dining room console table
you go that way, i'll go this way.ok. you never know what you may find at a salvageyard, there is so much old timber waiting to be turned into something usefull. it's a great way to take this valuable naturalresource and give it another turn in life. ahh!perfect. dene top. having found the timber we want to use wehave asked the guys to dress it for us. it's a lot easier than hand planing. it is and it doesn't cost a fortune.
allright lets look at this plan. ok, one of the great things about using recycledmaterial is that you have to be flexable. some times you have got to change your designslightly to fit the material. so having a basic plan is absolutely essential. so if we call the overall length of the topsay 1200, that'll use the best part of this 280 wide jarrah. yep, indeed. alright, well look if you want to start thecuts, i'll take this out and strip it. according to the plans the legs are cut at660mm from the 50x50mm jarrah.
we then need 2 lengths of 60x19mm 180mm and2 at 1100mm. no matter how natural the ingredients arein a stripper, it's agressive enough to take paint off, so make sure your wear your protectivesafety gear. very important with stripper. the stripper has a citrus oil base, and itsmells ok but it is best to do it outside where there is plenty of ventilation. i brush it on generously so it won't dry outbefore it has done the job. the stripper begins to act fairly quickly. once the paint has bubbled and lifted i canscrape it off. ok, that's worked pretty well it's got thefirst layer off but as is often the case with
old bits of material like this, there is severalsorts of paint all one over the other. so now i'm going to have to do another coatof stripper to get this next lot off. ok, that's got it off very well. there isa very fine layer of undercoat still on, but i'm actually going to sand that off becausei'd like to leave a rather beachy look. a bit of an influence of the old paint thatwas on this timber. it's a water based stripper, but it's goodto wrap the waste and dispose of it carefully. once that is done i need to wash it down anddecide if we need another coat. well we have cut the legs and the top frameand the mounting blocks, all we have to do now is cut the end braces and mark them first.
ah 4 legs. yes david, 4 legs no arms and no brain. no no, i was joking, i know what it meansto have 4 legs. how did you get on with the stripper. beautifull, it's great it's still drying. can you help me mark out the end brace bit'sfor this. sure sure. to make the construction of the hall tablefairly strait forward, we are using simple but joins.
so with recycled material because there isa slight variation in material size potentially, we mark a template off the actual end thatwe are going to join together and that ensures that it's going to be a perfect fit. we use the offcuts to make sturdy braces. once it is assembled, glued and screwed itwill be a very strong hall table. right so there we are, that's the end bracethere is the template and it looks like it has worked. so dene it you want to drill and counter sinkthat, i'll give the table top a final sand and then we can put it together.
i'm using a fairly course paper it's actuallyan 80 grit but don't forget you can actually wash the sandpaper to get the swarf out ofit and it keeps working. you don't have to change it as often then. well it's a fair bit of work but you can seethe grain starting to come through. let's have a look. there we go, that's whatwe are looking for. a lovely sort of beach look. slightly lighter color, we are going to leavethat paint there as it is because i just think it says so much about the grain. beautiful timber, jarrah.
legs look nice and straight. ok, put the blocks in. we pre-drill and counter sink all of the holesto avoid splitting the jarrah. that looks great dene, good progress. there is the top, now we are going to usesome 8x8mm beading just around the top between the top and the base just to give it a shadowline. it adds a touch of class. ok dene, ive drilled and cut these ready. we pre-drill them because if you don't thebeading this fine just splits.
ok, well why don't you lift the legs up andi'll see if it fits. the mitre saw has ensured that our cuts arestraight and square so once we glue it and screw the table together, it should pull upnice and straight. we have done all the fixings from behind soyou don't see any of the screws, you don't see any of the nails. they are all hidden once it is finished. and there is just the middle. ok, well it looks pretty good. should we turn it over?
yeah lets flip it. that's nice and straight. now we haven't glued it because you reallydo need to assemble it before you do. just to make sure it all fits, it all worksand when we glue it and clamp it we will tighten it up and it will be perfect. what do you think dene? yeah i love it, i love that top. yeah i sort of left it beachy and interesting. windswept and interesting.
like the beegees and our beautiful recycled jarrah hall tablecosts just under $60 in materials and dressing.