Hello, all! I am new to the forum but have been lurking for a while. I finally arrived at a question I felt wasn’t fully resolved by the search function.
I wanted to make a 36”x84” trestle table out of walnut. I planned for no apron and at least 6/4 tabletop and trestles. I’ve milled boards before, but that was with my dad’s lunchbox planer and his jointer and I am now 1000 miles away. I now have a scrub plane, jointing plane, jack plane, and a smoothing plane, but I was trying to postpone learning how to mill from the rough by hand. It looks like my efforts failed, and I was hoping for your advice.
I learned of a private individual with 41 year old stickered and air-dried, s3s, slr on the 4th walnut, who advertised having it in 7/4 and ¾. I drafted my plans to use the 7/4 for the tabletop, but when I arrived at his barn I found there was not enough at that thickness. I thought I had made an acceptable extemporaneous compromise by buying the tabletop boards in ¾ instead.
I was a little excited at the price, and wanted to get out of the guy’s hair, so I was only able to thoroughly inspect these boards when I got home. I found some winding, moderate to severe bowing on both axes, and some snipe. He said he milled it himself, and I can’t fault him for being imperfect, and the price he was asking is still extremely fair even for rough lumber. But if I re-mill the ¾, it might be smaller than ½ even if spot-planing. ¾ was too thin for the form or function of a trestle table anyway, so I know I made a dumb call. Unfortunately, I am close to blowing my budget for the table.
The way I figure, we all have 5 resources; money, time, effort, creativity, and skill. I have plenty of time and effort. I am hoping that this could be an entertaining thought exercise that also allows me learn from some of your skill and creativity. If there is just no here replacement for money, I understand. What would you do if you were me?
1. Would you be grateful for the 7/4 you did get for the trestles, and wait for a while until you can buy the same for the tabletop, in the meantime using the 3/4 walnut for other smaller projects with the knowledge that more thickness would be retained by working it in shorter lengths?
2. Would you go back for more ¾ at $3/bf, re-mill it all, and laminate for a final thickness of about 1”, as Prashun Patel suggests here?: https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?244828-Walnut-Top-Trestle-Dining-Table-Advice-on-Secondary-Wood&p=2576522 Would laminating the top impact the ability to use mortise and tenon and breadboards at all? Would it negatively impact the appearance in your opinion?
3. Would you go back for more ¾, and in the place of a breadboard, make an overengineered apron and brace setup with a billion cabinetmakers buttons/z-clips/figure 8 fasteners to prepare for the racking and warp? Would you equalize with biscuits or try to re-bend the stock like here: https://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthr...in-a-table-top
Can you only thoroughly mill appearance and reference surfaces to retain some thickness?
4. I plan to use knock-down joinery. Would you go for a cheaper top material temporarily with the knowledge that the top can be replaced when skill and $ allow? I could get 6/4 maple for $4.88/bf or 6/4 live-edge ash for ~6.80/bf. Maybe I could go with S4S and come back to this when I learn how to hand mill on shorter boards.
5. Something better than my dumb ideas?
I’ve been told that you can’t learn unless your reach exceeds your grasp, so I don’t regret getting in over my head. But I recognize that in heeding that admonishment, I signed up for either a whole lot of learning or a long wait on this project. Thank you for any lessons you can lend.
Jordan