Breakfast bar fitting advice.

[Doug71]

I have been asked to fit a breakfast bar by a customer, it will really be more like a table but instead of legs at one end it will be fixed to the wall.

It's a 2m long, 960mm wide (might get cut down in width to 850ish), 40mm thick full stave wenge worktop. One end will be fixed to a batten on the wall so the worktop will stand out 2m from the wall, the other end will probably rest on two oak legs maybe 90mm square. Think they are hoping to sit 3 people down each side and one at the end.

Will this be ok without any extra support underneath (like most of you I generally over engineer things)?

What is the best way to fasten the legs to the top so it looks uncluttered?

Any advice appreciated.

Doug

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I had 40mm wenge tops in my old house - I wouldn't think yours would move far but you could glue a 4" x 2" (flat?) up the centre for the first metre and a half or so if you think it might sink a bit in the middle - no one would see it. I think it's unlikely but it's a lot easier to prevent than to correct. I doubt it would distort noticeably from side to side, but again it might be better safe than sorry and screw a few steel bars (so they wouldn't be visible) across the underside. You could put dowels of some description (steel rod?) into the tops and bottoms of the legs - they wouldn't need to be fixed, once the weight of the top was on them they won't go anywhere. You'd need two at one end or the other to prevent the legs twisting, but no fixings at all would be visible. Obviously the top needs to be securely fixed at the wall end.
Depending what clearance you have underneath you could put a cross rail of wenge (your offcut?) between the two legs which would help stabilise the top.

 

[stuartpaul]

I would have thought that if your going to fix at both ends a 2 metre long worktop, even at 40 mm thick, will eventually show a degree of sag in the middle. Might take a while but gravity tends to get its way over time.

Can you 'cheat' a bit and position the legs further inboard to reduce the unsupported span?

There are plenty of breakfast bar legs available commercially (so google tells me!) and some of the brackets are fairly unobtrusive. There are also some legs that you could probably clad in oak rather than pay for 90 mm square which isn't going to be cheap!

Could you also use a single leg halfway down your unsupported length? If it's in the middle it won't get in the way of legs etc.

I over engineer as well!

 

[Racers]

Oak newel post are good for legs, I have used them for table legs, you could also use one underneath for support.

Pete