Table top made of wood by own hands

The need to make a table top made of wood by your own hands can arise for various reasons: you want to make a table with original dimensions, update old furniture or simply practice in furniture business. Anyway, anyone can build a countertop if desired. However, in addition to the desire to have a good instruction, carpentry tools and a few skills in working with wood. In this article you will find all the necessary instructions for assembling the countertop with your own hands.

Wood choice

Often in the manufacture of furniture, prefabricated wooden worktops and made of a carpentry panel. The table tops from the solid wood are very beautiful, durable and durable, and therefore - quite expensive, that's why they are used for assembling premium-class furniture. However, for work at home and without special skills, whole pieces of wood are not suitable, because they are very difficult to handle.

Regardless of the type of construction that you plan to do, you must first properly choose the wood. The table should be durable and resistant to mechanical influences, especially when it comes to kitchen furniture. If you want the table top to last you for many years, preference should be given to hard breeds: oak, cherry, cherry, teak or walnut. These are the most suitable trees for creating tables. There are more hard rocks, however, they are very long and difficult to handle, and the cost of some exceeds the price of finished factory furniture. In addition, too hard wood can crack or swell from changes in temperature and humidity. The previously listed tree species not only have sufficient strength, but also are able to effectively withstand various external influences.

Tools and materials

Depending on how you manufacture the countertop, you will need different tools. So, if you will make a table top from a joiner's board, it is necessary to get a fugank - a long plane, with which help finish finishing( smoothing) of a surface. The shielding method allows you to make solid and durable furniture of large dimensions.

The optimum option for a self-taught master is a jointing machine. It can be rented, or if you do not have the skills to work with such equipment - ask to process the preparation of a specialist in the workshop.

So, what does it take to make a worktop made of wood:

• automatic or manual milling cutter( if you plan to make a table for a dacha that will stand outdoors);
• jointer;
• hacksaw, perforator;
• set of drills;
• hammer;
• fasteners( nails, self-tapping screws);
• pliers;
• sandpaper of different granularity( from №3 to №0);
• thicknesser;
• clamps;
• wood( boards);
• joinery adhesive;
• stain( if you will tint wood);
• impregnation-antiseptic( to protect the tree from pests);
• varnish or paint;
• flat brush.

Helpful Hint: Choose boards of the same thickness, if you want the table top to be strong. Before assembling all the wooden elements should be dried, otherwise the table top will deform with time.

Before you start, select the type of connection for the elements of the future tabletop. In some cases, you may need additional wooden slats and fasteners.

Connection methods

There are several ways to join wooden parts in carpentry. Depending on the chosen method, the technology of assembling the countertop will differ. Basically for this work, knitting and bonding using joinery glue and wooden nagels are used. This or that type of connection for the manufacture of the shield is chosen depending on the functional load of the future furniture. The simplest way is rallying. It implies the gluing of the elements together with the edges processed on the fusant. To give the shield more stability, on the ends of the boards you should choose a groove and a comb or a quarter, so that they go into each other. Also, the elements are also riveted onto the insert plate made of plywood, assembling it into specially prepared grooves.

You can also join the boards of the table top with dowel studs, the diameter of which should be half the thickness of the board, and the length - 8-10 times the diameter. Establish such round spikes every 10-15 cm.

Consider the main examples of splicing wooden elements:

1. Adhesive glue - this fastening of the boards does not give high strength and is only applicable when the bars have a reinforcing fixation along the edge or plate. To strengthen the splice, you can apply the connection to "us."To do this, the ends of the elements are fastened at an angle of 45 °.
   The stepped connection to the "mustache" allows to increase the area of ​​the fasteners, making it more durable.
   Splicing in the middle is one of the most common techniques used for middle and corner mounts. To increase the density, make on the ends of the planks of the groove under the latch lock - then the wooden countertop will withstand any loads.
2. If you need to connect the boards to their full length, use a wedge or a straight spike with joiner glue. Ship joints are used to fasten the boards with the ends or the end and the middle at an angle. To do this, you need to choose in detail a spike and an eye, a tenon and a nest or groove and a comb, that is, two parts that fit together like a puzzle. Spines can be flat, trapezoidal( dovetail), round or dentate. By design distinguish one-piece spikes, which are made on the end of the board, as well as plug-in. The latter are called dowels and run along the entire length of the fastened elements. The thorns have lateral faces( cheeks) and shoulders( cut ends of the bar).If the stud socket is open from 3 sides on the end, it is called the eyelet.
   If you make a middle connection, choose the depth of the stud socket more than the length of this stud for 2-3 mm to leave room for excess glue. At the ends of the thorns, cut the chamfers - so the spike will be easier to enter into the nest, and the glue will almost not be driven to the shoulders. The more dense the docking, the stronger will be your table top.
3. Insertable round spikes are most often used, as this is an easier way of angular jointing. At the same time they provide the same strength, as if you chose the spikes at the end of the board with your own hands. In the image below you can see examples of spiked joints:
   

Fasteners for table top

To provide additional strength of angled stud joints, wooden nails are used. These are small parts with a conical tip, which are coated with glue and inserted into specially prepared holes. Such a wooden nail is installed perpendicularly to the sides of the spike, as a result of which it passes through the entire spike and eyelet. To prevent the protruding ends of the nagel, they are cut off flush with the surface of the product.

In some cases in the plumbing business can not do without the use of conventional nails. It would seem that it can be easier than hammering a nail, but if you want to get a beautiful and smooth countertop, you need to know how to do it correctly:

1. If you work with hard wood, hammer nails into pre-drilled holes with a depth of 0.5-0.6 of the length of the nail.
2. If you fasten the parts without punching them through, the distance between the fasteners should be 15-20 nail lengths;if the fastening is through with a bend, increase this distance by 2-3 times.
3. For through penetration, the nail must be longer than the thickness of the boards by a third.
4. Curl the nails perpendicular to the wood fibers, otherwise the boards will crack. To bend into the lock, take an unnecessary trihedral file to give the nail a hook-shaped shape and then drive it into the tree.
5. To increase the strength of the fasteners, drive the nails under a slight slope. If you make a carpenter's board with an overlay, drive them in staggered order.
6. Beat the blanks on the weight, substitute a large hammer from below.

How to make a joiner board

Regardless of the chosen connection method, before starting to assemble the joinery, prepare the wood. This implies work with a jointer, grinding, antiseptic treatment. If you plan to cope with the countertop and uncover it with varnish, this should be done after the assembly.

The most elementary way to assemble a furniture board is to glue together the elements. And in order for such a tabletop to last longer, the fastenings should be strengthened by one of the above methods, that is, choose a spike and groove. In this case, the spike will be located on the end of the countertop, and the groove - on the end of the head. As an alternative - from below you can glue the cross bars, which will fit into the grooves.

We will consider the method of attaching the comb-groove, because it is more reliable than the comb-spike. The main difference is in the uniform distribution of the load, so that the attachment points do not become potentially vulnerable points. To make grooves and ridges, use a manual or automatic cutter.

If you want to attach the rail from the bottom, first trim the boards along the edges, and then cut the grooves with the cutter. In thick boards, the groove dimensions are usually 10x10 or 15x15 mm, and in thin ones - from 6 to 8 mm. This factor also depends on which milling cutter you use.

When working with a milling machine, always use the thicknesser - it will help to plan the boards as accurately as possible. Reiki can be made by yourself or bought already ready. The width of the rail depends on the dimensions of the countertop, and the thickness - on the size of the chosen groove( the rack must ideally fit into it).Instead of reiki you can take glued plywood or a piece of MDF from 6 to 12 mm.

If you need to make a table top for a dacha or an apartment in the style of a hunting lodge, it is better to take a pile of boards. Collect it follows the same principle as a conventional carpentry board, only for the edge of the groove to use the tongue. Fix the planks by screwing the cross bar from below with screws. So you can quickly build a massive, durable and rather rustic table, which will give a twist to the interior and decorate the villa veranda.

How to make a cover

Any prefabricated worktop requires a salary - a protective edge that goes around the perimeter of the structure. For a salary you need 4 bars, made and hard wood, for example, birch, walnut or beech. Oak is best not to use, because it is too heavy. For the countertop 134x80 cm, make 2 pieces of 140 cm( with a small margin) and 2 - for 85 cm.

Before installing the laths, select a one-sided comb along the entire perimeter of the table top. To do this, use a manual cutter or a circular saw( it is recommended to put disks for working with a laminate).

How to make a comb with a circular saw:

1. Fix a thick sheet of chipboard on the guide, put a height of 10 mm and the same distance from the guide to the outer divorce.
2. On the opposite side, place the bar 33-34 mm from the guide and firmly clamp it with clamps. This will be a kind of stopper for the design.
3. Place the sheet of chipboard on the edge and pass the first side of the quarter, removing the unnecessary part of the wood.
4. Perform cuts all around the perimeter.
5. Remove the stop-bar and make the cuts from the side of the facade. As a result, you will get a tenon width of 22 mm.
6. Make grooves on the inner edges of the edging bars, calculating the depth according to the thickness of the stud. To do this, use a milling cutter and a quarter cutter with a support bearing. When you set the salary on the edge, make sure that the parts protrude beyond the bar from the chipboard by no more than 1 mm( ideally, the elements should be flush with each other).
7. It remains only to make the markings on the details of the fringing along the length and to cut the ends at an angle of 45 ° for a beautiful connection.
8. Glue the slats and tighten them with clamps until the glue hardens.
9. To strengthen the fasteners, pull the cover and the tabletop with screws, screwing them slightly obliquely and reclaiming the hats in the wood. These places can then be covered with putty on wood in tone with the color of the rock.

If you are making a wooden kitchen worktop, glue a plastic panel on top to protect the material from mechanical damage and moisture. In other cases, you can cover the surface with paint, varnish, make a beautiful decoupage or apply decorative painting.

We hope that this article has helped you to understand how to make a table top made of wood. Furniture, collected by their own hands, is always valued more than the one that was bought in the store. In addition, taking control in your own hands, you can make tables of atypical configurations, most successfully inserting them into the interior.

Finally, we offer you to watch an interesting video about the manufacture of a round table top made of wood: