[OP]
Member
I don't like it and think the joinery was done using steel and big dominos or dowels. Steel under the top, and the dominos or dowels in the leg miters.
Website with pictures: https://www.team7.at/en/dining/table...endable-table/
My Sketchup model below.
Contributor
I'd make the joint in the leg as a bridle joint. There would be plenty of glue area. I'd join the stretcher to the legs with mortise-and-tenon. I'd probably make the stretcher taller than your SU drawing, so the joint would be taller and stronger.
Contributor
I don't like it either,has a rather graceless dance as seen from different angles. There are so many better trestle table designs, get her to look at some with you.
Member
I've been searching for the perfect trestle table since I need to build one for our new kitchen. We have a "L-booth" so the trestle design eliminates the corner leg for getting in and out of the booth from the sides. This design seems to put the bottom of the legs back in the corners the way they are splayed out so it somewhat defeats the purpose of the trestle table to me.
I'm not crazy about the design and I wouldn't build it but I admit it has some appeal.
How is the top attached securely? With only points of contact/attachment down the centerline it seems like it would be prone to rotate about the centerline.
[OP]
Member
Originally Posted by Mike Berrevoets
Here is a pic from the maker's website showing it in a two-sided banquette.
I doodled my model to show my idea for a piece of 1/4" steel let into the bottom side of the table slab. Needs a little more design thought, but the steel piece ties the legs to the stretcher and mounts them to the bottom side of the table. Screws up into the slab would need to be in slotted holes.
Contributor
Why steel instead of wood? At only a quarter inch thick, it is fairly bendable, so the table top is still going to wobble on the base. Instead, you could use a piece of wood 3" tall or so, roughly where you've drawn the steel. It would fasten to the face of the leg structure. It would be stiffer than the steel.
Or, to do something a bit more elegant, consider this:
oddleg.jpg
The top arm connects to the vertical with the same bridle joint I was suggesting for the knee joint.
Member
Sure, show her some other designs, but if she wants it, make it for her. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using steel as part of the construction. As you all know, timber performs better in compression than tension, and steel works just as well both ways. It allows way more flexibility in design and throws up different challenges. Cheers
[OP]
Member
The commercially-made one by TeamZ must have something there like my steel plate, because as can be seen in this photo, there are no wood rails for top support.
Furthermore, unless the legs are veneered over after joint make-up, it sure looks like those miters are not bridle-joined. I'm betting dowels or dominos, maybe even steel dowels set in with epoxy.
Contributor
You don't have to make the table exactly the way the original manufacturer does. Their production line has different tools than you, and a production line has different requirements for speed than you. So make it the way which will work for you in your shop.
Member
An angled brace under the top wouldn't look too bad and would add a lot of stability + eliminate steel.
I rather like the idea of curved legs, but that adds another dimension you may not want to tackle.
Contributor
i recently finished a bowling ally island top. in an ally makeup, the pieces are not glued but are nailed together every few inches. What i did for support of the bar area is take a circular saw and cut a groove 1/4 wide and about an inch deep into the wood, then a router for a 1/4 deep dado. i embedded a section of steel angle into the groove/dado and used some 1 in #8 wood screws about every 2 inches (each piece of ally wood has a screw in it) this provided for a great amount of stiffness over the 6 feet wide and 15 in deep overhang with no visible means of support. you could use a similar section of angle iron across the legs. This ended up being even easier than a wider plate, and stiffer.
[OP]
Member
After some more doodling, I resolved how the joinery might go where the upper portion of the leg bents join to the stretcher. Leg bent upper sections are 1.5 x 4.25 inches, and the stretcher is 1.5 x 4.5.
In the images, one can see a colored joiner piece that keeps the leg uppers positioned without splaying. It gets glued in and the long grain to long grain will make for a superior joint.
The stretcher joins to the upper leg bent parts with either 1/2" dowels as can be seen, or beefy screws in the same location as the dowels.
The piece of 1/4" steel (do you know how rigid this is?) that provides both bearing for the table top and further tying together of legs and stretcher is shown in an image. Three screws per leg bent and two screws for the stretcher can be seen. I do not show it, but the plate needs to have elongated screw holes for fixing screws into the top from the bottom side, to permit seasonal movement of the wood.
The top slab is 1.25 inch thick, which makes for a quite stiff part, this table being 42 wide x 84 long.
Member
Looks good Gene. That steel plate looks about 4" wide? It will be plenty stiff enough. Cheers
Every construction obeys the laws of physics. Whether we like or understand the result is of no interest to the universe.
[OP]
Member
The leg bent joint. I don't own the big Domino cutter, but I have the 500, and it will do the cuts for the 10mm x 50mm tenons. Here is a view of the arrangement.
I can pick up some straight 2x6s at Depot and do some prototyping.
There seems to be a spine at the leg joint which may continue along the length between the leg assemblies.
Capture1.JPGCapture.JPG
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