Timeline for Extendable outdoor coffee/dining table. Will it be strong enough?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 22, 2023 at 20:07 | answer | added | Matthew Holland | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 8, 2023 at 18:24 | comment | added | Matthew Holland | Hi @AloysiusDefenestrate, that's a great idea. I think I'll try to integrate both. Once I finish building it I'll answer my own question and upload a few photos. | |
| Oct 4, 2023 at 0:44 | comment | added | Aloysius Defenestrate | I suppose this should be put into an answer, but it's terribly incomplete, so I will just leave it here. If, hypothetically, there was wobble, you could counteract that by having threaded rod press in on the leg in either 2 or 4 places per leg. In my imagination, this is a threaded insert set into the outer piece, with a threaded rod on a rosette handle to quickly spin it tight. This means you don't have to kill yourself with machine shop like tolerances. (Which is good, because wood never sleeps.) | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 21:49 | comment | added | Matthew Holland | Thanks so much for the feedback. Yes I'll plan to be very careful with tolerances and make sure to clamp and glue everything. I'll try to get oak to use for dowels. The dowels will be about 12 cm long. I guess oak will flex very little so probably the best option. | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 19:35 | comment | added | Graphus | Re. the legs into the leg 'boxes', 160mm is not a huge amount, but it's not nothing either. I think for stability the tolerances are going to have to be pretty tight. 25mm dowel is really strong, even in softwood (although I'd prefer to use hardwood if it's available, just to err on the side of caution). If you go with softwood dowel choose carefully, you want straight grain (minimal or no runout) and if possible tight ring spacing. | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 10:06 | comment | added | Matthew Holland | Thanks @Graphus! I was mainly concerned about the connection between leg boxes and legs being sturdy enough in "dining table" mode, as it is only inserted 16cm deep into the leg boxes and held together with two 25mm dowels per leg. I am glad you think it will be beefy enough to do the job. I counted on the fact that changing modes will require two people, as I usually won't be using the dining table by myself. I will try what you suggested with the screw holes to allow the wood to expand and contract. Cheers! | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 8:18 | comment | added | Graphus | If you'd like to use this project to help cement an important principle in woodworking, I'd suggest that you wallow out some or all of the holes for the screws through the underside of the cross-braces, to make them into short slots. This is a standard way (by far the simplest) of allowing for cross-grain movement when something is attached with screws. If you do this correctly (i.e. allow for enough movement on the outlier screws) you could actually make the top solid, not leave it as individual boards like in decking, giving a cleaner more polished/less rustic look, with no crumb/dust traps. | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 8:13 | comment | added | Graphus | ...it's a two-person job to change table height. But I think that's going to be the case here too. | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 8:13 | comment | added | Graphus | We get these sorts of queries fairly often, and as with most of the previous (which I think you should hunt down for some context) bear in mind these are not generally something where anyone can give you a concrete Answer. What you'll get instead is educated ('educated') guesswork, which amounts to gut feelings. Now here however, I think this is so beefily constructed that (assuming good construction throughout) there's absolutely nothing to concern you. And FWIW I've seen similar rise/fall tables which had nothing to aid raising the top, with of course the assumption that [contd] | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 22:39 | comment | added | Matthew Holland | Thanks Ashlar, you make a good point. I have edited my post to describe how the staves will be attached to the cross braces with decking screws and small gaps in between. | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 22:35 | history | edited | Matthew Holland | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 2, 2023 at 22:25 | comment | added | Ashlar♦ | Welcome to WSE. In addition to the concerns in your question you should also address how the tabletop attaches to the crossbars. Note that if the tabletop is glued together, it will expand and contract while the crossbars do not (along their length). Any attachment must allow for the potential differences in size over time. There are other questions on this site that address this problem, and you can ask another question if needed once you check them out. | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 22:25 | history | edited | Matthew Holland | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| S Oct 2, 2023 at 21:01 | review | First questions | |||
| Oct 3, 2023 at 0:21 | |||||
| S Oct 2, 2023 at 21:01 | history | asked | Matthew Holland | CC BY-SA 4.0 |