Further large tabletop tips requested

[Tony Wilkins]

Still working in the new walnut dining table. I’ve got the boards for the top processed to be fairly straight on the faces and edges. Once my wife cleans up her projects from the front of my shop I’ll have enough room to lay out and match the boards up. I’ve left the boards as long as each one can bear to give the best opportunity to get good grain matches. That means that some of the formerly 12’ boards are still close to 11’ long. I hope to have the heart or bark side up on each board and grain running in the same direction unless it’s just so much superior in appearance to break that pattern.

My plan after getting the boards laid out is to match plane adjoining boards together. After that, the plan is to glue up the top, see if I’m happy with the length*, and then level out and plane it as a whole.

Thoughts on my plan? Suggestions? Tips to make it go smoother?

* one board I got for the top has a pronounced crook along it’s length and I chose not to use it for stability sake. I think I might have enough width for a decent dining table as I’m not going for a specific width (just wide enough to comfortably eat from both sides.)

[Maurice Mcmurry]

You are working a on a much larger scale than I ever do, so no help from me. I will be looking forward to following along!

[William Fretwell]

Tony you don’t mention the width of the boards. Looking at the end grain if you have any serious curve grain then alternating the boards will help keep the top flat with seasonal moisture changes. On the subject of moisture, the boards need to be truly dry. The last large table I made the boards had been drying for in excess of 100 years!

Other than that, a lot of time will be taken with the edge joints. To keep the joints tight at the end a very slight concave is required for the length of each board. When glue and clamps are applied the pressure on the ends keeps the joint tight.
Sounds easy? Not really. I used a back light along each joint, looking from both sides. Fine tuning takes a while, keeping everything flat and square. My boards were about 10” wide, I glued two then set up the next for each side. When the two sides were glued I glued the final joint in the middle.

You need to check your clamps can comfortably close the gap and the light between the edges goes out before applying glue.

Final flattening requires carefully watching grain direction.

[Ben Ellenberger]

The biggest table top I’ve ever made was about 7’ long and I jointed the edges with a No.5. It definitely took a few iterations to get good joints, but I was pretty happy with how it came out.

I first jointed the edge of each board individually. Then I clamped one board on its edge and set the mating board on it. This seemed to be a good way to check the fit of the joint. It took a few rounds of lowering high points to get a good match. I only match planed them after getting close to my final fit.

I gave myself more work by using such a short plane in relation to the joint length. If you have a long jointer plane you probably won’t need as many rounds to sneak up on the final fit.

With that long of a joint I didn’t really worry about trying for a sprung joint, but I did make sure I had really good fits at each end to lower the risk of gaps opening there with seasonal movement.

[Tony Wilkins]

I have a #7 and a wooden jointer I’ll use. This table will be about 7’ to 7 1/2’ long but 32 to 34” long. The boards are 4” to just under 6” wide each iirc. The boards have been in my climate controlled shop for over a year.

[Ben Ellenberger]

Sounds like you are good to go! It takes a little longer than jointing smaller stuff, and moving the boards around is a workout, but it really isn’t much different.