English Walnut Dining Table

[John TenEyck]

I built this table for a lady who had to have a couple of large and very old trees taken down. She wanted a table and bench seat made from them. One tree was far too large for my mill, so I was limited to the other. Between rot and knots there wasn't that much usable lumber in it, but I got enough for the tops of the table and bench. I milled the logs in June, the lumber air dried until November and then I kiln dried it. The limited amount of wood turned out to be a hidden benefit, it forced us to rethink what to do for the base. We settled on legs from Osborne Wood products and painted them a simple white. I think it fits the country farmhouse look she was after.

Here's the table in all it's glory tucked into a corner of my living room, awaiting better weather for delivery. Bringing that 42" x 95" x 1-1/4" top up out of my basement shop was quite a grunt. Oh to have a ground level walk out!



No cheating was done on the breadboard ends.



I used the classic approach but with a twist. Instead of pinning the tenons with slotted holes, I used Zipbolts. The center tenon is glued in the normal fashion. The bench seat has the breadboard ends done in the classic way.





They are invisible once the top is installed on the base. You can see that I finished the breadboard ends separate from the field. I'm pretty sure the film finish would crack at the seam had I finished it after the ends were attached.

John

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Gorgeous grain in that wood! Well done John. What did you use for a finish?

[Ron Citerone]

Ken stole my gorgeous line..............................that is a beautiful table there. Love it!

[Mark Rainey]

Nice John... a big old walnut tree reborn into a big walnut table with interesting big knots and decorative big breadboard ends.

[Bill Carey]

Very, very nice John. The bread board ends came out great. Never heard of zip bolts - led a sheltered life I guess - might have to try them out. And I like the knots and all. I bet it's more rewarding to go from log to table like you did than to start with wood vendor. Good for you.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Love the table. The finish looks great. How did you finish the top? From the second picture the knot looks too have a depression. Did you fill that with epoxy or is there a natural void?

[Frederick Skelly]

Great looking table! I'd be glad to own that - bet she will be too.

[Phil Mueller]

Beautiful. Hard to beat the look of walnut. Great idea on finishing the breadboard ends separate for the reason you state. Would not have thought of that. Another bit of knowledge to tuck away.

[Jim Becker]

Beautiful table and I like your use of the zip bolts to make a non-permanent connection for the breadboards including how you clearly left enough room for movement. Bravo!

[John TenEyck]

Thanks very much for the nice words, everyone. I used the Zipbolts because I originally was going to install the breadboard ends on site, at the time of delivery, in order to keep the weight down. Later in the process I decided not to do that but I had already routed the recesses so Zipbolts it was.

There were quite a few open knots in the top and bench seat. I filled those with 5 minute epoxy to which I added a drop or two of Transtint Brown Mahogany dye. Here's a shot of the bench seat with some of the filled knots. The epoxy is darker than I would have liked.



I've used a little English walnut in the past and it looked great with just Arm-R-Seal, etc., but this stuff had an ugly greenish tint to it, very unattractive. So I played around with several options and gave about 6 finish specimens to the lady to choose from. With no coaching she decided on the one I personally thought looked best. The color is a little more like black walnut than English walnut now, but it's much more attractive overall. The dye really helped bring out the grain, too.

The finish schedule was 10 drops of Transtint Brown Mahogany dye in 50 mil of DNA, wiped on with a stain pad. I have had great results using stain pads to hand apply dye; no lap marks and very easy to control. I prefer DNA because it doesn't raise the grain, which eliminates having to pre-raise the grain. After the dye was dry I sprayed a light coat of Sealcoat shellac with no thinning. Then I sprayed 3 coats of Target Coatings EM-8000CV satin without catalyst, scuff sanding between each coat to remove any nibs. And then I sprayed one coat of EM-8000CV with 4% added catalyst. The bottom has a coat of shellac and two coats of EM-8000CV.

John

[Tom Bain]

John — Awesome looking table. Would you mind giving me the overall dimensions and specifically how wide the breadboard ends are? I have a table project coming up and trying to figure out how wide to make the ends. I really like the proportions on your table.

Thanks.

[Lee Schierer]

Very nice and a great save of the wood. What was the design thought to make the bread boards wider than the rest of the table?

[John TenEyck]

John — Awesome looking table. Would you mind giving me the overall dimensions and specifically how wide the breadboard ends are? I have a table project coming up and trying to figure out how wide to make the ends. I really like the proportions on your table.

Thanks.

Thanks Tom. The overall dimensions are 42" wide x 94-3/4" long x 30-1/4" high. The breadboard ends were supposed to be 8" wide but I could only get about 7-1/2" out of the wood I had, which is why the table ended up a little shorter than the 96" it was supposed to be.

John

[John TenEyck]

Very nice and a great save of the wood. What was the design thought to make the bread boards wider than the rest of the table?

Thanks Lee. Making the breadboard ends wider than the field was a driven by seasonal expansion/contraction considerations. The moisture content of the wood right now is 6%. The field of the top is going to grow nearly 3/8" in the Summer if the house it goes in doesn't have AC. Maybe it does, but I can't depend upon that to be the case. So the breadboard ends need to be at least that much longer than the top is now to avoid the field ending up wider than the length of the ends. I made it 1/2" longer, so 1/4" overhang on both ends, just in case.

The only way I know of to make the breadboard ends the same length as the width of the field, and not have the field change in relation to the ends, is to use a veneered field. And if you do that, you could just glue the breadboard ends on w/o all that extra work to allow for seasonal movement. I actually thought of building the table that way, but decided not to to keep the cost under control.


John

[Mike Henderson]

That table looks great. I like the way you did the breadboard ends. Good idea.

Mike