A little design help? Table legs

[Rob Price]

I had a chance to puchase a couple of slabs from a walnut tree that was cut down in NC. I'm working with a local carpenter buddy to make a dining room table out of the slabs. The idea is for me to work on the legs (turned) and he's going to do the top. I don't have the equipment to work with the large slabs.
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Anyways, we're thinking of a trestle style kind of table. No Apron, we're gonna let the 2" top be the focal point. I'm having a hard time coming up with legs I like, and I realize 'like' is a very subjective idea. But I was curious if any of you would have any ideas or examples. This is a rough sketchup of the legs I like best so far, but I'm not crazy about them. The foot and caps will be a little different than the model here, they are just there as placeholders at this point while I design the leg. They need to be ~22" tall (plus 4" foot, 2" cap, and 2" top for 30"), we're gonna start with 8" blanks (16/4 glued up x2) and try to keep the legs fairly robust to support a big heavy top. There will either be stretchers underneath the table top between caps, or We're playing with the idea of a curved ')(' shaped trestle between the legs, which would require a flat spot somewhere on the leg to mortise in for the stretcher if we go that route.

I don't feel like I have a good eye for spinny things yet. I was wondering if any of you guys had any examples/thoughts/considerations as to the leg shape/design. We're trying for a formal/simple kind of look, ie not county/farmhouse look, but not crazy busy either.

Thanks in advance.


2 leg table opt 1.jpg

[Prashun Patel]

Rob-
I love slab furniture. It's hard to ride that line between rustic and inappropriately formal legs.

Personally, I find the base on this a tad too formal for the top. I don't think it needs a double rail at the top (the thinner the better IMHO).
For the legs, I would start with simple cylinders and embellish them only where your eye wants it. Also, my eye wants a center stretcher near the bottom for balance and racking. I think a lower stretcher that is possibly also live edge is a nice way to repeat the top element, which IMHO gives it a little balance.

[Jamie Buxton]

That slab is beautiful as it is, with the live edges, and with the crotch. I can't see the detail, but I bet there's gorgeous feather in the crotch. I'd want to keep as much of the natural character of the slab as possible. That is, I wouldn't mill staight edges on it like you have in the sketchup drawing. Here's a snapshot of a walnut dining table I built a couple of years ago. It is nearly nine feet long. The top is about 2" thick, and is made from two bookmatched planks. I kept the outside live edges, but milled the inside edges straight.

[Reed Gray]

I would say for sure, you need some sort of cross bracing to prevent racking/end to end movement of the table. I know there are some books about trestle tables some where, and I think I have some designs in some old Fine Woodworking magazines. With the natural edge slab, the legs you have look a bit too fancy for my taste.

robo hippy

[Rob Price]

Lemme clarify. We are not doing a natural edge. I'd like to, but the interior designer (wife) says no. We're gonna take two bookmatched slabs, and flip the crotch end for end, so there will be crotch figure at both ends instead of one busy end and one plain end. So it's going to look more formal, no sapwood, no natural edge.

the other part is we (the wife) don't want a trestle across the bottom to be kicked, etc. She wants an open look. We have some ideas for crossbracing at the top, the legs will be recessed in and secured with bolts through slots, to allow movement but also anchor the legs. The cap will be 10", with bolts down each edge, to keep from racking, plus some cambered spines mortised into each cap running the length of the table.

Trust me, I'd love a natural edge, simple slab table, but we're looking for something a little more formal than that.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

A trestle table would be beautiful with a slab top. Reed is absolutely correct that despite the mass of the slabs, you will need the legs to be braced. A trestle table would be made with "slab" legs as well as a slab top. The lag slabs would be cut to a shape of your design. There would be a stretcher between the two leg slabs that would fit in a through mortice. The stretcher would have a shouldered tenon on each end. The ends of each tenon would have a wedge shaped mortice and fitted with a wedge to hold the stretcher. As the leg slabs shrink with age you merely tap the wedge to keep the stringer tight. The top can be affixed directly to the leg slab since the grain orientation will match. This is an age tested design and perfect for thick wooden table tops that will expand and contract up to 1/2" through the seasons.
faust

[Todd Burch]

Here are two trestle bases I've done. They might be more "eyecatching" than what you are looking for. IMHO, why not make the base nice too?

Todd

[Kenneth Speed]

Rob,

If your wife doesn't want a trestle then no trestle. I can't really say I'm grasping all of your description of what you want for the table but I'd keep the legs very plain and understated and let the table top be the star of the table.

Ken