Oak Dining Table

[woodhutt]

Just when I thought I had time to get on with my own projects, my son dumped an old dining table on me for me to refinish. "It's only stained pine" he said as we off-loaded it from his ute just before we went into lockdown. "Bloody heavy pine", I thought.
Sure enough, after a few swipes over the legs with a finely set plane, I could see I was dealing with what I believe to be oak. I'm not great at timber recognition so I took the scientific approach. I weighed a leg which was 3 kgs. The leg is 0.75 m long x 0.075m sq. which equals 0.00416 cu.m. Given the weight, this works out to a density of 720 kg/cu.m. A check on line for timber densities confirmed that oak is around 750 kg/cu.m. while pine is little more than half that (excluding pitch pine which it isn't).
Here is a before/after pic:

IMG_2338.jpg

Cleaning up the legs also showed up some crude repairs. None of the arrises had been eased so there are multiple chunks knocked off the sharp corners as well as damage near the feet. I plan to rout these out and scarf in some new wood. I don't have any matching oak and can't get any due to lockdown so I though about using some cherry scraps I have which has some darker coloured heartwood and paler sapwood I should be able to get a close if not exact match. Then I'll run a small round-over bit along all the arrises to reduce the risk of future damage (and to protect the new grandson's head from damage now he's started crawling). The whole thing will be re-stained anyway to approximate a darker oak wall unit they have. Here are pics of the some of the original repairs:

IMG_2334.jpgIMG_2336.jpg

Any comments/suggestions gratefully received.

I'll cover the table top (which has it's own issues ) in an update.

Pete

[auscab]

Hi Pete .
Its not Oak . As in US white Oak or English Oak or Euro Oak . Its a long way off that .

To Me it looks like a light weight Mahogany. The kind you see in 80s Indo furniture made from the plantation stuff.
The polished piece looks like the way it was finished as well . When that timber became available it was sometimes a little knotty too . As time went by the quality got better . Sometimes it was outstanding stuff . I had a need to use it at times and going to Mathews timber and selecting boards was interesting . Within one pack Id see lightweight pink soft stuff through to dense figured tight grained dark stuff .

[woodhutt]

Thanks Robert. Indo furniture certainly sounds more likely to be the source rather than oak. It's more likely to be the kind of stuff imported to NZ (although we did bring a very nice Euro Oak wall unit with us when we migrated here ).
I'll try finishing a section of one leg to see what colour I end up with but eventually, I think I'll just have to try and match any repairs with what I have to hand. I do have some mahogany but it's way too dark to match this species.
Cheers,
Pete

[aldav]

Could it be teak? Looks rather like some chairs I disassembled a few years ago that were originally from Indonesia.

[woodhutt]

Thanks to all for the input. With the clue that it might be wood from Indonesia which makes geographic sense, I did a search for common furniture woods out of that region and found this site;

7 Most used Indonesian woods for furniture - Saillant Furniture

The photo on the site certainly makes mango a contender but doesn't help me much in trying to find a match with what I've got to hand for repairs. I think what I'll do is give one of the internal faces of a leg a coat of thinned poly which should give me some idea of the colour I can expect after finishing. It also means I can sand it back and apply a stain if necessary. Comments/suggestions anyone?

Meanwhile, the top has presented its own problems. The outer leaves on each side have warped slightly due to expansion of the top across the grain. The maker has had the right idea, using L shaped buttons locating into dados on the table sides and ends but hasn't left enough depth of dado for the button to move into on the sides. As a result, the buttons have gone as far as they can into the side dados while the top has continued to expand with the result of bowing the outside leaves.(Hope this all makes sense). I had considered removing the top and sawing it into its component boards, then flattening and re-edging them before reassembly but then I found these corrugated fixings driven into the joints on each end of the table;

IMG_2342.jpg

It looks like I will have to live with the slightly bowed side leaves (my son says he's not worried) but I would like to conceal these fixings. I thought about breadboard ends but what's the best way to fix these and still allow for wood movement?
Answers on a postcard please...

Pete

[aldav]

Ahh yes, wiggle nails! Sign of a true craftsman.

[woodhutt]

Here are some pics of the next steps in refinishing the top. The first shows the top partially stripped and that was a major as the finish seems to have been poured on rather than brushed or wiped. It took three applications to get anywhere near the bare wood.

IMG_2344.jpg

Then, after some work with a scraper to get rid of some scratches and dings.

IMG_2347.jpg

For those interested, I made the scraper from a bit of scrap pine with a piece of 6mm dowel glued into a shallow groove to provide the curve. I am having to scrape from side-to-side rather than push/pull because of the size of the top so the style is better suited than one with handles as I can use my wrist and forearm to push the scraper.

Tune in for the next thrilling installment....
Pete