Building A Table With Old Wood

[Mr. Tickle]

Hello Board!

We had a loft extension; I kept the purlin timber and rafters. The wood is 115 years old. I put them in a dry airy space for 8 months and then i skimmed the sides to flatten them off. I've glued them all together, mostly. They are now in two halves so I'll glue them together tomorrow. The table will be about 95cm wide and 250cm wide.

When it's glued fully, I will skim the top and square the sides on a cnc router.

My plan was to buy some nice new wood, not sure what yet, and glue a thicker rail around the edge, mitred at the corners, to sort of frame it. Then, the purlin would be chopped into four for the legs.

Anyway, two questions really - there are a few splits and gaps. They're nice but I don't want them to degrade. What can I use for a really good filler? What do 'The Pro's' use? What do they use on guitars or expensive furniture?

Secondly, what should I coat it with? I'm not really feeling polyurethane. I felt i should feed it with danish or tung or something - what would you recommend?

Cheers!

 

[joe-90]

I guess it's going outside?

 

[Mr. Tickle]

Inside.... we had a kitchen extension, too.... it's a victorian terrace, so we now have a long kitchen out back and a long table will fit nicely; bit of a centre piece.

 

[foxhole]

I use wax sticks to fill and wax for the finish, danish oil before to feed the dry wood.

 

[Mr. Tickle]

so, Danish oil on the bare wood, then fill the holes with wax and wax the top/outer?

What sort of wax do you use? Do you heat it up or apply cold?

 

[foxhole]

Table

• foxhole
• 21 Jul 2010
• 1

Top is reclaimed pit props.<br>Purchased bare chairs and stained and inlaid tile to decorate.

Apply in the warm but straight from the tin, Liberon Bison range.
My table made from pit props

 

[joe-90]

Love that. Very classy. That'll last for centuries.

 

[foxhole]

Love that. Very classy. That'll last for centuries.

Daughters pinched it as we are doing extension, have to make a new one for the new kitchen.

 

[AronSearle]

there are a few splits and gaps. They're nice but I don't want them to degrade. What can I use for a really good filler?

Main thing is make sure they are fully dried for internal heated use, which they should be after 8 months.

Flexible fillers look crap, hard fillers have very little flexability so will not stretch if the timber dries further and splits widen.

What do 'The Pro's' use? What do they use on guitars or expensive furniture?

Timber that hasnt split

 

[Mr. Tickle]

Here's a pic of the table so far. This is what i'm about to unclamp. I thought that I could perhaps route a channel out, cut out the worse part of the crack and fill it in with a piece of timber.

I take your point about uncracked wood...!

 

[AronSearle]

Routing out is a good idea.

You could make a feature of it rather than trying to hide it, route and and insert a different coloured timber.

or use a coloured filler.

Personally I think it is better to make a feature of such items in furniture, rather than trying to hide them with crappy fillers.

 

[Chud]

I've seen a few guys on the other side of the pond go on about Timbermate wood filler...no personal experience though!

 

[katoosh525]

Agree wholeheartedly about the wax finish, poly is just starting a whole world of pain as it gets wear.
For a top rate filler, that can be coloured, you could try Fill-It, which is flexible enough to move a bit with the wood: Fill-It . Flooring etc always has the holes filled with a coloured filler, normally black.
Or live with the cracks. I have a table made from green oak in my living room, which has cracks in the timber and gaps between the boards as they have shrunk. They don't look bad, but they don't exactly assist the hygiene either.
Nice bit of re-use