Maple Drop-leaf Waterfall Counter Top

Final product first, I hear that's the thing to do

TLDR: Old maple tongue and groove flooring. Table saw. Glue. Clamps. Hand Plane. Jig saw. Router. Waterlox.

Here's our old kitchen countertop.

It's a classic 1950s rambler hallway kitchen. Countertop w/ sink on one side, fridge stove and dishwasher on the other.

FREE: Maple tongues with nails

This started with a truck load of maple tongue and groove flooring, with nails. I used the tablesaw to cut the tongues and nails off. Someone on craigslist wanted them the cut off tongues so they didn't even go to waste.

Tongues removed

I used a crosscut sled to cut the ends to right angles on both ends of each piece.

Making sure I have enough for both counter tops

We did several layouts to find the right places to put the ends together so it'd look nice. We made sure to use the longest pieces near the front edge since there would be a thin section in front of the sink.

One round of gluing.

We had to glue up inside because it was too cold in the garage.

I couldn't clamp top and bottom on this long section. I couldn't get the clamps tight enough to hold those board together while flipping it. We tried putting some clamps underneath but the boards weren't long enough to stretch between pipes in all cases. I would rethink this process if I did it again.

Clamping on top lead to a curved countertop, so we stood on it to crack it, then glued where it cracked with clamps on the other side.

When the glue was partly set, we scraped off the drippings with putty knives.

Making sure that the hinge holes line up...

We used hand planes to get it flat

My son and brother in law helping hand plane the countertop. It was about 30 degrees in the garage that day

We left a hole to get the sink started

It made it easy to reach in with a pencil and draw the inside sink outline to cut with the jigsaw.

Dry fitting the hinge

Underslung sing frame

The sink doesn't actually hang from the countertop. Here we're positioning a sling for it. The two boards have a very loose halved join so that they can shift a bit as the countertop shifts.

With the sink in, we can draw and cut the sink hole

Here we've cut the sink out

Some boards didn't take the glue as well as I wanted. They didn't come apart, but I could feel them shifting a little bit. We drilled diagonal holes across three boards and pounded in wooden pegs with glue. My other son is here helping me pound the pegs in.

Leftover tongues are used to fill in the grooves above the sink

Sawdust paste is used to fill in the cracks left after the tongues go in.

Not pictured: I used a router with a flush bit to get the wood around the sink vertical with the inside of the sink, then used a 45 degree angle around it and then sanded it to soften the edge.

Applying waterlox

Regular day-to-day-mode

The hinge is a dowel with a pin on the far side so that it can't work its way out.

Party mode

Now there's plenty of counter space for whatever we want to do.

Long view