Rail wood
- Thread starter slach
- Start date
I am not a mechanic, but I am a maker of fine furniture and I have made my own beautiful (if I many say so myself) 9' table. I made my table out of walnut, poplar, and birdseye maple.
From years of working with woods of all types and always striving for rigidity and stability in my work, I can give you this piece of advice. Don't even think of making your rails from one piece of wood, regardless of type. Wood moves, always. You cannot prevent it from moving. The best you can do is minimize it. The best way to minimize wood movement in a rail (warping), in my opinion, is to make it from poplar and then the wood of your choice; i.e., oak, walnut, maple, etc. Once the cloth is installed, you won't see the poplar. Poplar is, by itself, one of the more stable woods. So when glued to a hardwood as a lamination, you will have excellent resistance against warping. Spread a generous amount of glue on both the show wood and the poplar. Use a good yellow glue like Titebond and make sure that you use a lot of clamps so that there are no gaps (voids) whatsoever in your lamination.
My rails are 4 1/2" wide by 1 3/4" thick. The show wood (in my case, walnut) is 3/4" thick glued to 1' thick poplar. Your rails will probably be of different dimensions, but you can use the same proportions.
Oak would not be my first choice for rails. the reason is that oak is a very open grain wood, and not very friendly to the touch if it is not professionally finished. Finishing oak properly involves a lot of sanding, filling, sanding, filling, and sanding, with at least two final coats of polyurethane (and sanding in between the two coats). The friendliest of the show woods are walnut, maple, cherry, mahogany, and butternut. All will glue beautifully to poplar, are easy to finish, and look like a million bucks on rails.
One last tip. Make sure that both the show wood you decide to use and the poplar are KILN DRIED. This will further increase the stability of your lamination.
Good luck.
Speedi
Thanks for the good advice. I happen to have a quantity of oak stacked in my basement for a few years and I like the idea of the extra mass and toughness, but I'll find some other projects for it. Yes, walnut's a pleasure to work with and look at, I think I can buy some locally band-milled at a reasonable price. Instead of those rail plates for the bolts I was considering large threaded inserts. Do you think they'd hold well enough in poplar? I've never seen, but from what I've read Diamond tables may be using threaded inserts.
Thanks again - Steve
I'm curious- have you ever worked with HorseApple or Osage Orange wood?
I know a lot about the wood but have yet to speak with someone who has used it.
I know a lot about the wood but have yet to speak with someone who has used it.
Diamond uses the threaded steel inserts, but they are going into oak not poplar.
There is a common misconception that poplar is a softwood, so it gets a knock for not being tough. In fact, poplar is a hardwood. It is just one of the softer hardwoods, when compared to walnut, cherry, maple, etc. You will have absolutely no problem in securing rail bolts & plates in poplar. I used threaded inserts in my rails. I made a test piece prior to installing them and tried to tear them out with over tightening. I really torqued them down with a socket wrench and long handle. No problem whatsoever.
You can proceed with confidence if you want to use threaded inserts. Just make sure that the prongs are securely imbedded into the poplar. Put long screws through the insert flanges if you want added security.
Good luck.
Speedi
I have used osage orange. It is a beautiful wood. Very tough. For example, walnut has a Janka hardness rating of 1010. Osage orange has more than twice the hardness rating at 2040. But, it still machines and finishes nicely. Just a tad bit harder on saw blade and router bit life.
Osage orange was the wood of choice of American Indians for making bows. It is still a preferred wood for modern day makers of traditional bows.
Speedi
Attachments
Sorry. I misunderstood what you meant by threaded insert. I used the threaded inserts that are more commonly called "T-Nuts". You can buy them with prongs or without. The prongless nuts have holes drilled in the flange for securing them to the wood. I used the prong type and then drilled holes in the flange for screws for added security.
I have no experience with the threaded inserts of the type you show.
Speedi.
Bullseyetcnaz
New member
I manufacture my own line of pool tables and use that type of threaded insert into Poplar subrails. Works great. We have been building our tables for 22 years and have never had a problem with the inserts. You can see pictures of some of my tables at www.nazmfg.com.