From Biscuits to Bread Boards

Calypso’s original table, built by Jeremy in 1993, was awesome. It incorporated storage in the top as well as 2 drawers (the only drawers on board). We had some epic dinners around that table, from the very first one too soon after applying epoxy (you had to rock the plate up from the table after every 3rd bite to keep it from being permanently attached), to a dinner for 10 in Mississippi, to Thanksgiving in the Bahamas with the kids and so many more.

That table is no more. When we redid the port side to incorporate a pull out double bunk, we had to extend the settee seat. Visions of modifying the table occupied our heads for a while, but when Mischief came along, we borrowed her table and off we went. After living with THAT table for a few months, we’re pretty sold on the design.

There are some major differences in Mischief’s yard-built table, most of which Jeremy is incorporating into our new table. The fiddles all around, for starters. The way it’s attached to the bulkhead (carriage bolts through the bulkhead instead of a massive stainless angle bracket) and to the floor (simple bronze post with set screws as opposed to another massive stainless post lag screwed into the lead). The leaf is held up with a removable post and not the sliders we used originally.

*Mischief’s table in Calypso. Note fiddles and stability of the leaf!*

We took the table off of Calypso because, well, we only BORROWED it from Mischief, who will need her own table back. Jeremy bought mahogany planks from a cool lumberyard outside of Charlottesville on our way back from one of our recent trips there; last week he went up to our friend Dave’s (heated) workshop and (with Dave’s help) has done a massive amount of work on building the new table.

They planed down the rough sawn boards to make them an even thickness. Squared up the edges. Then it was time for biscuits.

*See that roundy piece sticking up? That’s a biscuit.*

A biscuit to me involves flour and butter, some baking powder. An oven. Not these biscuits though! Biscuits are kind of pointy-edged oval discs of thin wood meant for holding 2 pieces of wood together. You cut a perfectly-sized groove into each piece of wood you’re joining together, glue in the biscuit, and then glue your pieces of wood together. The concept is to help the planks stay together and resist warping. The planks for the main table are 4.5’ long; there are 7 biscuits along that length.

Once the epoxy had set on those biscuit-joined planks, the next step involved bread boards.

*See the cross pieces on the end? Bread boards.*

Yeah, once again there’s this bait and switch thing happening. Bread boards have NOTHING to do with bread! (Side note. I wonder how these terms got their names?) These are pieces of wood that get tied in perpendicularly to the joined planks. I’d have to guess they’re both beautiful (because, hello, they ARE) and practical (they help hold the whole thing together even more than the biscuits). These go in with spline sort of attachment, like a massively long biscuit. You could use biscuits. Jeremy wanted the spline thing.

So after all these biscuits and bread boards, there are 2 flat pieces of wood in the right shape and size for table creation. He’s putting together the undersides right now - essentially building inch-high wooden walls in a box shape on the underside of both pieces. These will help stabilize and solidify the table. Then there will be a lot of sanding, a lot of wood plugging, a lot of varnishing. In the end, we’ll have a table for Calypso where many more memories can be made.

And where there will be biscuits and bread boards of the food-related kind.