Butcher block dining table.

[Roger Feeley]

The photos below show a bench I made. I bought “character oak” which is a fancy name for oak with lots of knots and worm holes. It took two years of hunting to find oak nasty enough. I cut the oak into strips and glued them up. The bench is a little too wide for my 15” planer so I did it in two sections.


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now we want to make a matching dining table. My plan is to make it about 2” thick. It will have the same welded ‘C’ shaped legs. The table will be about 3’ x 5’.

My question is about splitting. What causes these tables to split and what can I do to avoid it? The wood will be custom milled for me by a one man shop in rural Virginia so I can have it milled any way I want.

[Jim Becker]

The only thing I can think of that would account for a glued strip surface like that splitting is a poor glue joint combined with whacko moisture content. If the lumber is dry, the glue coating even and the clamping is done long enough, those glue joints should be stable and not at risk of splitting. That first part is important, given you say the material will be custom milled. It has to be properly dried after it's milled.

[Tom Bender]

Drying is the first consideration of course. A moisture resistant finish is next. All surfaces with equal resistance is a good start but end grain should have more. That's a problem with knots and wavy which grain will expose more end grain on the surface in some places than others. You may get some checking no matter what you do. Just accept it.

I like the industrial style

You might want to hold the frame back from the edges to reduce the number of banged knee incidents.

[Prashun Patel]

What makes you think it'll split? As long as the wood is well dried, you probably won't get splitting per se.
What you might get is visible glue lines if some seams open up. But that will be minor.
Keep your grain direction on the end pieces going in the same direction.

[John TenEyck]

Number one is you have to start with properly dried wood, preferably before it's milled, but before it's glued up in any case. The reason many table tops split is because people screw them to the base w/o accommodating the expansion/contraction that will happen as the relative humidity changes with the seasons. Finishing all surfaces, equally, is important, too, but letting the top expand/contract is critical.

John

[Roger Feeley]

Thanks,

the table will be that same ‘C’ shape. That’s to allow folks to slide in and out of a bench. The two legs will each support two 19th century swing out factory seats. N the end, the table will seat six.

[Richard Coers]

Reasons that table tops crack; The crack was already there. Either from a drying defect or not trimming enough off the end before working in your shop. When I cut off a piece to clear the drying defects, I rap it on the saw table. If it doesn't break, I'm clear of defects. Improper drying is #2 as mentioned, and #3 is ignoring the law of nature that even kiln dried wood moves. You have to put the same finish on top and bottom, as well as the same amount. The wood still moves with finish on it, it just does it much slower. Imbalance of finish means one side moves faster than the other. Any wood fastened to steel must have oversized holes in the steel and a fender washer under the screw head. And the screw should just be snugged up so it can move easily. #4 is gluing a rift or quarter sawn piece to flat sawn. Flat sawn moves a lot more in width than rift sawn. And finally the big one, craftsman that ignore the rules because they think wood won't move in their home or shop. Even Norm Abram thought wood didn't move until he was finally convinced. No idea what happened that he finally started talking about it on his show, but it took years.