A bit stumped, how would you do this (longish)?

[Larry Fox]

I am helping my neighbor build a lid of sorts for a bench / storage thing that he has built in his living room. To help frame up the problem in your mind, there is a REALLY rough sketch below.

rough.bmp

Essentially it is a box with an open top that I need to build a lid for. The circles in the pic are support columns that run all the way to the ceiling. I can unbolt these and slip the pieces over them and rebolt, that it not a problem.

Dimensions are 136" long by 28" wide and he wants a 2" overhang all around it. It will be split up into 5 pieces, 2 of which are fixed in place and 2 of which lift to allow access to the storage space.

He wants to use solid stock and we picked it up over the weekend. Species are red oak for the primary wood and walnut for the 2" skirting.

There are 3 oak boards, 2 wide and 1 narrow and he wants to do something like this with the top (again, a rough sketch). Dark lines walnut, light areas oak.

top.bmp

Essentailly it will be walnut skirt, wide oak board, narrow walnut "racing stripe", narrow oak board, narrow walnut "racing stripe", wide oak board, walnut skirt.

I have an 8" jointer and these oak boards are 12' long and 10" wide. I am not going to do a mitered skirt as it would not allow for movement. Plan is to do some type of breadboard end. I am also concerned about the "lift" sections twisting / cupping after installation and I have expressed this concern to no avail.

My question, would you crosscut these boards to shorter lengths and edge glue them in sections or would you try and manage the boards as 12-footers and crosscut them to length after the glueups have been done? I am likely to have to rip the wide 12' boards and reglue them to get them face jointed. I have had good luck with the "rotate" method of joinitng wide boards on the jointer but it does require a bit of "finess" that I don't think I can manage with 12' oak boards.

Any other suggestions are definitely welcome.

Thanks in advance for your time . . .

L

[Jamie Buxton]

I would cross-cut the boards to size first. I'd cut each piece a bit long -- perhaps a quarter inch -- to allow for slipping around in the glue-up, and trim exactly after the glue-up. Trying to edgejoint an entire 12' board is too much of a wrestling match. Cutting them into short pieces will probably also allow you to remove a lot less material to flatten the boards.

[Jamie Buxton]

In a recent post, Mark Singer showed a solid-lumber top with mitered edges, including the ends. The way he did the ends does properly allow for wood movement. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=124789

[Mark Singer]

Here are a couple of links to a coffee table with the same edge detail and there are tips in the post on method of construction

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.p...ght=oak+coffee

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.p...ght=oak+coffee