08-06-2017, 03:34 PM
I tend to lurk and ask questions more than post any of the projects that I work on but I’d like to contribute back to this forum for all the help that everyone has given me. My wife and I recently purchased the house from my MIL and this is the first project from the shop that my late FIL had laid out that I’ve had the opportunity to make.
For the last three Saturdays, I’ve worked with my son on a table for the house he and his wife are building with his wife being the driving force to find a design. She settled on a round table that was five-foot in diameter and found a set of plans for us to use. I made one design change – we did half-laps on the 4x4 stretchers at the bottom of the table and for the 2x4’s at the top of the table.
The base is made of 4x4 Douglas Fir and the top is made of 2x10 SYP…all from a big box store and we pretty much had to go through all the stock they had to fine the appropriate boards.
The first Saturday was to build the base. Fairly simple design, half-laps and 45-degree cuts followed by glue and screws.
The second Saturday was spent gluing up the top (seven boards). We ripped the edges off and ran them through the planer to remove the ink printing on the boards. We did the glue up in stages. Glued up the two outer most boards for each end and then glued the three boards for the middle of the table. We then glued one of the outer pairs to the middle, waited for it to set, and then glued those five boards to the remaining two boards. I used pipe clamps for the middle section (had to combine four clamps to get the two I needed) and then had some Bessey’s that were long enough for the outside edges. It was dumb luck that it worked out that way but better to be lucky than good sometimes.
Yesterday was spent making it round. We had an old fiberglass table top that is 59” in diameter so that was going to be close enough. We drew the circle we needed, and then I took my circular saw to make multiple cuts around the edges to knock the sharp edges off and begin to get it somewhat round. I then took my old Craftsman jig saw and started to cut close to our line. I tried to go slow and made it about six inches before the blade came out of the saw. Looking at the line, I noticed that the cut line was not a good 90-degree cut so we canned that and I did more cutting with the circular saw to get the shape closer to being round.
We then put the pine table on top of the fiberglass table and clamped things in place. I used a 2” long straight flush bit (bottom bearing) that my FIL had and used it to try and get close to our final dimension. I got about 95% around when the bit started to smoke a little bit. While we waited for the bit to cool down, we looked and saw we could get a new one from a Woodcraft down the road so we hopped in the car and picked up a new one (except we got one with a downshear to it). We used the new bit to get close to our line and then we used the bearing and rounded it to final size. After that, we used a quarter-inch round over bit and did the top and bottom edges.
He still needs to sand, stain and finish but that’s more on him than me.
It was fun and hope you enjoy the photos.
For the last three Saturdays, I’ve worked with my son on a table for the house he and his wife are building with his wife being the driving force to find a design. She settled on a round table that was five-foot in diameter and found a set of plans for us to use. I made one design change – we did half-laps on the 4x4 stretchers at the bottom of the table and for the 2x4’s at the top of the table.
The base is made of 4x4 Douglas Fir and the top is made of 2x10 SYP…all from a big box store and we pretty much had to go through all the stock they had to fine the appropriate boards.
The first Saturday was to build the base. Fairly simple design, half-laps and 45-degree cuts followed by glue and screws.
The second Saturday was spent gluing up the top (seven boards). We ripped the edges off and ran them through the planer to remove the ink printing on the boards. We did the glue up in stages. Glued up the two outer most boards for each end and then glued the three boards for the middle of the table. We then glued one of the outer pairs to the middle, waited for it to set, and then glued those five boards to the remaining two boards. I used pipe clamps for the middle section (had to combine four clamps to get the two I needed) and then had some Bessey’s that were long enough for the outside edges. It was dumb luck that it worked out that way but better to be lucky than good sometimes.
Yesterday was spent making it round. We had an old fiberglass table top that is 59” in diameter so that was going to be close enough. We drew the circle we needed, and then I took my circular saw to make multiple cuts around the edges to knock the sharp edges off and begin to get it somewhat round. I then took my old Craftsman jig saw and started to cut close to our line. I tried to go slow and made it about six inches before the blade came out of the saw. Looking at the line, I noticed that the cut line was not a good 90-degree cut so we canned that and I did more cutting with the circular saw to get the shape closer to being round.
We then put the pine table on top of the fiberglass table and clamped things in place. I used a 2” long straight flush bit (bottom bearing) that my FIL had and used it to try and get close to our final dimension. I got about 95% around when the bit started to smoke a little bit. While we waited for the bit to cool down, we looked and saw we could get a new one from a Woodcraft down the road so we hopped in the car and picked up a new one (except we got one with a downshear to it). We used the new bit to get close to our line and then we used the bearing and rounded it to final size. After that, we used a quarter-inch round over bit and did the top and bottom edges.
He still needs to sand, stain and finish but that’s more on him than me.
It was fun and hope you enjoy the photos.
