For the dining table, it was time to do a little bit of old school 2D design work on the corner brackets that connect the aprons and legs, having to adapt a Woodsmith design to a different size leg...

Chamfered the inside corner of each leg:

Planed the aprons and corner braces to final thickness. Then laid out the legs and aprons, and braces for a reality check:

Routed a decorative bead along the bottom edge of each apron board:

Wrapping up the construction of the top of the white oak farmhouse dining table...

Installed the second breadboard end:

Rounded the corners with a rasp and sandpaper:

Filled some knots and checks with epoxy, and sanded them flush:

Routed a 1/8" roundover all the way around, top and bottom edges:

Next: getting ready to start on the leg & apron assembly. Praise the Lord for some progress! :)

After getting the table top re-joined, flattened, and trimmed to final length, it's time to start installing the breadboard ends.

Not only do breadboard ends add some aesthetic beauty to a table, they serve a structural purpose. Done correctly, the breadboards help prevent the top from cupping across its width over the long-term. What's interesting, however, is that the fixing of one problem using a breadboard introduces another problem - that of wood movement (expansion and contraction from changing humidity) across the width of the top conflicting with the cross-grained breadboards attached to the ends. What to do? Utilize "floating" mortise and tenon joinery (that allows the top to expand and contract) and "drawbore" dowel pegs (that keep the breadboard pulled up against the end of the table).

Using the Festool Domino XL to cut all the mortises (holes) into both the end of the top and the mating side edge of the breadboard...

Gluing the 140mm (5.5") long Dominos (tenons) into all the mortises in the end of the top...

After drilling dowel holes through the breadboard at about half the mortise locations, I test fit the breadboard onto the tenons, and use a bradpoint drill bit to poke through the dowel holes and make a mark on the top face of the tenons. I then remove the breadboard, use an awl to move each of the marks on the tenons about 1/16" closer to the end of the top. I use those new marks to hand drill holes through the tenons. Those holes are now offset from the holes going through the breadboard by 1/16"...

Next I put glue on the center tenon only, and I push the breadboard back onto the tenons and clamp it in place. I then hammer dowel pins through all the holes in the breadboard and tenons. The holes in the tenons being slightly offset, it has the effect of drawing the breadboard tighter up against the end of the top.

After letting the glue dry overnight, I flush-cut the dowel pins and sand to make sure the top surface of the breadboard is flush to the table top.  You might notice that I have cut the breadboard to be slightly longer than the width of the top. This being winter with low humidity, the top is a little bit contracted across its width. Once summer arrives and the wood absorbs some of the higher humidity, the top will expand again and be a closer match to the  breadboard on its ends.

Whew, thanks to the grace of God that's done! One more breadboard end to go...

Some of you may recall the Maple Queen Bed project I was building for my daughter Hannah last spring/summer? I completed it in July or so, but it has since been stored, covered and in pieces, until such time as Sweets made her decisions on what she wanted to do with her bedroom and where to put the bed. Well, that day has arrived, and her bed is now assembled, placed in her new bedroom, and in service! We are so very glad... :)

While helping my daughter Hannah move into her new room, I had to move and re-install a couple of older pieces I had for her some time back...

After looking at the glued up table top closely and checking with a straight edge, I decided I was not quite satisfied with some of the joints or the overall flatness of the top. So, after some prayer and some deep breaths, I cut the top back apart  (carefully!) along two of the seams.

I brought the all the partial slabs to an "industrial grade" wood shop near downtown Staunton so they could use their monster-sized wide belt sander to get them nice and flat. While there, they decided out of their kindness to also finesse some of the edges and re-glue them back using their monster-sized jointer and glue-up rack, for free.  Thanks!

Then I hauled the top back home and added a strip along one edge to give it a more symmetrical appearance. And voila, it's ready to start the breadboard installation.  Yay!

Time to take the two half-tops and get them glued into one big monster top....

First had to do some edge-jointing with a handplane on the adjoining edges to get them so they will clamp up flush. My Veritas low-angle jackplane did a fine job and is a real blessing...

Then it was time to cut some mortises in the adjoining edges to accommodate the Domino loose tenons that help with alignment...

Then it was time to do a glue-up-clamp-up into one big table top...

Next: Breadboard ends!

So, I've decided to split the dining table top glue-up into two parts because of the size and weight. Here's the first part all glued and clamped up.  I used biscuits and clamping cauls to help with alignment of the boards...

Here they are after glue has dried and joint lines scraped and sanded...

And here are the other top boards getting ready for glue-up...

Once I got the top boards and breadboards milled to final thickness and width, it was time to experiment with how to lay them all out. Need to take into account pleasing grain patterns, getting the edge grain directions alternated, etc.. Here's how it came out - look OK?  :)