What do you think of this table?

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jeffff

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Given the limited information - what do you think about this table?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Solid-Oak-Din ... 4abc867f48

I realise the notion of buying solid wood furniture rather than making it is a bit weird for a woodworking forum, but I don't have the gear (or the skill) to make a table like that - and we need one pretty soon. Sooner than my skills will increase at least.

From my bit of shopping about, that seems like a pretty good price for solid oak with no veneered bits. Any thoughts on the design (will it warp?), value for money? I can't really budget more at the moment, but "buy cheap, buy twice" as they say... so I'll buy a cheap Ikea table to eat dinner off for a while.

Thanks
 
jeffff":24ve2x8j said:
Any thoughts on the design (will it warp?), value for money? I can't really budget more at the moment, but "buy cheap, buy twice" as they say... so I'll buy a cheap Ikea table to eat dinner off for a while.

One thing to note is that it's frame-and-panel, which means that:
a) there's lots of little cracks for crumbs to get stuck down
b) as the wood expands and contracts bits of your table will open and close

Tables I've seen in this kind of price range tend to be held together with bolts rather than joinery, which means less stable and more creaky. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with it, but... well, you get what you pay for. We have a similar-looking one ourselves; I don't regret the purchase, but it was definitely a "this is cheap and we need a table" table rather than a "this is an awesome table" table. And we keep a tablecloth on it more or less all the time. ;-)
 
jeffff":1d38whd0 said:
that seems like a pretty good price for solid oak with no veneered bits.


Although it says solid oak if you look closly its all made up from short thin staves just like a cheaper kitchen worktop, the legs look to be in three thicknesses x five widths and the rest will be of similar construction with the poorest timber in the middle out of sight.

They keep the costs down by using all the offcuts and rejects from when decent sized boards are cut.
 
i am almost sure CTGlobal is Oak furnitureland, or something to do with them, i have several piece of their stuff in my house and i love it, really heavy and well built, would buy again from them..
 
stevebuk":2yccs7qq said:
i am almost sure CTGlobal is Oak furnitureland, or something to do with them, i have several piece of their stuff in my house and i love it, really heavy and well built, would buy again from them..

Steve's right - see this thread on moneysavingexpert.com - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=533996&page=2 which goes on for ages covering complaints, damage etc but with responses from the company.

It's presumably made in China or Eastern Europe. Lots of slim sections which if the website pictures are any guide, will be randomly assorted to make sure that you get an unharmonious mess of conflicting grain and colour.
 
It's presumably made in China or Eastern Europe. Lots of slim sections which if the website pictures are any guide, will be randomly assorted to make sure that you get an unharmonious mess of conflicting grain and colour.


Although it is made from random bits of timber it is harmonious and pleasing to the eye, there are't any odd colours in my pieces..
 
I think if you can afford to wait for a bit you can do much better than that on ebay (or physical auction). My partner and I got a gorgeous 50's dining table 8' long with 8 really good chairs, proper craftsmanship, proper timber for £360 on ebay a while ago. We had to wait a bit, but if you do you will get lucky in the end. If you go to auctions and you don't mind 'brown' furniture you can get really good prices on antique stuff too. Pieces that would have gone for hundreds a few years ago are worth far less now.
 
I was basing my comments about the randomness of the grain and colour on this picture from the oakfurnitureland website

4175oak-4.jpg


I think it's a mess, but the website says it's "Hand-crafted by skilled joiners using time-honoured techniques using only the finest cuts of solid oak" so I must be wrong.
 
AndyT":1rvecw2g said:
I was basing my comments about the randomness of the grain and colour on this picture from the oakfurnitureland website

4175oak-4.jpg


I think it's a mess, but the website says it's "Hand-crafted by skilled joiners using time-honoured techniques using only the finest cuts of solid oak" so I must be wrong.



yeah, have you never heard of Thomas 'Ho Chi' Chippendale... :lol:
 
Thanks for the comments. I'm still undecided, notwithstanding the mainly bad (but some good) comments. Ultimately we need a table now and I can't spend upwards of £500 on one. I would be keen to look at ebay (and have been), but there is a lack of light, proper wood, extending tables available... so I'm being pressed to a decision one way or another.

I've not had a look at those threads on Money Saving Expert but will.

Peter - what is the significance of the apron rails not being "over deep"? Is a big apron a sign of a poorly made table?

How does a table like this take sanding? If it gets gouged and wrecked on top, can it be refinished? Or is this sort of construction not suited to that?

And (this might be a simple question), how are these "off cut" sections of wood all joined together? Glue? Or jointed somehow? The ad states "no biscuit joints" which I presume refers to the fact that the top is planked, rather than having that kitchen top look... but what about the legs?

Many thanks
 
Just to give you some food for thought take a look at these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/60s-McInt...iques_AntiqueFurniture_SM&hash=item2577c0536e

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SOLID-DAN...iques_AntiqueFurniture_SM&hash=item2ebe070cf7

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STYLISH-R...iques_AntiqueFurniture_SM&hash=item3cce774974

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gordon-Ru...iques_AntiqueFurniture_SM&hash=item5651902342

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-E...iques_AntiqueFurniture_SM&hash=item3a7e02fb46

So these particular ones may not be to your taste, but it gives an idea of what is out there — all are proper furniture and a million miles away in terms of quality and design from what you are looking at. OK, second hand so buyer beware, but real furniture at prices to make a furniture maker weep. I suppose it's good in some ways that so many people buy the budget chinese/czeck built down to a price rubbish. It means the field is clear for the rest of us to furnish our houses with decent furniture — and for less than the price of the rubbish.

(hammer)
 
jeffff":3oy77zhh said:
Ultimately we need a table now and I can't spend upwards of £500 on one. I would be keen to look at ebay (and have been), but there is a lack of light, proper wood, extending tables available... so I'm being pressed to a decision one way or another.

At the very least, it's probably worth looking around a bit more. The table we have was arguably cheaper than the one you linked to (albeit at a higher price, in a bundle with some chairs which are pretty nice) and unlike the one you linked to, is predominantly made from single pieces of timber of similar hue and grain, only the legs are laminated together.

The only notable flaw ours had was that it wobbled a bit when we first got it, thanks to the bolted-together construction... and this was largely because in a phenomenal display of bizarre penny-pinching, the people who made it had failed to put big flat washers and springs behind the nuts holding the legs on, so they couldn't be tightened without biting into the wood. Thankfully my sinking feeling upon first taking delivery was remedied by something like £1's worth of hardware!

jeffff":3oy77zhh said:
Peter - what is the significance of the apron rails not being "over deep"? Is a big apron a sign of a poorly made table?

Regardless of whether it's a sign of being poorly made, it's a harbinger of sore knees. :p

jeffff":3oy77zhh said:
How does a table like this take sanding? If it gets gouged and wrecked on top, can it be refinished? Or is this sort of construction not suited to that?

From my point of view, buying a hardwood table was at least in part an effort to avoid getting a gouged and wrecked surface!

It probably depends as much on the table as anything, but certainly with ours it's thick enough to be sanded quite a bit without failing structurally. But then, any solid-wood table should be, presuming it's actually solid wood and not veneered or something.

I suspect that the problems you'd have with sanding are twofold:
- Because of the frame-and-panel construction, with a bevel around the edge of the frame, you'll need to be more even and level with your sanding than you could get away with on a traditionally-jointed table; the bevels will show variations in thickness that the eye probably wouldn't otherwise be able to perceive.
- You'll probably have trouble removing the finish from the inside of the bevel, so re-finishing it after the sanding will be more difficult than it might otherwise be

jeffff":3oy77zhh said:
And (this might be a simple question), how are these "off cut" sections of wood all joined together? Glue? Or jointed somehow? The ad states "no biscuit joints" which I presume refers to the fact that the top is planked, rather than having that kitchen top look... but what about the legs?

My expectation would be that they'll simply be glued together - either flat butt joints or possibly with a profile cut into them to lock them in place as they're glued, like tongue-and-groove flooring. But probably just glued flat, 'cause like that you get more wood from your offcuts! ;-)
 
jeff there's probably similar places near to you but http://www.devonshirepineandoak.co.uk/ is worth a look at bideford they have a factory shop that sells seconds at quite a reduced rate some of the stuff will be scratched underneath the table so doesn't affect the product look, there is also http://www.winkleighpinefurniture.co.uk/ which sells furniture made at their own workshops which is really good value for money. both of these places are not a million miles away and worth a look if you are unsure of the final quality you are going to get, it will also be in your price range and they both deliver.

hope this helps.
 
jeffff":2ea6tv4o said:
Thanks for the comments. I'm still undecided, notwithstanding the mainly bad (but some good) comments. Ultimately we need a table now and I can't spend upwards of £500 on one. I would be keen to look at ebay (and have been), but there is a lack of light, proper wood, extending tables available... so I'm being pressed to a decision one way or another.

I've not had a look at those threads on Money Saving Expert but will.

Peter - what is the significance of the apron rails not being "over deep"? Is a big apron a sign of a poorly made table?

How does a table like this take sanding? If it gets gouged and wrecked on top, can it be refinished? Or is this sort of construction not suited to that?

And (this might be a simple question), how are these "off cut" sections of wood all joined together? Glue? Or jointed somehow? The ad states "no biscuit joints" which I presume refers to the fact that the top is planked, rather than having that kitchen top look... but what about the legs?

Many thanks

If tables are higher than usual and this is often the case with extending tables, it is because the extra leaf is stored internally and to clear the extending elements within the table frame, the apron rails need to be deeper to accommodate them. So the table height is raised so that the apron rails clear ample thighs when in the seated position. The apron rails in this table appear to be fairly standard depth so I am not sure why it is higher than the norm.
 
This sort of oak furniture seems to be about everywhere at the moment. We bought some similar stuff a few years ago - ours was made from reclaimed timber in Vietnam. I guess this is why the larger pieces have to be laminated. I would take care, and buy from somewhere you can go and look at it first (not ebay !)- the quality does seem variable and a lot of it is not as well made as the stuff we bought a few years ago. But you can't expect too much - I'm not sure I could buy proper timber to make one myself for the price.

There is some variation in colour; in ours some bits of red/white oak have crept in I think - but whether that is character or a mess is a question of taste. As is whether you like chunky looking oak furniture in the first place. I do, and I must say that I loathe some of that retro '70s stuff in the e-bay links above; I might just be able to live with some of those as a bench in the potting shed, but I'm not sure ...
 

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