April 01, 2010

I Made a Table

This is a picture of the dining room table that I just completed made from reclaimed wood. Mostly 2x4s, some 1x4s, 1x5s etc. Poplar, fir, cedar, hemlock, plywood, doug fir, pinewood, and probably something else I don’t know the name of. Eight ft long, 33 inches wide, 30 inches high. I altered the design to my own specifications based on a blueprint from http://www.instructables.com/id/Scrap-Table/ . I put this beast together in my pal Chad’s (mostly) remodeled garage using his power tools and occasional sound advice and guidance.













Freshly planed reclaimed lumber some of which is from a now defunct sixty-year old house as well as a long gone 100-year old house. (Thanks, Chad!)







Injured thumb from timber falling from the garage loft and me not ready to catch it.







First screw. Cheese-ball smile still intact.







Completed trestles and legs.







Lamination process no. 1: glue.







Lamination process no. 3: screw.








Lamination process no. 2: clamp.








Lamination process no. 4: drill.





Lamination process repeat ad nauseum.






Threaded metal rods to keep table from bowing.







First meal on (partial) table.









The two table sections almost ready to be put together (in sepia!).



It actually turned out to be a super pain to attach the two sections together. The design is a little inexact and my abilities are more than a little inept. Chad and I worked on it like crazy almost giving up entirely several times out of frustration.







Tie-down ratchet straps really helped getting it all to come together.






Rods through the legs






Sawing the uneven edges off at the ends with a jigsaw was a bad idea (thanks, Chad!). In his defense, however, he meant to say Sawzall, not jig saw.







Uneven end about to be cut.








The circular saw/Sawzall combo sort of worked.








Second time trimming the ends, this time with a 7 1/4" circular saw (not pictured).







Table in its raw state.







Pre-drilled holes side end caps added.







I learned how to use a hand plane!







I learned how hard it is using a hand plane…





One half planed. I gave up on using a hand plane exclusively and borrowed an electric hand planer. It really helped getting the table to a sort of flatish resembling surface. But also scraped the hell out of the wood.








Surface filled in with wood putty.







Surface sanded ready for polyurethane finish.






Work table/mess I made.








Shiny!








Moving it in to our townhouse was nearly impossible.








Sam, Chad, and I couldn’t move it all the way up the stairs by ourselves. Our best educated guess is that it weighs somewhere around a billion, zillion tons.








The table got jammed in the hallway too heavy for the three of us to maneuver. There was even talk of cutting off the legs…and me seriously considering hari-kari. Called Toby to help us out. While we waited stuck half way up the stairs Carey drove over and picked up Toby. Here he is saving the day.








Days later, these are some of the wall scrape marks (all filled-in ) from cramming the table through the hallway to get it into the dining room.







Here I am unhappy with the finished product…I did a weak job when I initially planed it. Same with the filling in of holes, cracks, and lines. The surface was not only wavy, but jagged in places where one piece was higher or lower then the one right next to it creating sudden valleys. I couldn't run my mouse over it without it getting stuck. Unacceptable.







I decided to make it right. This is the partitioned off dining room in order to re-plane, re-fill, and refinish without filling the house with saw dust etc. Also, ET is in there.







Planed again, sanded again, and partially wood puttied…almost up to my mediocre standards.






Freshly stained legs.







First coating of polyurethane (for the second time).






Voila! A dining room table that revels in its many (seriously, many, many, many) imperfections!








16 comments:

  1. Followed your link here from Instructables, and I just gotta say, thanks for telling me what NOT to do. =D

    Excellent pics and a great looking table!

    -Cory

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  2. Have you considered cutting the lower edge at an angle at either end of the table? I love the look, but I think the angle cut on both ends would compliment the angle of the legs.

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  3. Yeah. That's a pretty cool idea, actually. I love the angles on the legs. I think that's what drew me in first thing. But with angled ends the viewer wouldn't get to see all the colorful, varied pieces butted up against each other and the screws I cut in half look pretty good too.

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  4. A really good add on to the original instructable.

    Thanks Paul

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  5. I'm planning on building something similar as a birthday present for my girlfriend and I would really appreciate if you coud add some do's and dont's from your experience.

    Thanks- It looks great!!

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  6. Congrats! I think you did a great job. The table is beautiful!! T&A

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  7. AbsFab! I wonder how long it took though -- you don't say! Can ANYone do this project? Thanks for sharing. I have hope for non quality bought overpriced blah piece in the store! :)

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  8. Fantastic job on the table, very impressive. I'm curious how long it took once you started? Hours? Days? Weeks?

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  9. Dude, you have to really be proud of yourself - that's truly a one-of-a-kind piece of art - no one else has anything like it unless they a) spent a bazillion dollars on it, or b) put some serious sweat-equity into it. Way to go!

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  10. Thanks, Jack! It's still standing strong. I guess I am kind of proud of it. Recently I took umbrage when my wife's childhood friend visited and she didn't mention the table once!

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  11. Love this table!! I really want to try this! Plus the imperfections are what make it great!

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  12. First off, great job, looks fantastic. I had an idea for a table like this when I began liberating pallets from behind a Sherwin Willaims store near my house. I like the angled legs much more than my original idea, and am thinking about doing something similar but in a scaled-down 2.5'x3.5' coffee table size. Do you think a shallow drawer for remotes/whatnot underneath would be a big hassle, given the lateral trestle design, (I realize I'd be doubling my planing workload) and have you found that the weight of the table top creates any stability issues with the significantly lighter legs?

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    1. Appreciate it, Sean! I think a shallow drawer is possible if you plan it right. Maybe make the trestle/legs closer to the inside of the table and make sure all the pieces on one outside (where the drawer would be) are the same size so there is an even surface to attach the drawer. The underneath of my table is different per every single piece being longer or shorter vertically. Does that make sense? The trestles and trestles are 2" thick thus I've had no problems with weight/stability. The thing is a friggin' tank! Your coffee table sounds cool. Post it when you are done!

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  13. Followed your link here from Instructables Too.And I'm still unsure about the tabletop,Do you glue the top to the top of the 2x8(trestle) or glue to the sides of the 2x8 (you would see the trestle board from the top)when you're building the top?

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    1. You glue and screw the trestles to the sides therefore showing the trestle on the table top. Everything is pretty much glued to the sides of the other pieces. Good luck!

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  14. Taped off your dining room. Nice dedication haha!

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