show me your farm tables and finishing advice

[pinky]

I'm going to build a farm table to seat 8. I have some nice thick dry cherry for top, apron, and legs. I would love to see design elements of what you guys have built and suggestions for a durable finish. Thanks!

[Fisherman]

This is also on my list of things to do. Can't wait to see what others ideas are. I want to do something that will double as a WorkBench. My wife and I are always working on something anyway. I want it Simple Strong and stable.

[Joel H.]

I built a Cherry Trestle table that might be considered a "farm table" from my google search on the subject. It's 104" long by 36" wide by 1¼" thick.

For the finish I applied SW Classic Cherry stain. I honestly don't think I'd do that again because it hides a lot of the grain, but otherwise came out pretty well. I topped that with 4 coats of Arm-R-Seal. After more than a year in use at my daughter's house with 5 kids 13 y/o and under it has held up very well.

One problem, I took pictures of it before transporting, but not a single one of it put together.



▲▲▲ Above is the Top (In my garage)

▼▼▼ Below are the legs and stretcher


▼▼▼ Below is a shot from underneath where the legs attach to the top.



HTH

Joel

[JR1]

I like a tone coat of a 1# cut of THAI Seedlac on cherry add a second coat if it's not dark enough¹. Top coat with Crystalac Poly-Ox, or GF ARM R Seal or Enduro Clear Poly (if you can spray).

¹ You can darken cherry by by exposure to UV either direct sunlight or a tanning bed. Either requires careful attention to detail and is easy to mess up.

[Dave Diaman]

Here is one in cherry and one in walnut and curly oak. Bot of the tops are finished with Arm-r-seal. It is a really tough finish and looks great. The bases are finished with seal-o-cell, shellac and a top coat of lacquer.

[Woodshop]

looks more like curly ash. nice job on all.

[Dave Diaman]

No, it's curly oak. I have a whole bunch of it. It isn't something I use very often. It is getting used for shop furniture and secondary wood for the most part. I have some curly ash somewhere too. Honestly I don't like oak or ash at all unless they are figured and the figured varieties look very similar. They smell different when you are milling them but once the finish goes on there isn't a whole lot of difference to me. People who love oak and ash will probably disagree though.

[clockman]

love the curly oak

[Gary™]

Dave, by the looks of the breadboard you're expecting the top to move quite a bit. I'm wondering if you could talk about wood movement and the length of the breadboard vs the top ?

[Dave Diaman]

The breadboard ends will never be flush. If I try to make them exactly the same width as the table chances are they will be proud half the year and smaller the other half. I just try to give them enough overhang that they stay a little proud all the time like you would see on a G&G piece. I think when the breadboard end is narrower than the width of the top it looks really bad so I just try to make sure that doesn't happen.