Gentlemen,
Its been a while. I have a question. I am building a river table...have the pedestal parts completed and am beginning to focus on the tabletop surface. Prepping for the epoxy work soon, but looking beyond that to how I am going to attach table surface to the pedestals. I thought this would be a great opportunity to use those screw in threaded inserts. I think they would offer the strongest option and it would be my first experience with them. I am using ash...which I have found to be a fairly hard, dense wood. I first bought brass 3/8th" inserts. I drilled the prescribed pilot hole for the insert into a scrap piece of the ash and I didn't get far before the thing just stopped and refused to go further. The brass eventually broke. I know there are also steel inserts of the same hardware and I want to try them...maybe with a slightly larger pilot hole to help with the installation...maybe use a bit of epoxy to cement it in. Would this be a good idea? Also, I wanted to avoid them, but how about the T nuts? Much simply installation, but I am concerned about the strength factor of them. I will still use a 3/8th size. I will be using a total of eight bolts - four on each end. Thoughts on either method? Advice?