An Interesting Table

Do all woodworkers find themselves pouring over interesting bits of furniture, investigating the various joints used whilst admiring good craftsmanship? It’s something I find myself doing more and more at antiques sales or in various houses (preferably while the owners aren’t looking).

A little while ago the family was on holiday, staying in a rented cottage which was home to a table which I thought rather interesting.

I took a few photos (unfortunately I had forgotten to pack my camera and had to rely on my phone) and a few quick measurements. This is a huge table, the top is some 108 in. by 41 in. made from 5 2 in. thick oak (I think) boards. The story from some locals is that it will be sold with the house as there’s no way to get it out, which might suggest that it was moved into the room in ‘flat-pack’ form and put together on site.  

What interested me most, however, was the way the top boards were joined together, at five points along each join in the table top there was a group of 4 visible wooden pegs. My guess is that the boards are joined using using a pegged or draw-bored ‘floating’ tenon or biscuit (I am guessing at terms here – if there is a proper technical term for this joint I’d like to hear it). I’ve seen draw-boring used for mortise and tenon joints but this is a new one for me. The pegs are also clearly square pegs driven into round holes. Overall, I expect this will give a very tight joint without any need for cramps.

The pegs from above

The pegs from below

I did draw a technical drawing of the table, I’ll apologise if the method of drawing isn’t exactly standard – I was never taught technical drawing and have come across my method mostly through intuition (and I can’t do any isometric views etc.). There were also a few measurements I forgot to take, mostly the overhang of the table, so I guessed here.  

When scanning the scale seems to have gone slightly awry but the included dimensions should suffice, and only having an A4 scanner I had to scan this in two parts which put things slightly out of line (and put a big line down the centre of the drawing).