Steel Supports and Fixing a Mistake

I’ve been worried about the table leaves sagging over time: they’re 42” long which is quite a span. Not to mention when they have an entire Thanksgiving meal sitting on top! I had the idea of inserting something along the length to help support them. After a trip to Home Depot I found some C-channel steel: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1-2-in-x-1-in-x-36-in-Plain-C-Channel-800187/204325591

This stuff is way more resistant to bending than the wood itself, and the two of them combined should eliminate any sag (with or without a 20 lb turkey on top). I could have just bolted the steel to the underside of the leaf but I wanted to minimize the added height if at all possible (anything on the underside is going to protrude down into the vault and limit how tall something can be left on the game table with the leaves on top).

I decided to route a channel into the bottom of the leaves so that the “legs” of the C-channel could be embedded down inside the wood:

This ends up with only 1/8” protruding down into the play surface.

I originally planned on routing a 3/4” grove along the length and actually countersinking the whole piece of steel into the wood, but after cutting the two deeper grooves, the wood thickness at that point would be less than 1/8” and, as we’ll see in a moment, wasn’t ideal.

I started with the intention of routing the countersunk version:

As I cut one of the side grooves I could suddenly see daylight through it!

When I was adjusting the router I accidentally set 0” depth at the depth of the groove that I had already cut instead of the surface of the leaf. That meant I was cutting about 1/8” too deep, which went clear through the wood!

So I abandoned the center 3/4” groove idea and just went with two channels deep enough to sink the legs of the C-channel, leaving the 1/8” thick spine proud of the surface.

But now I had a big hole fix. After digging around in my scrap pile I found the exact piece of wood that was cut off the end of this board, so I could cut a section out that was exactly the same grain pattern:

I squared off the ends of the hole:

And then cut my patch to slightly oversized:

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It’s pretty hard to get a patch to exactly match the size of a hole like this, so instead we cheat: we make it slightly oversized but then taper the sides so that it wedges itself into the hole. The easiest way to sneak up on a fit like this is with a handplane, but planing something this small is near impossible. Instead I clamped my handplane upside and then slid the wood over the blade instead, taking slightly angled cuts along the sides (be very careful with your fingers when you’re doing this technique!):

And then I kept taking a swipe or two until I snuck up on the fit:

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And then glued it in place once I was about 1/16 proud:

After the glue dried, a couple of swipes with a block plane and some sanding and I can’t even find the patch!

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One of my favorite woodworking axioms is about the difference between a master and apprentice woodworker: it’s not that the master never makes mistakes, it’s that they’re better at hiding them!

As for the steel, I drilled and countersunk three screw holes in each span of steel, then spray painted them matte black:

And with the grooves cut the steel drops right in:

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Next up, the leaves are ready for sanding and finish!