I am building a 8′ x 38″ cherry dining room table. The top is 1″ thick. Instead of having the sides of the top square with softly sanded edges I am considering having the upper 3/8″ rounded into a chamfer (about 1 1/2″ long ) on the underside.
- Will this work? This is the first time I’ve worked with cherry and am wondering if this would make the edge too thin and susceptible to fracture.
- I am also wondering if I would need to purchase an expensive chamfer bit (for probably one time use) or if I could create the chamfer well with a belt sander or hand plane and careful hand finishing.
Thank you for your help!
Replies
Mock up a piece three or four feet long and six inches wide and look at it.
dr u, heavy under-bevelling as you describe is a common motif in my work. I've never had a problem with it on the edge of dining tables.
No need for a custom router bit. Mark the limits of the bevel on the edge and the bottom face and tear off the bulk with a hand held power planer, if you have one. Do the ends first, then the long grain to remove spelched wood from the end grain operation. Fine tune the result with hand planes and sandpaper. If you don't have a power hand planer you can at least start the bevel with a hand held router bit if you want. You can either use a chamfer bit, or use a straight bit off a side fence and create a series of steps to reduce the hand planing. Whether or not the end result looks aesthetically pleasing is up to you.
I do think a table 8' long by 38" wide might look too narrow, and the servers/diners at the ends would have more room if the table is about 46"+ wide, and this would make seating less cramped for eight. There again there might be space constraints I'm not aware of? Slainte.
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Hand planing a wide under chamfer is easy to do in cherry, and it works well for me. Planing down to a 3/8 edge will be fine, even for a dining room table edge. Taking a 3/4 top down to a 1/2 edge will still lighten the piece, if you are concerned about edge durability.
Good Luck,
Paul in TF
https://home.comcast.net/~paulchapko
My dining table is about 1 5/8" thick and 1 1/8" thick at the edges. I under-beveled the 1/2" off back about 4". The table is 42" x 96" and boat shaped. The wood (40 year old curly Koa) was way too hard and curly to handplane and I doubted my ability to control a power planer so I made a slotted ramp fixture for my 3hp router and used a 3/4" mortising bit. The fixture registered against the curved table edge on 2 curved (half 3/4 dowels) and followed the curve well. I took light passes and advanced the router down the slope for each pass. It took about a 1/2 day including building the fixture.John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
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