Novice

[gav223]

Hi all, i'm looking around for a new dining table and the ones I tend to keep looking at are solid wood in their natural state. One that stands out is around £1500 to buy and upon looking at it closely, it looks as if it is lengths of 4 by 3 biscuit jointed together. Although I am a complete novice at woodworking I am practical and pretty good with my hands.
There's a few things I would like to know, firstly are there any books, cd's or e-books I can get that will give me all the basics. How difficult is it to make a dining table. The wood used for this table is sheesham indian wood and although I think it has been stained with a dark colour there are light bits throughout, is there a way I could get this effect using cheaper wood.
Many thanks.

 

[George_N]

Hi Gav, welcome to the forum. A dining table sounds like an awfully big project for a novice. What workshop facilities/tools do you have or have access to?

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Gav

Welcome to the forum.

Cheers
Neil

 

[gav223]

I have a large garage where I keep my building tools, but do not have any woodworking tools at all. I don't mind investing some money on tools as there are a few things I would like to make. With regards to the table, I had a go a few months ago when I was testing if it would look ok. A carpenter I know said I could dowel the timber together if I didn't have a biscuit jointer. What I did was get some pieces of 4 by 3 rough sawn timber, fixed them together with dowels and then sanded the surface. As the table I was looking to buy was quite rough looking, my table looked almost identical, but on a smaller scale.

 

[Paul Chapman]

A carpenter I know said I could dowel the timber together if I didn't have a biscuit jointer. What I did was get some pieces of 4 by 3 rough sawn timber, fixed them together with dowels and then sanded the surface. As the table I was looking to buy was quite rough looking, my table looked almost identical, but on a smaller scale.

Hi Gav,

If what you want is something quite rustic-looking, and you are happy with the trial top you made, and you haven't got many tools (but you have a carpenter friend who might be able to help you out), why not make the top the way you did the trial one. For the legs you could make up something along the style of two saw horses. That would not be too difficult and could be made using dowels to join the pieces together. That would be much easier than going for conventional legs with mortice & tennon joints and the like. However, just make sure you join the top to the legs with stretcher plates so that it is able to expand and contract, or it could end up looking a bit too rustic :roll:

Hope this helps :wink:

Paul

 

[Anonymous]

My pennyworth.
It is commonly known that these days the GLUE is strong enough for most jointing. Therefore as long as the project is glued and clamped properly one shouldn`t have any probs. Norm now recommends no extras just glue for tabletops. The rest of the table requires more thought. Have tried allsorts and come to the conclusion MORTISE AND TENON the strongest and the most reliable.
I was like you and started as a novice but now have a small but thriving buisness. Take anything made from wood and think of it as a box, then cosmetically change it to how you want. Even a table is just a box with 4 bits sticking out.

Koolwabbit