Cliff Rohrabacher
02-06-2008, 4:58 PM
Time to play Stump the Chump:
I'm taking apart an old maple table. It is well made dating from the 1950's. The extension slides on the ends are are wood. It's elegantly designed for a little dinner table.
The table top is laminated op from 3" wide flat sawn Maple.
The Bread board ends are glued along the entire length of the end pieces against all the end grain of the table top end. the joint is a tiny little strip of ridge that was raised along the length of the end piece and inserted into the end grain. It's about 1/8 thick and about as deep. They were generous with the glue~!
When I whack this sucker to dislodge the bread board end it breaks wood to come apart at that end grain seam.
This table was never in an HVAC environment and lived most it's life in the Mass Bay area. I took it to Maine where I used it in the 80's and then to NJ where over the course of 20 years it went in a couple of cellars one was always soggy so that mold was everywhere another was flooded often enough. The table top got wet. The Bread board ends didn't delamanate.
Taking it apart I recall all the hard and fast rules about bread boards I've seen here and other places about not using lots of glue; only gluing the center; using loose pins etc. All to prevent the problem of wood movement in different directions.
And ya just know that I've seen lots and lots of similar tables that were all age ranges too - still intact.
Help me out with this: How the devil didn't this construction tear itself apart?
I'm taking apart an old maple table. It is well made dating from the 1950's. The extension slides on the ends are are wood. It's elegantly designed for a little dinner table.
The table top is laminated op from 3" wide flat sawn Maple.
The Bread board ends are glued along the entire length of the end pieces against all the end grain of the table top end. the joint is a tiny little strip of ridge that was raised along the length of the end piece and inserted into the end grain. It's about 1/8 thick and about as deep. They were generous with the glue~!
When I whack this sucker to dislodge the bread board end it breaks wood to come apart at that end grain seam.
This table was never in an HVAC environment and lived most it's life in the Mass Bay area. I took it to Maine where I used it in the 80's and then to NJ where over the course of 20 years it went in a couple of cellars one was always soggy so that mold was everywhere another was flooded often enough. The table top got wet. The Bread board ends didn't delamanate.
Taking it apart I recall all the hard and fast rules about bread boards I've seen here and other places about not using lots of glue; only gluing the center; using loose pins etc. All to prevent the problem of wood movement in different directions.
And ya just know that I've seen lots and lots of similar tables that were all age ranges too - still intact.
Help me out with this: How the devil didn't this construction tear itself apart?