With refrence to your question about the jig I think that I would have taken repeated shallow passes and as you say you could have removed most of the waste with a jigsaw after your first shallow pass with the router

 

[tiralie]

4) trim with jig saw close to line, so bit is not making the entire cut?

Ah, ya I think this should help. Never done this so I can't be sure.
Frankly that (cutting the oval) just looks plain dangerous.

5) some kind of lubricant on the tracks/ base plate?

That would help as well, but I think most of the problem is the sheet of MDF (?) is not fully supported causing the tracks to bind because of deflection of the panel with the weight of the router.

 

[ajones]

4) trim with jig saw close to line, so bit is not making the entire cut?

Ah, ya I think this should help. Never done this so I can't be sure.
Frankly that (cutting the oval) just looks plain dangerous.

5) some kind of lubricant on the tracks/ base plate?

That would help as well, but I think most of the problem is the stuff good is not fully supported causing the tracks to bind because of deflection of the panel with the weight of the router.

I think you have probably nailed it Tim

 

[tiralie]

5) some kind of lubricant on the tracks/ base plate?

That would help as well, but I think most of the problem is the stuff good is not fully supported causing the tracks to bind because of deflection of the panel with the weight of the router.

I think you have probably nailed it Tim

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Thanks.
Note, you cannot spell the word "sh, two ee's and then a t", it automatically gets changed to the word "stuff when you post.
Tim

 

[fritter63]

That would help as well, but I think most of the problem is the stuff of MDF (?) is not fully supported causing the tracks to bind because of deflection of the panel with the weight of the router.

[doh] [doh] [doh]

Yup, I think you got it Tim, thanks!

 

[fritter63]

5) some kind of lubricant on the tracks/ base plate?

That would help as well, but I think most of the problem is the stuff good is not fully supported causing the tracks to bind because of deflection of the panel with the weight of the router.

I think you have probably nailed it Tim

Thanks.
Note, you cannot spell the word "sh, two ee's and then a t", it automatically gets changed to the word "stuff when you post.
Tim
[/quote]

It did the same to me when typing the unspeak word for "not long". If I didn't know any better, I'd say somebody has a slightly buggy regex pattern coded into the profanity checker module, which is accidentally flagging words that start with "sh", end with "t", but have more than one character in between them!

For the geeks among us, maybe regex = "sh\[*\]t" was used when instead it should have been "[sS\][hH\][iI\][tT\]" thus catching any mixture of case as well but still allowing things like s h i r t.  [cool]

ETA: Ha, this post doesn't even display the patterns correctly.

 

[peter halle]

Note:  "stuff" will no longer replace "sheet". Short will also work.

Peter

 

[fritter63]

Looks great!  I would appreciate some detailed pics of those chairs.  Did you do those as well?  Shades of McCormick (sp?)!

Jay, I'll post a new thread with construction pics/details of the chairs.