Salon table opinions sought

[Timm R Oday25]

Our salon table is no overdue for an upgrade . I'm confident in my skills as a woodworker . Where I am stuck is in what wood would best serve
the purpose . Being a model from 1981 , there is a not a great deal of natural lighting .
The lighter woods , Maple, Ash, Poplardon'tseem to have much grain to show .
Red oak seems done to death . Mahogany seems to be my only locally available choice.
Is there a wood that might work better ? Thank you

 

[dLj]

My question to you is do you care if the wood used is "marine" grade? I guess that question is more - how are you going to finish the table?

I tend to only use "marine" grade woods in any wood i put into or on my boat as I never want to totally rely on my finish to protect the wood. Unless I'm doing a full epoxy encapsulation.

Light colored woods you may wish to look for:

1) southern yellow pine - excellent marine worthy wood.

2) Oregon pine - also excellent

3) Alaskan Yellow Cedar

Those are light colored North American woods that are excellent in boats and exhibit nice grain that you can develop. However they are all softwoods.

I'm not well versed in light colored hard woods, white oak is one. Harder to source than red oak and it's grain structure I find nicer than red oak.

For wood on boats I head to woods like Iroko, Ipe (you need carbide tools for this wood), sapele, of course teak but I actually prefer iroko over teak. But these are not light colored

dj

 

[PaulK]

We know a woodworker who does a lot with curly maple. That seems to have a good deal of grain. White oak may have nice grain but doesn't it turn black in salt water?

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

Have you considered going with a more commonly used laminate like arborite, melamine or whatever it's now called :

I think you'd need a very large table top before natural wood would look its best. You will also have an infinite variation of pattern and colour if you go with laminates. Also hard as hell and won't dent or scratch.

In order to avoid the ever present crappy looking edges of laminate , you will see that the top of my 1999 salon table is a laminate (no idea what but it's thick). It's hard to see in the above shot but the leaf is in the down position and only a small portion of the table edge can be seen. What really makes this looks sharp (IMO) is that all of the edges (2 - 3" wide) of the table are all 3/4" teak, edge glued to the bottom 3/4" marine grade fir and left exposed. The fully finished edges of the table (both teak edge and laminate edges) are then hit with a round over router bit :

I'm confident in my skills as a woodworker .

Pretty much a prerequisite to have the right tools and figure out the construction of this table top. A little heavy for starters.

With the edge drop, you can also have a realllllllllllly thick table :

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I also think if you do want a wood grain look to your table top, a wood grain laminate would be easier to get a perfect finish and then you aren't worried about it getting damaged.

Then, when your wife's younger sister gets up on your new table top and does a spirited Flamenco dance in high heels :

............ you just sit back and enjoy .

 

[dLj]

We know a woodworker who does a lot with curly maple. That seems to have a good deal of grain. White oak may have nice grain but doesn't it turn black in salt water?

Red and white oak will turn black in sea water if they aren't finished. But so will maple and pretty much any wood I've ever worked with that starts out a light color. But I don't have a lot of experience with light woods other than the pines in boat building. And those have almost always been painted afterwords . Unless epoxy encapsulated...

dj

 

[Timm R Oday25]

We are in fresh water ,Lake Michigan . The moisture seems to permeate most wood fairly thoroughly . No matter the type the wood will be sealed on every surface .
I have a rather large sheet of Corian ,I could use . I always thought or believed the salon table should be the center of attention in a boat . Whether a compass rose or some type of border inlay ,scripting inlay with the boats name ..

 

[marcham]

Anything with a few coats of poured epoxy looks great and will reflect some light.... a bit easier to do well than 8-10 coats of varnish.

The epoxy gives the protection, so you can use whatever thin laminate you like from your lumber store, then edge band with a hardwood.

 

[dLj]

We are in fresh water ,Lake Michigan . The moisture seems to permeate most wood fairly thoroughly . No matter the type the wood will be sealed on every surface .
I have a rather large sheet of Corian ,I could use . I always thought or believed the salon table should be the center of attention in a boat . Whether a compass rose or some type of border inlay ,scripting inlay with the boats name ..

I agree - the saloon table is a centerpiece. I guess if corian fits your style, it would certainly work. But if you have the wood working skills, a nice compass rose or other decoration would be much more interesting.

I've always found cherry and maple make a really nice contrasting inlay. Throw in a solid border of sapele, inlay the maple and cherry motif into quadrants of white oak (for grain patterns) as main table and you'd have a lovely table and robust. You could also use beech to keep material costs down - if that is a concern.

dj

 

[colemj]

Corian would be great but heavy (I don't know if yours has leaves or drops, but if these are heavy they may be an issue). As mentioned above, laminates are much higher quality now than in the past and also look great.

We had a table made out of Honduran mahogany with teak trim. It is beautiful, but after living with it for a while, I wish it was lighter colored.

Most of our boat interior is cherry with mahogany trim (actually some type of Brazilian hardwood that is similar to mahogany but a bit lighter color), and this is probably how I should have made the table. Cherry is a nice middle ground between very light wood like maple or pine and dark wood like mahogany and teak. It also has a nice fine straight grain with some waves and curves similar to maple.

Mark

 

[capta]

IMO black walnut is one of the most beautiful woods. It is a bit dark, but with a good varnish job, it should pop. I've seen one sailboat interior since the 60s, and it is still the most beautiful boat, of any kind, interior I've ever seen. She was flush deck, so the cambered overhead added spaciousness that few smaller craft have.

 

[dLj]

Corian would be great but heavy (I don't know if yours has leaves or drops, but if these are heavy they may be an issue). As mentioned above, laminates are much higher quality now than in the past and also look great.

We had a table made out of Honduran mahogany with teak trim. It is beautiful, but after living with it for a while, I wish it was lighter colored.

Most of our boat interior is cherry with mahogany trim (actually some type of Brazilian hardwood that is similar to mahogany but a bit lighter color), and this is probably how I should have made the table. Cherry is a nice middle ground between very light wood like maple or pine and dark wood like mahogany and teak. It also has a nice fine straight grain with some waves and curves similar to maple.

Mark

I'll have to see if I have a picture of mine - but I'm in my phone - I'll have to look in my computer.

Maple and Cherry play well together. Their grain structures can be quite similar and the color contrast is really nice.

Are you familiar with sapele? It's a lovely wood. It is also a pretty strong wood. I actually repaired my bow sprit by laminating on sapele. It's been going strong now for a couple years, two Atlantic crossings and still looks great. It also works well with wood working tools.

I see Capta replied mentioning black walnut. That's another choice. I don't particularly like the wood tones of black walnut but a lot of people love it.

If you want to get fancy with your design you could add in some purple heart. I used to work with ebony but it's so hard to find now and pricey. If you think about your design you can make some amazing stuff. Doing it yourself you don't have to pay someone to get intricately done work...

Yes, corian is quite heavy. Leaves would be a concern.

If you want to work in laminates, you could laminate onto corssa board - that's very light weight and very strong. You could make a sandwich with corssa board in the middle, edge it with wood of your choice and you'd have a very strong light weight table.

dj

p.s. just realized this was Mark's post - not yours... Just switch pronouns....