Coffee table top

I'm building a coffee table and the top will be made of cherry with a maple border. I'm wondering if I should mitre the maple border or use square cuts and butt them up.

Option A or Option B in the attached picture is the question? What do you guys think?

I'd go with Mitering the corner but it realy can be hard to get the miter tight. Don't use a CMS, I'd cut the miters on your TS

I like the look of the miters, but, assuming your top is about 18" wide, that's a lot of potential movement in the cherry. It will open up your miters and leave some ugly gaps. Of course the same thing will happen with the butt joints. How about maple breadboard ends on the cherry top? (Unless you're using cherry plywood)

that sounds like a very good idea rennie, cherry top, maple breadboard ends with cherry plugs to tie it all together.

hey guys, i'm not familiar with the concept of breadbowl ends? can you explain how this works and how it provides benefits in terms of movement?

One option for the field of the top would be to resaw the cherry into veneers and glue it onto a stable substrate like MDF. I've done this on some pieces so I don't have to worry about wood movement. An advantage of this approach is being able to book-match the cherry.

Either type of frame you show should work with this method of making the field.

one other thing you could go with. when you glue up the top, have the outside boards be maple, go with the breadboard ends, and it will still look like you have the top framed in maple.

Dawson Mossman said:

hey guys, i'm not familiar with the concept of breadbowl ends? can you explain how this works and how it provides benefits in terms of movement?

Click to expand...

Breadboard ends is simply a name given because it was commonly used with wide boards used to roll out dough for making bread...

Because of the massive movement (expansion/contraction) in wide pieces compared to the minimal movement along the length of the end caps, the wide boards had to be allowed to slip along a groove in the end caps, usually a tongue and groove styled joint with it loosely pegged on the ends and tightly pegged in the center. the core could widen and shrink at it's will while the end caps remained centered.

the purpose of the end caps was/is to keep the wide field board(s) from warping during this expansion/contraction efforts. Remember, breadboards had no finish so they were acceptible to constant changes in weather.

Do a little research asking for breadboard joints and perhaps you can find a less confusing explaination. Personally, I like either Dan's banding idea or the use of Cherry Ply for the field.

Dawson, here's a writeup on breadboard ends that should help explain the idea and the technique:

http://www.beautifulwood.net/html/breadboard_ends.html