Expert: Jamie Yocono - 3/6/2004

Question
I have a piece of curly hard maple that has been sitting around my basment shop for a while, It is  19 inch by 8 feet by 1 inch , I would like to make a table top from it(for a sofa table).
 My question is ,with a piece this wide, will I have a problem with this top wanting to crack on the ends and if so what can I do so it wont crack?

Will I have to cut the board down in to smaller withs and re-glue it back together -or- when I cut it down to the length I need can I glue the cut off ends under the board so it will have a strip wraped around the under side of the table top so it will look like the top is 2 inchs thick

I would like to keep the top 1 large piece if possible

  Thank You
    Scott Drewa

Answer
Hi Scott,

You are asking one of the BIG questions for most woodworkers.  Some people covet wide boards of wood and think they can make a GREAT tabletop out of them. But unfortunately, a solid board doesn't make for a good top.

With changes in humidity, wood will cup in a direction opposite of the wood's annual rings. So if the rings are facing up, the wood will cup down. It's just a fact of life.  Now there are some things you can do, like add bracing underneath the tabletop to try and minimize the cupping, but it WILL occur.

Most woodworkers use a tried and true method for making table tops.  The top should be made up of narrower boards, say anywhere from 2" to 5" wide, and with each board, the direction of the annual rings is alternated.  So in your case, if your board is 19" wide, I would cut that into 5 pieces, each about 3 3/4" wide. Mark the direction of the annual rings on the end of the board before you cut it, as once it's cut, it's hard to figure out the direction.

When you glue the 5 pieces together, boards # 1,3, and 5 will be in the "up" position, and boards 2 and 4 will be facing down.

Hope that's not too confusing!

I always try to cut a board into an odd number of pieces, so do the math and don't forget the sawblade kerf will take an extra 1/8" per cut.

As far as adding an extra board under your board to make the top look thicker- you can really only effectively do this if you keep the direction of the wood the same. That means that along the 2 long edges, you can just glue a second board under the top. But on the ends, you MUST keep the wood grain oriented in the same direction. So you need to add end grain boards (strips) to the end.  

What I would do is glue my top about 4" longer than I needed. Then I would cut off 2- 2" strips with the grain running in the same direction. Use those 2 strips to add to the underside of your tabletop, on the ends.  That way- the seasonal movement will be the same for all the parts of the table.

If you just added a stretcher of wood with the grain perpendicular to the top, the stretcher would move at a different rate that the end grain would. And that would lead to cracking. So you MUST keep the grain oriented.

OK, I hope this helps.  Feel free to write again if you have any other questions, of if something I said wasn't clear. Good luck, that sounds like a nice board.



Jamie Yocono
Wood it Is! Custom Cabinetry
Akron, OH