Replies

1. 
   Sgian_Dubh | Oct 11, 1999 03:23pm | #1

   *
   Bread board ends have a real function where a panel is not well supported by other means. Sometimes they are used more for aesthetic reasons than for technical reasons. Their purpose is to try and keep a panel flat, essentially a replacement for some other form of rail. In your case the panel happens to be a table top.

   If you are making a table with a standard four leg and rail construction, in which the outside edge of all the rails are pretty close to the outside edge of the table top, functionally bread board ends are probably not really necessary.

   Here are just a couple of scenarios where you might consider a bread board for essentially technical reasons. A refectory type dining table, and and a 'hall table' where, in both cases, the ends of the top fly past the leg by a good distance. In the case of the refectory table the leg at either end is usually a slab of timber (or similar) inset from the end by anything up to 450-500 mm to provide knee room for the diner. Hall tables are often a little delicate because they are not generally called upon to do much else except look pretty and carry a few objects, so the top here might similarly fly past the leg, or legs by quite some distance.

   In both cases the bread board might be of the same thickness as the top, or greater. For example in the refectory table, if the top is, let's say, 32mm thick, the bread board end might be anywhere between 32m and 60mm thick, and the thicker it is the more ability it has to do the job of holding the panel flat. Weighed against a thicker bread board end is a restriction on upper thigh room, and this is the designers call. This problem doesn't arise in the case of the hall table, and again it's down to the designer to make the choice.

   Bread board ends can only be locked in the centre of the panel, so that the rest of it (the panel) can expand and contract according to the seasons and ambient humidity. This means that the ends of the bread board are rarely lined up with the edges of the table top. It's a bit like a broken watch that tells the right time just twice a day!

   Various methods exist for attaching bread boards. They range through a tongue and groove, tenons and extended mortices, some form of sliding dovetail, a loose tongue and stopped grooves. Holding the two abutting faces together so as to form a neat joint is partially effected by careful grain choice for the bread board, and often the addition of dowels or screws driven up through the tenon/tongue into the table top. Again all but the centre one of these dowels/screws need some form of slotting to allow for movement.

   As far as advantages and disadvantages are concerned, that depends on too many factors to say that this is right, or that is wrong. Like everything else in furniture design and making you have to weigh up aesthetics with form, and relate this to the time involved in manufacture, and therefore the overall cost to the client. If you are doing this for a hobby, then the labour may be relatively unimportant.

   I trust this is enough information to help you come to some sort of decision. You didn't ask how to make bread boards, but I threw in some information for you. I've drivelled on far too long anyway!

1. 
   Steve_Foran | Oct 26, 1999 01:59am | #2

   *Thankyou very much for your detailed answer. It is more than appreciated and nice to know that someone out there is willing to expound on these topics! thanks a million.steve