Oak table

[hoedma]

After almost 10 months I finally finished the new oak table we planned for the drawing room. I have not had much experience with 'real' wood, doing most of my joinery with ply, so I was a little apprehensive to start. After trying out, first with some old pine I had lying around and later on a small side table, I started off with a little Sketchup model.

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Some of the rough wood. It still needed to be made flat of course, which I started with an old plane my farther brought along.

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I do not have planers, thicknessers and what not, but I do have a CS50 and I planned to use that to cut the wood to size and make perfectly square battons. First up though I had to cut the rough flattened wood; first on one side, then flip over and cut the other side. The CS50 made light of this, especially with the Panther blade installed. The result is a whole bunch of small beams and lots of sawdust. I kept forgetting to change the bag in the Midi. Later on I setup a makeshift cyclone out of an old dustbin.

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Next step, cutting the length to size. The CS50s pull action saw acts a bit like a miter saw and with a little scrap wood behind the beam you avoid tear out.

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I did not saw the battons to the correct width square straight away. The wood would still work a little and the way I cut the wood to size the battons would probably not come out square straight away. So I marked all the sided and started shaving of about 2 mm of two sides. I than shaved off another 1-2 mm from the remaining sides. As I said, I was a bit apprehensive and did not dare to get to the correct size quickly, so I must have passed each side through the CS50 about 3 or 4 times!

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Glueing up the whole thing would be a fairly difficult job as the beams would each have to be positioned and aligned at many places. To help me out a bit, I routed each beam on two sides and used long strips of 4mm MDF as tenons to align the beams along the length. As there were 87 beams to route I made a simple jig to help me out and bought a disk groove cutter (490421).

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Than came the glue up. I decided to do the glue up layer by layer; trying to glue the whole thing at once would never align all the beams correctly. I started out by making a torsionbox so the sides would be squared up. Then glued the first couple of battons together; first one corner and then the other. I got myself a couple of super clamps for this job!

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As you can see, I now had a start of two layers. The most difficult part was over, I thought. I now added one layer at a time. But after about 10-15 layers I could see the sides spreading a bit. I suppose this was due to the fact that the clamps were all positioned on the outside of the table, pulling it out a bit. Adding a top frame and clamping the sides inward avoided any serious spreading.

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The end result was quite good, but still required a serious bit of sanding. A mate came over with a Holzher belt sander. This is the same machine that Festool now runs; they bought the handtools part of Holzher. That went a lot quicker then my RTS400! Lucky for my, I received an advanced birthday present in the form of a Rotex 150, which together with the belt sander had little problem of finishing the job.

A bit of oil and voila:

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Just a note on some of the tools used:

I had never used a plane before but the old Stanley (35 odd years) did really well. Planing the rough would was really addictive.

The CS50 is absolulely gorgous. I know most of you in the US will have stationary table saws and these will have more options and support larger work pieces. But as you can see from the pictures I have a small bit of garage to work in and the CS can be moved around easily. The beams came out perfectly square; it had no problem ripping through 5 cm of oak (or maple or purple heart for that matter); and the fine adjustment can be set per 0.1 mm!

The OF1010 was my first Festool and I still love it. Light and precise and I have never reached its power limit.

And of course the Rotex. Amazing. If you do not have one, get one. Then again, what do I know.

 

[Holzhacker]

Don't you just hate it when those big shot europeans show off their beautiful woodworking skills and fancy pants Festools. Who needs a CS50 anyway, not like we'd want a tool like that over here? [poke]
Very nice job on the table, I've always like that style. Do you have a finish on that table? Oak is not a wood you want to leave exposed. It sucks up everything and doesn't end up looking good because of it. Maybe you have a light finish on it, can't tell. Don't you just love the smell of cut Oak, um good.

 

[Neill]

hoedma,

Beautiful work and wonderful job of documenting in pics and in writing.

Holzhacker is right about oak with those open pores.  I am sure that you did well by it.

Neill

 

[hoedma]

Hi Neill, Holzhacker,

I used a worktop oil to protect, but I have little experience in finishing oak, so advice is more than welcome. I thought about a varnish but someone told me that a varnish will discolor over time and become pinkish. Didn't want that.

Cheers,
Mattijs

 

[woodguy7]

I like that style also.  How did you cut the finger joints ?  They look really tight.  Nice job,

Woodguy.

 

[jonny round boy]

I like that style also.  How did you cut the finger joints ?  They look really tight.  Nice job,

Woodguy.

Woodguy,

You obviously didn't read the post [blink]

He didn't cut any finger joints - they're made up from individual staves & glued up in overlapping layers.

Shame on you!  [tongue]

 

[ajones]

show me those fingers

Vic Reeves shooting stars

 

[woodguy7]

Oops, i like looking at pictures  [embarassed]

 

[jvsteenb]

Hi Neill, Holzhacker,

I used a worktop oil to protect, but I have little experience in finishing oak, so advice is more than welcome. I thought about a varnish but someone told me that a varnish will discolor over time and become pinkish. Didn't want that.

Cheers,
Mattijs

Hi Mattijs,

A decent oilfinish is IMHO the nicest finish on oak. It may however be prudent to seal the pores before the finish - for which it's a little late now.
However, you may still want to do it. Just apply a liberate coat of oil and wet sand the surface till a slurry forms, consisting of wooddust and oil.
As soon as the slurry gets the consistency of thick mud, wipe it of in a diagonal direction vs. the grain ( preferrably with a rubber squeegy ) so as to fill the pores and let it fully polimerise - give it a couple of days to make sure.
Hereafter, you can sand it down and apply a coat of oil in the usual way.  The other day, another light coat, and the next day another coat as well. Make sure you apply light coats, just wipe them on with a piece of lintfree cloth.
Mind the used cloths however, if balled up they could self-ignite, so hang them out or soak them with water before disposing of them.
An old english adage for oiling gunstocks is : "once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, and yearly after that"

BTW I love your table! Clean lines, and the wood speaks for itself. The distinct endgrain pattern of oak absolutely adds to the beauty. I hope you realise that you've set the bar pretty high for your next project...

Regards,

Job

 

[hoedma]

Hi Job,

Thanks for the suggestion on finishing. I will try this on some left over oak and see what the result is. It sounds like a very good method.

The wood does indeed come out really well. That is part of the joy of working with real wood. Slowly climbing up in grid numbers with every sanding. That is also way I enjoyed the planing so much, even without any experience. The beautiful result that comes up is just a joy to watch.

Thanks for the kind words though, all of you.

Cheers,
mattijs

 

[mouppe]

Just to add to what Job said, an oil finish is great on oak. Personally, I like the open-pore look of oak (or ash, which has a very similar grain but is easier to work) and would not go to the trouble of filling them. Over time, the pores will darken and give the oak a nice patina. I would re-oil the table in a week or so as oak is thirsty wood.

Richard.

 

[Rob-GB]

Hi Mattijs, considering you don't have a planer/thicknesser I think your result is outstanding. [thumbs up]

I know what you mean about hand planing timber, it always feels like I'm in tune with the wood when I get the chance to do some.
What type of oil did you use? I know you said worktop oil but what type? If it is a drying oil, one that has drying agents added to the oil, build up several coats then rub back with a Scotch pad, wire wool may leave metal fibres in the oak and cause black spots/flecks due to oxidisation from the tannin in oak and metal.
Re: pore/ grain filling, I've not tried Job's way using water, and would be wary of doing so with oak, so would be interested in your test results.

Rob.

 

[mouppe]

Rob,

Job was using oil to form the slurry, not water.

 

[Rob-GB]

Rob,

Job was using oil to form the slurry, not water.

I'm having a bad day! [sad] Read 'wet' thought H2O!!! [oops]
I'll add it to the sash fastener I snapped today that is costing £16 to replace and breaking 3 drill bits trying to effect a repair. They only come in three's don't they?
Thanks for letting me know Richard, I might have been awaiting test results for weeks otherwise. [doh]

Rob.