How to make a dining room table?
Sources
Dining Room Mistakes (Plus how to fix them!) - YouTube
www.youtube.com
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DESIGN HACKS! 5 Things Every Dining Room Needs | Julie Khuu
www.youtube.com
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2
How to Make a SOLID WOOD TABLE Top WITHOUT Stress - YouTube
www.youtube.com
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3
Beautiful And Easy Dining Room Table Centerpiece ideas
www.stonegableblog.com
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4
Answer
Here are some tips for making a dining room table:
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With some basic woodworking skills and tools, you can build a beautiful, custom dining table that will last for years. Take your time and focus on proper joinery and finishing for the best results.
Choose the Right Wood
Select high-quality hardwood boards like oak, maple, or walnut that are free of major defects. The wood should be dried to the proper moisture content for your climate3
Prepare the Boards
Rip the boards to width on a table saw if needed. Joint one edge straight and parallel on a jointer. Plane the boards to an even thickness3
Layout the Tabletop
Arrange the boards in the desired order, alternating the direction of the wood grain to minimize cupping. Match the color and grain patterns for an attractive look. Clamp the boards together and mark the locations of the breadboard ends or aprons3
Join the Boards
Use biscuits, dominos, or dowels to align and join the boards. Spread wood glue on the mating surfaces and clamp the boards tightly together until the glue dries3
Flatten the Top
Use a belt sander, hand planes, or a router sled to flatten the top and remove any glue lines. Sand the surface smooth3
Add the Base
Construct a sturdy base from 2x4s or 4x4s that will support the heavy tabletop. Attach the top securely to the base3
Apply a Finish
Finish the tabletop with polyurethane, lacquer, or oil to protect the wood and give it a nice sheen. Apply several coats, sanding lightly between each one3
References
1. Dining Room Mistakes (Plus how to fix them!) - YouTube2. DESIGN HACKS! 5 Things Every Dining Room Needs | Julie Khuu3. How to Make a SOLID WOOD TABLE Top WITHOUT Stress - YouTube4. Beautiful And Easy Dining Room Table Centerpiece ideas5. Proper Table Setting 101 - The Emily Post Institute
Author: Bear Mountain Builds
Key insights
- 🪑 Traditional expensive lumber for dining room tables can be out of reach for many people, but using construction lumber can make it more affordable.
- ️ Pipe clamps are the best choice for heavy-duty and straight clamping when building a tabletop.
- ️ Using hand tools like hand planers and belt sanders for a hand-finished table top takes time but is well worth the effort.
- The double lap joints at every corner make the table super rock solid and really square.
- 🪚 Planning the placement of the legs and brackets is crucial for ensuring comfort and functionality for seating arrangements.
- ️ Using a portable drill guide makes the whole process much easier.
- The seamless look of the legs was achieved by filling in cracks with wood filler and sanding everything down to 220 grit before painting.
Video Full Text
- Foreign hey guys welcome back to Bear Mountain builds and today I'm going to show you how to build this beautiful dining room table using only construction Lumber all right. So we've all seen the videos of these beautiful dining room tables made out of black walnut. Mahogany Oak and they look amazing I love them just as much as you guys do. But they're also about a thousand dollars or more in just the lumber alone and that can be Out Of Reach. For A lot of people. But today I want to show you that you can build a beautiful table just like this using nothing but inexpensive construction. Lumber now let's get started anytime I'm using construction. Lumber to build I always start off with running my boards through the planer to clean up my surfaces and then run it through my table saw to crisp up my edges. I'm cutting the boards of length to make it easier to run through the table saw as usual you'll find all dimensions for this build in my free plans linked Down Below in the description.Read More
- All I ask is that you please subscribe thank you you may have noticed the clamp on my rip fence. After 25 years it finally broke. It has served me well but it's time to move on to something a little bit bigger and better all right. So I've got my entire tabletop laid out. This is what it's going to look like so now what I'm going to do is pull. This all off get my pipe plant set up up. Here lay them back on there and get everything glued together. Now let's keep going yeah when building a tabletop like this you need clamps that are heavy duty and straight. I always go with pipe clamps because they stay straight even when really torqued on and the pipe can be threaded and cut to any length at the store so they can be as long as you need if you're interested. I have them linked Down Below in the description thank you. These boards have been sitting in the shop for about two months and remain totally straight which means I don't have to use any calls to keep them all flat to each other. I'm liberally applying each edge with glue and I was going a little slow. So I broke out some more clamps and a log to help hold one half in place while I glued the other. The Far Side lifted up slightly during the clamping process. Luckily there's a Surefire way to fix this more clamps. Once I have the top fully held flat. I used a damp cloth to clean up the glue squeeze. After 24 hours. The top came out perfectly flat and I moved on to smoothing the surface.Read More
- There are three ways to smooth out a tabletop. Like this one you happen to know a guy with a huge drum sander. Two you build a router sled and go over every inch or three. You use hand tools such as hand planers and belt Sanders which is what I'm going to do because I really enjoy the feel of a hand finished table top I started with a chisel to remove some glue squeeze and then moved on to the hand planer and finally went to a belt sander. This process takes some time but it's well worth the effort I like starting with a hand planer because it's much faster than sanding. But you have to be very careful because it can easily take off too much material and gouge the top. That's why I have mine set to only take a 64th of an inch off. Every pass. A helpful tip is to use a pencil to Mark the locations where the top is uneven. It both helps you remember where you need to remove material and once the pencil marks are sanded off lets you know that it's smoothed out foreign with the table top roughly smoothed out. I'm moving on to the legs as usual. I'm starting by running two by fours through the planer to clean up the surface then cutting them to length and finally running each through. My new table saw to square off the edges with the leg pieces looking fresh. I'm adding some pocket holes to help reinforce the corners. But once the table is fully assembled they will be completely hidden all right.Read More
- So I got all my legs playing down and cut to length. So now. It's time for assembly. So my legs are just going to be big squares that are going to be double thick of these two by fours and they're going to be double. Lap joints at every corner because they are super Rock Solid and really Square double secret Square all right. Let's keep going I'm using the other leg pieces as spacers foreign thank you when gluing all the leg Parts together make sure the long pieces are on the outside of the shorter pieces to cover the end grain. These double lab joints are great because they are really strong and they ensure that the joint is square foreign the pocket hole so that there are eight on the two boards at the top of the legs that will be up against the table and four on the bottom board that touches the ground and none of these will be visible all right. So I got the table top sitting on top of the legs right now just to kind of evaluate where the design is at and if there's any changes I want to make so my original plan was to cut this 80 inch long table top down to six feet which I'm kind of looking at now. I'm going these dimensions are looking pretty good I like this thing right now. So I'm probably just going to end up cutting a little bit off on either end just to square it up and just kind of leave it at this length.Read More
- Then I'm also doing is figuring out where I want to put my legs and my brackets. So I have three chairs on the other side. So if I had three people sitting there they'd be straddling the legs on either side or if I had two chairs they'd be sitting in between the two legs so a good thing to do when you're building your own table. But now it's looking good. So we're gonna go on square off this cut and then we're going to add some brackets so let's keep going foreign thank you I'm adding c channel supports to both help brace the top and prevent any bowing. I have these linked down in the description but they do come unpainted. So I use some steel wool to remove the surface rust and spray paint in the black. Now that I know the placement of the legs I can plan where to put the C channels. Foreign table tops like this can warp and cup over time due to things like humidity so to prevent this I'm routing out a slot in the table and attaching steel c Channels with threaded inserts and bolts. I'm using a quarter inch straight bit and making a half inch deep plunge cut to fit the flanges of the C channels and Route out the middle using a three-quarter inch bit an eighth inch deep foreign foreign. Each of the boards then drilling a hole for a threaded insert. I'm using a portable drill guide which ensures that the holes are perfectly vertical and it has an adjustable depth stop. So I'll never over drill. It's really great for anyone that doesn't have a drill press or projects that are just too big for one I'm using an allen wrench to drive. A 5 16 inch threaded wood insert into each hole foreign I'm using 5 16 by 3 4 inch hex bolts and one and a quarter inch washers to mount the C channels I do own an impact driver but to avoid accidentally over torquing and pulling the threaded inserts out.Read More
- I'm just using my ratchet all right I got the brackets all bolted up to the table top. So those are good to go now we're moving on to mounting the legs. Now they're going to be mounted in a very similar way. So what I'm going to be doing is a bolt and washer. But I'm going to be drilling a hole with a shoulder into each of these and I'll probably be doing about four bolts on each leg. Now let's keep going. I have the dimensions for these hole positions in the plans I'm using 3 8 by 3 inch hex bolts to mount the legs and drilling the shoulders a half inch deep which will leave some extra thread in the insert to ensure the bolts can be good and tight. I'm using a one inch forstner bit to drill the shoulder with my drill stop set at a half inch plus. This bit leaves an easy Center for drilling the next hole all the way through I'm using a 3 8 inch bit to drill the through hole and remember have a sacrificial board underneath. So you don't end up with a brand new hole in your tabletop. This portable drill guide is worth its weight in gold during the whole process. It really makes this much easier thank you foreign y we've got a fully functional table and it is Rock Solid. Now we just have a few more things to do so what I'm going to do is.Read More
- I'm going to pull these legs back off do a final standing on them to really smooth them out and then paint them put them back on here do a final sanding on the top of this poly. It and this thing will be good to go so let's keep going. Now. I want these legs to look completely seamless. So I put some wood filler in to fill in all. The cracks sanded everything down to 220 and then finally broke all the edges for paint. I painted both the legs with two coats of Rust-Oleum matte black paint and primer spray. Paint thank you foreign while the legs were drying. I moved on to the final sanding at 220 grit for the table top to prep it for poly. I rubbed the entire surface with a wet cloth to raise the Grain and sanded it smooth one final time. The only thing left was to break all the sharp edges with a Sandy block foreign. I'm applying two coats of crystal clear matte finish poly and performed a light sanding in between. I applied the same Poly on the legs to help protect the paint from impacts. It looks horrible when you first apply it but it looks great once it's dried foreign. Once everything was dry I reattached the legs foreign and with that this table is done foreign. The dining table is done. It looks so good. I am really pleased with how it turned out and I can't wait to have this thing in my house now as always if you enjoyed this video or found it.Read More
- Helpful whatsoever please hit the like button. For me. It helps me out a ton and I really appreciate it and hit the Subscribe button. So you can stay up to date on all my future projects and leave a comment. I read every single one of your guys's comments. They are all great and I really do appreciate them a ton thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.Read More