With warmer weather arriving in Arkansas and my wife
having completed our taxes I carefully wrapped and packed the table into the
trunk of the Toyota. I used a whole lot
of padding since I certainly did not want two pieces rubbing against each other
and messing up the finish. Once the
table was in the car we fitted luggage around that and headed out.
You would think that living in the desert would mean a
fairly rain free climate. It seems not
so much when we travel. We got just over
the San Augustin Pass about 20 miles from home and it started to rain. It then proceeded to rain on us the rest of
that day and the next almost all the way to Arkansas.
Arriving in Arkansas we carefully unloaded the pieces
checking for damage. Fortunately,
everything came through just fine no scratches or anything. With all the parts grouped together in the
living room we could began the assembly process. I sure am glad I numbered all the piece’s
connection points. That plus having all
the screws bagged by assembly step and part I hope will simplified the process of putting the table together.
To take photos of the assembly I set the camera so that
it would take a photo every two minutes, put it on a tripod and we went to
work. This setup yielded about 125 images from which I narrowed down to the ones here.
The start is the existing dining area with all the old furniture removed.
First is to bring the legs in then the attach
the sliders to their bottom. When I
turned the first leg over to attach the sliders a whole lot of sawdust fell out
and landed on the floor. After we
cleaned that up we took all the legs outside and emptied them.
The rails get attached next, in the photo you can see just a little bit of glue squeeze out between the left
leg and the rail. That was cleaned up with a damp paper towel.
Unfortunately, while
tightening one of the screws it twisted off.
Fortunately, there was a stub big enough to grab onto it with a pair of
pliers. I could remove it and then use one of the extra screws I brought, just in case.
With all four rails glued
and screwed on the next step it to measure the table’s diagonals and square the
basic frame up.
Next is to assemble the sub-structural assembly for the playing surface then set it in place.
After setting the sub-structure in place it is time to
add the MDF playing surface base.
There
are three pieces of MDF that make up the playing surface base and 100 screws
that attach them to the sub-structure.
Thank-goodness for the power drill.
We did need to add some shims in a couple of places to level the
pieces. Here you can see me pointing at which screw my son needs to loosen so I can
add the shim.
Next is to take the actual playing surface and fit it over the spacer screws in the MDF that are all around the perimeter. They put just a little tension on the playing surface holding it flat and smooth.
The inner rail assembly is screwed together and set it in place.
I can now drive the long screws up through the playing surface
sub-structure which as I tighten compresses the playing surface and locks it
to the inner rail assembly.
Pocket hole
screws are then added to fasten the inner rail assembly to the outer
rails.
The last set of pieces to be attached to the table make
up the arm rail. The individual pieces
are set upside down on the table then temporarily screwed together and flipped
over face up.
Here you can see the flat plate clamp I used to make sure the faces of the miter
joint are perfectly aligned and lying flat.
With all the corner miter joints aligned flush we moved the arm rail
frame to it’s final location then screw it to the table from the underneath.
Now came putting the top together and it’s final
fitting. We started by screwing the oak
strips that have the weather-stripping onto the underneath side of the
leaves. If you look
carefully in the lower right you can just see the brass pin in the center of
the arm rail that will hold the top in place.
Our next step was to install the wood pegs into the leaves that are used
for alignment. In order to make sure the
right pins went in the right holes I had carefully numbered the pins and the
holes. However, when I stained the holes
it covered up the numbers. The good
thing was that I had remembered what hole I had started with so that was not a
problem. Unfortunately, when I tried to
install the pins they would not go in.
For a bit, I was dumbfounded. After all they had fit perfectly when I had everything together prior to
finishing and I could not believe the change in humidity would hit that soon or
cause such a problem. Then it hit me,
while spraying the finish on I had built up enough lacquer in the holes that
the pins would no longer fit. The
solution was to re-drill the holes to remove the built-up finish. With that done they went together just fine
albeit with a little persuasion from a small crescent wrench. You know using the right tool for the job. 😊
After putting the last piece of the top in place we set the chairs around the table and christened the table by eating dinner off it. All the fussing and working
trying to get the stain right certainly paid off. The chairs and the table go together like a
set.
Afterwards the top
came off and we played a game. The
consensus was the playing surface worked great and the conversion from dining
table to game table was easy to do.
I think the project turned out very well all the time and effort that went into the design plus the testing paid dividends. However, I believe my next
project will be something a little smaller.
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