Jim Clement
Posts: 18
Joined: 2007-03-06
Location: Seattle
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I often put a 2-3" wide solid wood edging around the MDF center field. I use 5/4 or 6/4 wood to give the edge some visual substance. I usually use as many edge segments as here are segments in the radial lay-up. The trick is s nice tight joint between the MDF field and the edging. You need to cut 3 router templates using a router on a trammel arm. The first is a convex template of radius x, for the MDF field. The second is for cutting the inside of the solid wood edging, concave, with the radius x - (width of your router bit). Subtracting your router bit diameter will give you perfectly matching curves, concave and convex. The third template made using the radius of the finished tabletop, perhaps x + 2 1/2".
I usually glue a strip of dyed black (or white, depending on what wood the tabletop and edging is) veneer on edge between the field and the edging, resulting in a thin crisp line delineating the field from the edging. The veener strip is thin enough such that the radius is not altered enough to mess up the joint.
It took me a while to figure out the techinque, but once you understand it, it gives great results. The techinque is outlined in one of the chapters in Kim Carleton Graves' book on dining tables.
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