Need some design Help!- 8 Sided Game Table - Solid Top

[Brent Ring]

Hi

I need a little design help. I have a family who wants a octagonal game table made from walnut. I have attached a picture outlining how they want the top to look, looking at it from the top. This will be 3/4" walnut boards glued together in the sunburst pattern and then glued down on 2 layers of 3/4" plywood. The outside edge will need to be wrapped to hide the plywood edges and I want to not have to worry too much about wood movement.

My thought was to glue the wedges together, and then push them together like a pizza and glue them down to the plywood substrate. Any other thoughts or ideas, on how to make this design work and avoid wood movement?

Thanks

Brent
top of table.jpg

[Stew Hagerty]

This will be 3/4" walnut boards glued together in the sunburst pattern and then glued down on 2 layers of 3/4" plywood.

OK, just a thought. Why are you using 3/4" boards on plywood? That wood is going to want to move, and the plywood isn't going to. Something is bound to give sooner or later.

If it were me, I would resaw the walnut to a thick veneer and then apply it in your pattern onto either plywood or MDF (personally, I would probably use MDF) and use three layers to make the required thickness. You would still need to add solid wood edging of course.

[Pat Barry]

I think your best chance of success is to go with veneer on this. I just think full thickness material is going to have way too much movement to be stable. I think if you want to go with 3/4 thick material and an MDF base, then you absolutely cannot laminate the wood to the MDF. You will need to screw it and allow for the seasonal expansion and contraction. That brings up another issue, the direction of the grain. The way you described it the grain is running outward from the center, which sounds very pretty. The grain growth will then be across the grain. Having all those segments radiating outward might complicate the problem.

[Brent Ring]

I was thinking of taking each ring from a single board, and then gluing them to each other to make up the pieces that then make up the wedges, cutting the wedges and pushing them into position, on top of the base layers. THoughts?

So the prevailing opinion is that this should be veneered. I have little to no experience veneering. Would 1/4" to 1/8" of an inch be too thick of veneer? For a table that is about 60" in diameter, would a vacuum bag be best or can I glue them them differently?

[Kenneth Speed]

Are you planning on cutting your own veneer? I have no idea where you'll find veneer that thick besides which it will act just like the thicker solid wood only now it won't be able to support itself.

I think veneering is the way to go and rather than a vacuum bag and all the expense you can hammer veneer it quite cheaply.

Ken

[Pat Barry]

I recently saw an episode of Rough Cuts that did a great job of demonstrating the veneering process. Maybe the Rough Cuts website might have some info for you.

[Brent Ring]

We are considering changing plans to go with an octogon table, but with straight boards. Sadly we dont have enough thickness in the stock to make it from 8/4, nice and thick and heavy. So we want to have a sub base of some MDF to give it some thickness. So my construction thoughts are:

1. Glue all of the walnut top up together. Should I prefinish or not?
2. Screw the double thickness MDF sub base to the top. What is the best pattern to screw it with?
3. All 8 sides will need some edge treatment to hide the cut edges. The ends of the middle boards are easy, as a breadboard ends. What do I do on the angled sides - Angled Bread Boards Sides?

Here is a new sample picture

straightboards.jpg

[Deane Allinson]

I guess that I will jump in with my $0.02, Your first octagon design is do-able if you tongue and grove the edges and screw to substrate with slots cut into plywood or mdf to compensate for the wood movement. You shouldn't have as much of an issue with the edging miters opening us as you will with the second design. If the table top is 4ft wide, on the second, it will seasonally "grow" up to 1/4" across the 4' width and very little in board lengh.
Deane