Refinishing Split tabletop

[Jake Mckenzie]

I am working on refinishing an old maple tabletop that has had a rough past life. I am looking for advice for what to do with the split ends on the glue seams. The worst one is about 8" in, and the boards have warped to about 1/8" away from flush at the end. The other splits are level, but none of them will easily clamp shut.

I have been debating which way to go from here, whether I cut all the seams apart and re glue, but this does not address the boards not being flush, and I don't have a surface planer to easily level them. My other option is to cut off the split pieces and make the table shorter, then use glue/wood filler to hide the seams. My concern here is if it could potentially split again, and how easily I could blend the seams in
I have attached pictures, any advice would be greatly appreciated


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[Jim Becker]

You have a few choices ranging from completely ripping apart and reassembling after jointing to using a syringe to get appropriate glue into the cracks and then clamping things closed to filling the gaps with resin to just leaving it rustic looking.

The first option requires a lot of work since you're essentially rebuilding the whole table top. I'd likely either glue and clamp the cracks or fill them, leaving the top somewhat rustic looking through the final finishing process to preserve character. The only reason I'd glue or fill the cracks would be to stabilize things as well as eliminate pockets that debris could get embedded in on a table top.

[glenn bradley]

My personal favorite when the cracks are actually failed glue joints is to rip the top along the split line(s), joint and re-glue. This has a double benefit; it removes dirty or fouled surface material and assures a true fit for the glued joint. Also it generally takes less time than band-aids that may fail, foul re-finishing efforts, etc. For a top in good condition that has one or two short failed glue jonts I would clean, glue and clamp and try to work around it. That table has had such a hard life, the resaw and re-glue would be my first choice.

[Andrew Hughes]

I see nothing particularly interesting about the boards. So I wouldn’t bother using them. Without a long bed jointer or some impressive hand-plane skills getting those maple boards glued up with fat glue lines isn’t going to happen.
Hard Maple is one of the top five most difficult wood to glue up seamlessly.
If I had to reuse them I’d go for a rustic wonky look.

Good Luck

[Jake Mckenzie]

Thanks for the replies, I think my plan now is to cut about 8" off the end with the worst split, then try to fill the others with some epoxy to stabilize it and get rid of any gap. I'm definitely going for a bit of a rustic look, but I still want a surface that will look good and hold up to being a heavily used coffee table

[Phil Mueller]

I suppose you could also cut the ends off and add breadboard ends to bring it back to original length.

[Tom Bender]

I agree with leaving some of the character in the table but there is room to get a little more creative.

You are going to have to plug those holes. You could make more holes all the way across and fill them all with Walnut plugs. You can leave the spacing wider in the center. It will look like a proper feature.

A coffee table will see a lot of shins and heads close up. It will reduce the cursing if you make the corners round. Set a dinner plate on there to draw the curve. Then round over all the edges.

AJ is right that Maple is difficult to plane but I would just trim a couple inches off each end and do a little hand planing to get the unruly spots close. Only plane across the grain then sand.

To fix the gaps you can rout a groove and fill it with a strip of Maple.

A deep shiny finish can look good. Epoxy I think, and maybe some color added. Red might be good.