Dealing with a maple baker's table

Re: Dealing with a maple baker's table

Bill Tindal, E.TN

>The simpleanswer would be to take it to a local cabinet shop and have them run it through a wide belt sander or planer. Any shop now days will have the sander and maybe the planer.

Re: Dealing with a maple baker's table

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>Unless you are very familiar and very good with the forked tail beast (NOT a finishing tool), I would suggest you use a cabinet scraper or you could use a card scraper.

You can fill in the blemishes with 'dutchmen' with the grain following properly. You can also use a plug cutter to cut side grain maple and use a drill to make holes. Make sure you align the grain in the plugs with the grain on the table. Do not use dowels as they will be eng grain. I drill the first hole and glue in a bung then drill the next hole, drilling a bit into the first bung, then fill that hole and continue.

Walnut oil is a good choice for this application, edible and it actually dries.

Good luck

Stephen

Re: Dealing with a maple baker's table

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>Sounds like a really nice score. I don't like the idea of breadboard ends. First, I don't think you will miss the 4". The second problem I see is strength. This table is going into a work area where you do where the ends may be subjected to stress (this is from your description of the original top). No way that breadboard ends will be STRONGER than what you have. And lastly there is the cleaning issue. Properly done, the breadboard ends will have a long open seam. It may be tiny, but it is still a seam and will let in water, etc. I say leave the top solid. It will be stronger and easier to clean. Good luck with your project.

Re: Dealing with a maple baker's table

Hank Knight from SC

>Edward,

I agree with Jim that your breadboard ends won't be as strong as the orginal laminated top, but I think they would be plenty strong to stand up to whatever work you might do on the tabletop - unless you plan to really abuse it. My bench top is a 3" thick laminated maple slab. I put breadboard end caps on each end with a full width 1" X 3/4" moritse and tenon and bolted them on with Lee valley bed bolts and barrel nuts - no glue. The breadboards are made from two thicknesses of 8/4 maple.They add about 2" to each end of my bench. My twin screw end vise is lag screwed to one of the bread boards. It's had two years of pretty hard use and there has been no separation or loostening of the end cap.

I'm sure there must a microscopic gap between the breadboard and bench top, but if you are careful you can minimize it. I worked on my moritse and tenon joint a long time with a shoulder plane and chisels and was able to eliminate any visual gap on the top mating edge. I'm not using my bench for food prep, but I really think I could. The mating edges are so tight that I don't think food could get into the joint. Even it it did, I could easily remove the end caps to clean out the joint or resurface the mating edges.

Here's a photo of my mortise and tenon with the breadboard end cap.

A photo of the attached end cap 

Hank Knight from SC

>

That's a dang

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>nice piece of work!

Re: That's a dang

Edward in Vancouver

>Thanks gentlemen. I'll take Jim's advice about not using the breadboards to extend the length, but I'd still like to cap off the ends for two reasons. The first being that the ends are pretty banged up in some areas,and I'd hate to trim off even more of the top off to get clean edges. The second is that whoever originally installed the 4 galvanized sockets that accept the the steel legs for the table installed them to close to the edge, and I have some splitting/fatiguing of the glue lines about 3/4" from the edge from the (undersized!) screws, but after that the butt joints are strong with no cracking or fatiging. I did remove the first 1/4 of the table and rebuild it, so I got rid of two of those areas, but I'd hate to take apart the rest of the table, just for the sake of getting at the other two problem areas.

So what I'd like to do is make the end caps about 11/2 " wide and make my tennons maybe 1" or 11/4" long. End caps shouldn't bear any, or very little weight.

Picked up a "real" plug cutter, that cuts tapered plugs, tried it out. If I match the wood and orient the grain just-so it's almost invisible.

Thanks, Jim.

Hank Knight from SC

>