Lane Acclaim Table Build

[jteneyck]

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I was going to build this table:



It's 42" diameter and pulls apart for the addition of 3, 12" extension leaves.  I have never built and extension table, so that made it sound interesting.  The leg design and the fake dovetails in the top were appealing to me, too.  The original tables mostly used walnut and oak.  In discussing it with my customer, we decided on mahogany and maple.  It's hard to imagine that this pile of wood and plywood cost over $1000 but it did.  



The legs start out with a 2.5" square.  



I laid out the mortises and cut them on my Horizontal Router Mortiser:





The lower leg is a round taper.  I removed some of the waste using a simple tapering jig on my TS:





I have a lathe and I can turn a little, but I knew I'd never be able to make perfectly straight tapers on all four legs, so I thought about how to do it on my CNC.  I built a crude 4th axis to rotate the leg while the CNC followed the taper pattern I programmed it to do.  



I don't have enough Z height to machine from the top, which would have given a much better finish, but the tapers it cut cleaned up beautifully with sandpaper on a wood block.



There is an interesting transition from the round taper to the square top section; the outside corner is radiused to match the taper.  I did this with a handplane and sandpaper.





I cut the veneer for the top with my Grizzly bandsaw, to which I added a tall fence and roller featherboard system.  Those assure the wood is pressed tightly to the fence and keep my hands away from the blade.  It makes sawing veneer a simple operation.  



even down to the last cut:





Then to the drum sander:



and they are ready to use:



More to follow.

John

[jteneyck]

The top and leaves are made from 3/4" Baltic birch plywood with solid wood edges, then veneered.




After flushing the edging I glued on the veneer with TB II in my shop built vacuum bag.



I used to use Unibond 800 or Plastic Resin Glue for veneer, but I found out that at least for flat work Titebond II works just as well.  It's a lot cheaper, too, and I only have to leave it in the vacuum bag for a couple of hours rather than 8 - 13.  

Having a CNC often makes some tasks easier.  Such was the case cutting the round end panels and their integrated tenons.  



The dowel holes in the bottom side will become important later.  Here are the two halves:



I cut the tenons on the leaves on the CNC as well, so there was no worry about length. 



The maple trim rings are made from 3 pieces of stock.  I made a full size template to help lay them out.



I joined them with loose tenons, again using the HRM to cut the mortises.



I was able to screw cauls on the scrap sections and pull the sections together tightly during glue up.  The glue-ups when on the CNC, too, to be cut into rings:



I checked the fit before cutting the OD.  About as perfect as one could hope.



After cutting the OD, I used a slot cutting bit to cut the mortise in the ID, carefully adjusting the bit until I got a nice fit onto the tenons.  



With the leaves I stopped the mortises short of the ends so the trim has a cleaner look.  That wasn't possible with the end rings, however, because they had to slide into place, so the joint shows from the side.  



Before I glued anything together, I put the end panels back on the CNC to cut the fake dovetails.  I cut the male pieces on the CNC, too, and glued them in place.  The dowel holes on the bottom of the panels is how I put them back on the CNC with perfect registration so that the dovetail cuts would be machined properly.  



Lots of clamps to pull the ring tight to the panel.  The tape was to protect the mahogany from glue squeeze out.  



And the two ends:



I rough sanded the ends and leaves with the drum sander and then up to 100 grit.  Then I made a drilling jig to drill the holes for the pins and sockets that connect the leaves together.  I used metal drill bushing for better accuracy.  The jig was made on the CNC, too.  The jig is indexed off the end of the mahogany because the leaves haven't been trimmed to final length yet.  



With the pins and sockets installed.  



Yet more to follow.

John

[jteneyck]

The aprons are radiused.  I did that work with a template and the router table.






The aprons have a maple bead running along the bottom edge.  



I cut mortises in the ends of the aprons to match the legs and then glued up the end leg assemblies.



I used what must be the nicest extension slides available.  Made by a German company, so I imagine they are.  Custom made for this table.  As you can imagine they aren't cheap.  You're looking at $550.



And here is the table mostly put together.







It's mostly done now except for deciding on the finish.  My customer and I are having some back and forth on that.  You can see some of my specimens being used as shims under the feet!  

More to follow in a week or two.  

John

[FrankAtl]

Wow John, amazing work! Thanks for the detailed writeup!

[Tapper]

Beautiful work, John! Great build-along photos and explanations. Looks like the CNC machine you acquired a few years ago really came in handy. Looking forward to the finish work.

Doug

[bjmh4]

Quite an undertaking John. Super professional work and documentation!

Bob

[KC]

I've done some complicated stuff years ago that required all the patience I used to have... but I'll bow to you, sir.  


I don't really care much for the look of the 'big table' with leaves, but the round without them is stunning.  

No additional support at the leg mortises?

[jteneyck]

I've done some complicated stuff years ago that required all the patience I used to have... but I'll bow to you, sir.  


I don't really care much for the look of the 'big table' with leaves, but the round without them is stunning.  

No additional support at the leg mortises?

Thanks.  Interesting that you don't care for the table with the leaves installed.  The original design just had plain leaves, w/o the maple trim on the ends.  I thought that was pretty awful, so I added them to harmonize the look.  I also added aprons under the leaves, not yet installed, to hide the slides when it's open.  The original had none.  We actually discussed all this when I posted about the upcoming build.  

Anyone, to your question.  Yes, I will add some wooden corner braces between the aprons and legs.  However, I can't install them until after the extension slides are installed the final time.  That's why you didn't see them in the photos. Sharp eye you have.   

John

[BpB123]

Incredible!

Thanks John for sharing!!!!

[joe1086]

Of course the work is spectacular, like always. Another impressive feat is how John got all three posts and all the photo links posted in about 45 minutes.