End to end joinery

[Brad McCollum]

Have any of you done much end to end splicing of boards for a table top? What is the best way to go about it? I have some hickory I want to use for a table top but the boards are not long enough for a 7 foot top. Width will be 3 feet and thickness 1 1/4". Individual boards will be about 4" wide.
Thanks for your help.

[Jamie Buxton]

I've used loose tenons in the end-to-end joints. Be sure to stagger those joints when you do the side-to-side joints. After you get the boards glued up into a big panel, the flanking boards are really what hold the end-to-end joints together. In fact, if you magically removed the loose tenons then, the table top would still be structurally sound.

[Michael Dedon]

I've done it two ways:
1. Glue up two 3 1/2' tops edge grain. Then using biscuits, or spline joint, glue up the end grain butt joint. Follow that up with a shallow dado across the top following the butt joint seam and inlay a piece to accent the seam. If you're also edge banding this looks like it was a design decision not a cover up.

2. Lay out the 4" pieces like you were laying a wood floor with the joints staggered. Biscuit, or spline joint, the pieces together on edge and ends.

[Prashun Patel]

It's not critical since the adjacent panels will hold the pieces together. For insurance or aesthetics you can use a pinned half lap, dovetail, butterfly key, or any kind of spline. IMHO, hilighting the joint with a spline or pin or key looks deliberate and nice.

[Chris Fournier]

Personally I would use a scarf joint of 20 to 30 degrees, no reinforcement would be required and the ability to match the grain of the two boards up is pretty good. I have done this on a woek bench that has taken a beating and it has been rock solid.

[Gary Herrmann]

You'll lose more length, but a scarf joint would work as well.

Or maybe orient the boards so they run the width of the table?