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My wife wants a new dining room table -- a round one of about 4.5' in diameter.

I am constructing it out of rift sawn white oak. I will be using 3/4" ply for the table top (MDF core) and then laminate bending white oak around the edge (circumference), possibly with a strip of walnut in there as well.

My question has to do with the ply wood. In essence I want to create a pattern similar to this one:

enter image description here

As you can see, it appears to have 12 separate "wedges", with the grain running towards the center. I have searched the web to no avail as to how to create a table top like this. So my question:

How do I go about cutting and assembling 12 different "wedges" of 3/4" ply into a perfect circle?

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    What @mmathis said. Although you can do this by cutting segments and sticking them together it's much better if you don't have all that cutting and all those joints to worry about. Obviously this means you have to learn how to veneer but it's not that difficult ....probably easier than cutting the segments accurately! And you don't need to learn how to handle a new glue, you can use white PVA if your veneer isn't too thin.
    – Graphus
    Feb 28, 2017 at 18:53
  • That is, almost beyond a doubt, a veneered table. So do it that way, on a nice solid circle (or is this a pull-apart with leaves and two half-circles?) The only possible reason to cut wedges in anything but veneer is if you are having a solid-lumber-snob attack (I may, at times, resemble that viewpoint, but I think I got past the acute phase.) That would complicate construction as well, but there's be some reason to it. A mad, idealistic reason, but a reason.
    – Ecnerwal
    Mar 1, 2017 at 2:02

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Don't make the wedges out of plywood, but rather make them out of veneer. This allows you to have a solid tabletop, but still get the design you want.

There is a video series by GuysWoodshop (think this project was a viewer project on Matt Cremona's channel) showing almost exactly what you're trying to do.

screenshot


Screenshot taken from part 6 of his video series

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  • Not sure if it's just here but the screenshot isn't showing for me.
    – Graphus
    Feb 28, 2017 at 19:38

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