Dining Room Table Nearing Completion

The dining room table is almost done now. 

I sketched various designs for the base for months before I came up with this contemporary shape. It required quite a bit of free hand shaping and sanding with hand grinders and sanders.  It has been fun drawing a design and then bringing it to life ... and then see if it actually works... ha... So I did a little sample assembly to check out the wings on the base after final assembly... it works... 

I still have to stain the top and clear coat it, but the hinges are on and the base is done.  The top is Pecan and the base is mostly Maple.  As with many of my projects this table is a true learning process and expands my woodworking skills... I hesitate to use the word skills...

The table is 7'4" long by 4'8" wide when the leaves are up.  It is only 24" wide when both leaves are down. It seats 8 easily and 10 in the holiday mode.  Below is a photo of it as the base was starting to come together.  Some of the long vertical legs have not been shaped in this photo... They were about to go outside where I could act like a wild man and grind them into the shape I wanted...

Eventually the wild man went to work... making sawdust...

After it was shaped I took it apart and cut the grooves where the special flexible plywood would fit flush.

Next I used a Java colored stain on the entire base.  Then I put many coats of satin polyurethane on it to protect it.  Here the wings are untucked from the main part of the base and they swing out to support the table leaves when they are up.  The base is not attached here and it is pretty near the end.  It will eventually be attached further back to leave enough leg room for me or anyone else with size 13's.

Here is a photo of both leaves down and the supporting wings tucked into the main part of the base.  There is a slippery plastic washer laying there on the floor... it is the key to helping the wings rotate freely.

Next up is the stain and finish on the top.  It is all sanded and ready to go.  The challenge will be to get it all somewhat the same color... as you can see the wood is not uniform in color.  I went through a lot of Pecan (Hickory is also sold as Pecan) to get some wood that would work.  Most of the wood I found (I found a lot) was warped, cupped and cracked.  Not helpful.  It is famous for splitting... which it did for me... lots.  Most furniture made of Pecan is veneer... very thin sheets of Pecan glued to plywood or particle board of some sort... that eliminates the cracking and splitting.  Solid Pecan is heavy and pretty hard.  I love the way it finishes in the many samples I have used in selecting a stain.  Staining will be slow.  Probably just one coat a day.  I plan on starting on the underside of the table top for practice...