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Forum topic by DynaBlue | posted 10-20-2009 06:11 AM | 1592 views | 1 time favorited | 8 replies | ![]() |
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10-20-2009 06:11 AM |
I’m reaching out to you, Oh Elite Woodworkers of Lumberjocks, for advice. I’m building a 36” round top cherry coffee table (1” thick) and I have obtained several pieces of varying widths from 5” to 9” wide. I have a few questions about laminating up the top: 1. Wide boards vs narrow boards for visual appeal? I have a 6” jointer so I’m leaning towards ripping all the boards down to an appropriate width to reach 36”. Also I was thinking that might be more visually pleasing..however as my wife reminds me, I’m often wrong when I go off thinking on my own. 2. Will narrower boards make a more stable top than wider boards? I plan on BLO and wax for a finish if that makes a difference. 3. Alternate growth rings or not? I’ve read back and forth on this topic and I’m hoping that some of you with personal experience making tables will share. Assume that I’m going with narrow stock per #1 but would be interested to know either way. 4. I plan on fastening the top down to two perpendicular stretchers, aligning the long grain with one stretcher and fastening the cross grain to the other stretcher with elongated screw holes to allow expansion. Does this sound right? Span is going to be about 15” from the center to the mortise on the leg..one set of expansion holes per span or two (which is my current plan)? The table will live in San Diego so there is only an average of 10-ish% humidity change over a year which I hope translates to something like “not much expansion problem” Hopefully nobody suffered a concussion from being put to sleep with the length of the post. Blue -- Mistake? No, that's just an unexpected design opportunity.... |