Dining Room Table

This was my real first woodworking project.

Overall dimensions – 40” x 64” x 31”.

It is built from soft maple and then stained using MinWax Red Mahogany 225. Top Coat is brush on oil based poly.

The legs are joined to the rails using triple biscuits. I built this before I was confident in my ability to do mortise and tenon joints. It is reinforced using metal “L” brackets. One day, I will probably rebuild this with better quality joinery.

Originally, the piece was built to accommodate a glass top sitting in a 1/4” rabbet running on the inside of the rails. Once I had the glass top in place, I hated the way it looked. So I built a top by butting a series of 12”x12” slate tiles together and using thickset to level them on an mdf sheet. Any thin gaps between tiles have silicone sealer. The tile surface is sealed as well. I like this look better.

Lessons learned:
- Did not glue up legs and rails with the top in place to keep square … big mistake and required some rework
- Learned later that loose mortise and tenon joinery is not that hard. Biscuits have better application for casework
- I hate staining, I hate staining, I hate staining. Next time I will try to talk my wife out of the Bombay Company look
- Can not adequately joint a 6’ board on jointer with 21” bed. Learned to use a jointer plane instead.

-- Shawn, I ask in order to learn