I am building a 72" x 40" x 6/4 solid Hickory table top. I have already glued together the planks to get the width for my table top, but I have not attached the breadboards yet. My plan was to glue the breadboards to the rest of the table top just like I did with the other planks, but after doing some more research I have found that may not the best option. I have built and finished other (much smaller) projects where I glued together wood cross grain and I have never had an issue with expansion and contraction ruining the piece; However, it seems like due to the size of this project if I were to glue the breadboards to the table, I could have some issues with them expanding/contracting and messing up the table (FYI, the table will always be stored in a temperature controlled environment).
I am kind of stuck on how to proceed. Given that this is solid Hickory and most of my table top is already assembled, doing any kind of routing table modifications to the ends of the top (for mortise and tenon for example) is going to be next to impossible. For the breadboards, it may be doable since they are much smaller and not attached yet, but I would have to see. Also, I can't really cut into the assembled part of the table length-wise, as that would really shorten the length (I don't have much extra on the ends to trim off to get my exact measurements), so that poses a problem as well. I was all set to just trim off the little bit of excess length and then glue on my breadboards, but then some happenstance internet searching has thrown me all of.
Does anybody have any ideas on how I should proceed, or am I pretty much screwed?
Once the breadboards are attached, everything else should be pretty easy, as I am heading in a totally different direction for the legs, and I am very well-versed with the finishing portion of the project
Any help given would be great. Thanks.