Last week’s column left off with me trying to find someone to help me flip over a heavy tabletop.

Finishing and hardware

The three legs are attached to the underside of the tabletop with four screw-in inserts and four bolts. The inserts needed to be added to the tabletop, then the holes bored in the 12″ x 12″ sub-top of the legs. The top was 1-13/16″ thick, which left me with a lot of material to work with, but the thought of drilling through this top frightened me. After testing the diameter of hole needed to house the inserts in some thick white oak scrap, I used a series of progressively larger drill bits to create the four holes in the underside of the tabletop.

The first step was to drill small pilot holes in the 12″ x 12″ leg sub-tops, then extend their locations into the underside of the tabletop. This would ensure the holes would align. I also numbered the legs and added carved numbers to the underside of the table to locate the legs in the correct locations at the client’s house. With that complete, it was time to focus on drilling the holes to accept the threaded inserts.

With each bore I used some sort of fail-proof way to ensure the drill bit didn’t poke out the upper surface of the top. A sleeve or piece of wood with a hole in it, which slid over the drill bit, was what stopped the drill’s chuck from plunging the drill bit too deep.

After double-checking each setup, I proceeded to drill the holes. Thankfully, no mistakes happened, and I was ready to install the threaded inserts. When the first one went in, it ended up far from perpendicular to the surface of the table. I bored a hole in a piece of 3/4″ thick scrap that held the threaded insert perpendicular to the table’s surface while being threaded into the hole, then put it to work. It worked nicely, and helped me drive each insert straight into the top.

The mating holes in the leg sub-tops now needed to be drilled oversized, so the tabletop could move with the changing seasons. Oversized holes also made it a bit easier to align the holes in the legs with the threaded inserts and install them.

Because this tabletop weighed so much, and there were only three legs, I wanted to add a bit more strength to the leg-to-top joint. I added two more 5/16″ lag bolts to each leg sub-top. If, for some strange reason, the threaded inserts didn’t work as well as I anticipated, two lag bolts directly through the sub-top and into the tabletop wouldn’t let me down.

It sounds simple, but the process of carefully planning, testing, boring and installing the threaded inserts took about two hours. Not only were they a bit fiddly, but it was also critical they were located and sized correctly to offer the most strength while not coming through the upper surface of the top. It’s sometimes the little things that take so incredibly long to wrap up.

Time for delivery

The husband of the designer I made this table for was going to drop by and help me load the heavy tabletop into the rented van. Instead, the designer showed up and said her husband was caught in a meeting and wouldn’t be able to make it, but she’d happily help me lift the table into the van. Yikes. For some context, this woman is on the small size and I’m pretty sure she’s not an amateur weightlifter. I was not confident. To try and talk her out of it, I said we should do a test lift and then consider our options. We lifted the top off the sawhorses, paused for a few seconds and put the top back down, her face wincing the whole time. I expected her to say, “Nope, that’s too heavy for me to lift,” but instead she confidently said, “Yup, I can lift that.” My eyes widened and my heart rate increased. The last thing I wanted was to drop the top at this stage in the game.

As I did with my contractor friend, we came up with a plan. Blankets, pauses, carpets, sawhorses and the increasing rain were all considered. Five minutes later the top was resting gently in the van. I was sweating and covered in rain, but not to worry, as the top was safe. I’ll be honest, two days later and my biceps were still sore. That lift was no easy task for me, either. The strength of a determined woman is never to be underestimated.

At the client’s house, the designer’s husband had thankfully just arrived. The rain had eased and the three of us planned our attack. Lifting this table while it was vertical was virtually impossible, as the wider end of the table offered no positive gripping edge. When we tried to lift it that way, the table slid right out of my hands and back onto the blankets and carpet. It had to be moved while it was horizontal. Thankfully, the owner of the house has a double-door entryway directly to the kitchen area, where the table was going. The three of us carefully moved the table onto my two sawhorses in the kitchen, then I installed the three legs and we lifted the top and removed the sawhorses so we could finally place the table on its own three legs. This was also the first time the table had supported its own weight, so this was a bit of a nervous moment for me. Thankfully, the crushing strength of a 4″ diameter solid white oak leg is incredibly high. Without any sideways forces acting upon the table, I bet these three legs could support a total of about 5,000 pounds with relative ease.

Another custom project done. Outside-the-box thinking often has to be employed while doing custom jobs, and this project was no different. The weight of the top was my main challenge, but there were other challenges, too. I was happy to see it in place and a smile on everyone’s face.