It was time for new dining table. It had to seat 10 people when fully extended and comfortably fit 6-8 when collapsed. Here we go!

The Plan

Since this was a personal project, I wanted to try some new methods for creating table tops and legs. When I say “new”, I mean new to me. So, I decided to incorporate torsion boxes and veneer into this same project. The table will will have two primary tops at 43″ long x 40″ wide and two leaves at ~15″ long. When collapsed the table will be 86″ and fully extended it will be 116″ long. The legs are meaty 5″ square.

Videos

Materials

I bought a bunch of 1/2″ MDF for the Torsion box cores and for the leg blanks. I was going to buy 1/4 MDF for the torsion box skins, but found some plywood at my local Menards that I thought would work well…..”WRONG”. Once I get into sanding and prepping for veneer this bites me. The plywood was cheap and full of voids under the paper thin veneer face.

The veneer was 10X4 sheets of rift walnut from GL veneers and they were beautiful. I also purchased a bunch of 4/4 walnut for the aprons and edging.

The table extension hardware, alignment locks, and pins were from Osborne Wood products. The angled braces for the corners were from Amazon.

Torsion Boxes

I started by cutting the MDF into all the various strips I needed for the torsion boxes and for the leg blanks. Since the table top will be 1.5″ thick, the strips were cut to 1″ (accounting for 1/4 top and bottom skins). I was originally concerned these would just break under their own weight, but they were totally fine. The leg pieces were around 4″ wide and some 5″ wide to cap off the edges

To make the torsion boxes, I cut half lap joints in all the pieces. I would gang all of them together and cut grooves with the dado stack. It makes a really nice interlocking system that is pretty stress free when gluing it up. Speaking of glue ups, it was much easier to create some square references on the table and butt everything up to them.

The small torsion boxes were very straightforward, but the larger ones needed added blocking to secure the table extension to.

I would lay out the grid work with glue and pin nails, then add the solid blocking by gluing two edges to the grid work. Finally I would add the top and bottom skins and throw them in the vacuum bag or weight platen. The weighted platen wasn’t great at clamping edges. I had some small gaps here and there.

Torsion Box Wrapping

After some flush trimming and light sanding….boom. Note that that the veneer of the plywood is running side to side. My final veneer will run the long direction and be perpendicular to the plywood veneer.

The last step in the torsion boxes was to add the walnut strips to the perimeter. Some corners were simple butt joints with screws and plug. The two outermost corners were mitered and reinforced with dominoes.

After flush trimming the edging to the plywood and some sanding. I was getting close. Yet, the table top pieces were not perfectly square, so I had trim them back with the track saw to square them up.

LEGS

My first attempt at the leg construction was a fail. I tried laminating the mdf and flush trimming back to the original piece, but that had issues with it not being exactly “FLUSH” So, the compound error grew with every piece I added. So, I ended up taking it to the jointer and just pretending it was a solid piece of wood. Flatten one face, square up the other, and send through planer. The downside is surfacing through pin nails. To avoid most that super absorbent edge grain, I capped the sides and bottom with pieces of MDF. I had to add two layers since I lost some size due to jointing and planing

At this stage, I wasn’t 100% sure on the edge treatments for the legs (sharp, roundover, chamfer), but I knew that legs get beat up by vacuums, mops, children. So I add rabbet on each edge and laid in some solid walnut. I also added it to the bottom edges. The rabbet was cut with the table saw and standard blade,

Veneer Time!

We now have the substrates ready for veneer. I will be honest, I ‘oversanded’ a bit on the tops and had to a bunch of filling and sanding, and filling. I ended up with a few low spots and was surprised/embarrassed at how much damage I did with my sander trying to flush up the hardwood with the tops.

Anyways, I carefully marked my veneer pieces and began cutting them out with a few different cutting tools. One of the tools was a special veneer blade and the other was a simple utility knife, for the corners. The tool from Vacu Press leaves a tiny bit of ‘extra’ material for shifting the veneer around which was nice. The tool rides along the edge of your substrate and the blade is offset a few millimeters.

I used Titebond 3 and this cool glue roller/hopper from Veneer Supplies. I only applied glue to the substrate, but I feel like I could be pretty “heavy” on the glue application. Everything soaked it up pretty fast. Once the glue was applied, i would tape the corners and slide it into the vac bag. The major helper here was a way to hold the bag open. I used a simple board with a hook that I could attach a string to the ceiling (another hook). The small board clamps to the upper half of the bag opening and gets suspended. I should also say that I made an upper platen out of some 1/4 plywood that was just slightly larger than the veneer.

Leg Veneers

The legs posed a bit of a challenge. I tried veneering all four in the bag at once and veneering two sides (top/bottom). This did not work at all. I tired twice with different layouts to minimize platen warping, but the bottom veneer always wrinkled. So, I had to veneer one face at a time, but could do all four legs. The below picture is how NOT to do it. If I laid the legs in the other direction and staggered them it kep the lower platen flatter. I assume there is a “correct” way for doing tall items like these legs. Maybe small upper and lower platens for each leg would work better. Removing the large melamine one from the bag.

At some stage I drilled for the table top alignment pins. If I do this again, I would only use two, not three. I had to grind the third one down on all of the pieces to get them fitting nicely.

I also decided on a chamfer for the legs and this is where the solid walnut strip comes into play. The only dumb thing I did was that I used pin nails on the first one to hold the strips in place. Just use masking tape.

Aprons and Legs

I still had to make the aprons, which were 3/4 walnut hardwood. I cut them to rough length and marked them for grain continuity.

I knew I wanted something super strong in the corners where the legs met the table and the aprons. So, I decided on brace that would be attached to the legs with bolts and threaded inserts and then some beefy brackets for the brace to connect to the aprons.

In order to cut the 45 degree angle on the leges I had to make a sled for my bandsaw. The second picture shows the cut legs before I started adding the mortises. The sled I made for the bandsaw was also the sled I used to drill the holes for the threaded inserts on the drill press. No pictures, have to watch the videos for this.

Initial Assembly

After adding mortises for the legs and aprons, I could dry fit them onto the table top and cut the corner braces to final size and drill all of the holes for the hardware. I am shocked I don’t have pictures of this process or the underside of the table, but the videos have the detail. Once I got the braces fitting I could fasten stuff together and add my apron braces. The major vision was that this could all be assembled in the final location due to its size and weight.

I added the table slides and marked the holes for predrilling. I didn’t mount these until the table was inside though. Then I took it all apart and starting prepping for finish.

Finish

We wanted a very dark table, so after doing some samples we settled on this process. Ebonize with vinegar/steel wool, then apply Java gel stain. See the visual transition below

I did not test my “polyurethane choice” when doing the stain samples had some terrible blushing. Luckily I only sprayed the table bottom adn the legs. I had to lightly sand it off and then went with GF Arm R Seal.

After all the finish was applied I did some light 0000 steel wool rubbing and mounted the leaf locks, aprons, and braces back to the table tops and leaves.

We got everything inside and started assembling it. With the two large halves laying on the ground, I added the table slides. Then I added two legs and lifted one side up while someone else popped the legs into place (loose tenons, thank you). Bolted everything together and we had a new table