My XL table build

jimithing

Hi guys, here's my table build. 

This is all cedar.  Started out with a basic frame.  I knew from the beginning I wanted 4x4's in the corners.  It's probably overkill but I'd like this to last a while.  The cross braces are all 2x4's.  Locking, swiveling casters on all 4 corners.

I found a local granite place that sold scrap pieces of granite and picked up a couple.  The piece for the top is 2cm while the piece that goes under the egg is a 3cm piece.  I'm using an egg holder as well, I just wanted to be sure there was plenty of thermal mass between the egg and the wood.  Anyways, I cut the granite with my tile saw.  It left a nice smooth edge - it's not nearly as polished as the top but I can live with it.


Next up I installed the top boards around the granite.  The top is a 5/4 s4s cedar that I was lucky enough to find at Lowes.  The egg support pieces are 2x6 cedar with notches cut into them to fit around the legs.


Once the top boards were in place I made the egg cutout.  I used a Rockler hole cutting jig with a router.  It worked perfectly.  Initially I didn't have a router and was going to try to do it with a jigsaw but I know there's no way I would have gotten a decent looking circle that way.  I figured I was going through all this trouble I might as well do it right.

I used a spiral upcutting bit and probably made 10-12 passes to get all the way through.  Just dropped the bit a little each pass.  I had stacked wood underneath so the circle didn't just drop out when I made it all the way through.  I also attached a strip of wood to all the pieces that were going to come out so they all came out in one piece.  Here's a picture part of the way through the circle cut.

I added more 5/4 boards to the sides and back and was left with this.  You can see an air gap (daylight) at the back and also some gaps around the egg support wood.  Maybe it isn't much but I wanted some air to be able to flow around that compartment where the egg will sit.

I also filled all the screw holes with a mixture of epoxy and sawdust.  I didn't have a pocket jig and honestly I didn't want to go through the trouble of a pocket jig.  I got the sawdust from my orbital sander - most of the wood was rough cut and I sanded it with the orbital down to 80 grit.  The top was sanded to 120.

You can see that the area where the top granite will go has 2x4's that are sticking up a little.  This is because the 2cm granite wasn't quite thick enough to match the 5/4 boards on top.  This brought them to just about even.

After lots of research I just used Sikkens to stain the table.  I ended up using the teak color.  This is two coats worth. I forgot to take pictures in between coats.  When I first put it on there were some brush strokes on the horizontal surfaces.  The vertical surfaces were completely brush stroke free.  Maybe I put it on too heavy, I don't know.  Now that it's sat in the rain for a couple of weeks the brush strokes seem to have faded.



I still need to put some doors on the right side and mount my Shiner Bock bottle opener.  Overall I'm happy with the way it turned out.  I'd never built a piece of wood furniture before so I was just kind of winging it based on pictures others have posted.  Hopefully someone else will get something out of these pictures as I did with everyone else's pictures.

SGH

Awesome looking table. Great job brother  

beachsmoke

Top notch good job

blasting

Well done - looks great.  Your dog looks in need of some table scraps, lol.

jimithing

blasting said:

Well done - looks great.  Your dog looks in need of some table scraps, lol.

lol i know.  she's always got food down in her bowl, she just barely eats it.  i tried every brand petco and petsmart have.  she's just not a big eater.

Hunter1881

Great job

blasting

jimithing said:

blasting said:

Well done - looks great.  Your dog looks in need of some table scraps, lol.

lol i know.  she's always got food down in her bowl, she just barely eats it.  i tried every brand petco and petsmart have.  she's just not a big eater.

I often wish I had the self discipline of my Boston Terrier.  She always has food in the dish, but never over eats.  

My fridge door opens on it's own when it hears my truck pull into the garage...

Jebpot

good looking table!!!

grege345

very nice!!

johnmitchell

Great table and fantastic workmanship.. Enjoy it..

henapple

Nice work 

Grillin_beers

Looks good man.  If you hadn't told me you had never built furniture before, I wouldn't have known. 

Jeepster47

Looks good ... should last for many years made out of cedar.

ChrisgrillsSTLMO

Great looking table, great post and pics.

RAC

Very nice!

n00b

How does the granite hold up in rain?

SmokinBass

That looks awesome... How much do you charge? 

byrne092

SmokinBass said:

That looks awesome... How much do you charge? 

+1 lol

texaswig

Nice looking table. Nice job. 

Danny71

If you don't mind me asking how much do you have in table excluding your labor which from the awesome table seems a lot 

Mattman3969

Nice details.  Looks like you know your way around woodworking 

jimithing

n00b said:

How does the granite hold up in rain?

Good question.  It's only been outside for about a month but we've had about 18" of rain in that time.  So it's basically been wet for about a month.  When it's wet the granite darkens a bit but as soon as it dries it goes back to the normal color.  It's natural stone so I'm assuming it'll be okay but I guess we'll see.

jimithing

SmokinBass said:

That looks awesome... How much do you charge? 

If I actually had a wood planer and a table saw I would consider making these on the side for some extra scratch   It was a lot of labor with that orbital sander.  Hours and hours of sanding.

jimithing

Danny71 said:

If you don't mind me asking how much do you have in table excluding your labor which from the awesome table seems a lot 

I saved the receipts for a while but I don't know where they are now.  I'm going to guess here.

Wood - maybe $350 total.  I do have a bunch of smaller pieces left over that I'm going to build doors with but even then I think I'll have some left.  If I had done a better job of calculating the cuts I was going to make and what length of boards to buy I might have been able to cut this down to $300.

Screws - Used 2 1/2" and 1 5"/8" deck screws depending on where they were going.  I think 3 boxes total so maybe $25 in screws.

Wheels - $50 for all 4 at Home Depot.  These were more expensive than I was expecting.  I could have gone cheaper but I wanted large casters with a brake.  These are called "Everbilt 5 in. Polyurethane Caster with Brake"

Lag bolts to hold the wheels on - Maybe $5?

Epoxy - 3 syringes @ $6 each.  I used J-B WELD ClearWeld.  So that's $18.

Stain - I mentioned I used Sikkens.  It was $75 for a gallon.  Expensive stuff.  I've never used it before so hopefully it was worth it.  I still have at least half the can left but they didn't sell it in smaller quantities. 

Granite - From memory I paid about $100 for the 2 scrap pieces.  They offered to cut them down for me but they were going to charge extra.  I didn't even ask how much extra, I just told them to give them to me as is.

So adding all that up it's a little over $600.  Still cheaper than the BGE brand tables.  I definitely could have gone cheaper in a lot of areas but I was having fun and I'm expecting this one to last at least 10 years.

Danny71

I agree looks amazing man lot of fun egg time in your future thanks for the break down

blasting

jimithing said:

n00b said:

How does the granite hold up in rain?

Good question.  It's only been outside for about a month but we've had about 18" of rain in that time.  So it's basically been wet for about a month.  When it's wet the granite darkens a bit but as soon as it dries it goes back to the normal color.  It's natural stone so I'm assuming it'll be okay but I guess we'll see.

Prior to it becoming a kitchen table, I had a finished piece of granite leaning up against my block fence for 4 years.  No worries with granite at all.

StillSmoken

Very Nice Table. 

RiverDoc

Excellent table!

HeavyG

n00b said:

How does the granite hold up in rain?

A lot of mountains are made of granite and they seem to handle the weather pretty well.

TexasBBQ

Great job!

Ladeback69

Awesome job.  I'm Big Green Envious.