Garden Table Build Process
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Posted 6th July 2024
Okay, I'm an idiot.
I'd been looking at those planks of sweet chestnut and thinking that it seemed a ridiculously large amount of timber to need for a garden table. However, I'd done the maths quite carefully and I'm (usually) quite good at maths. I decided to revisit it as I didn't trust the conclusion and I realised that I'd worked it all out assuming that I only got one piece width-ways out of each plank.
Having re-done it properly, I'll have plenty of wood and loads left over besides.
With that confusion sorted out and since the sun had come out, I decided to re-arrange the workshop to make it suitable for bandsaw ripping. The planks are currently too long to fit on my bench and given the tapering width, I felt it would be best to rip them to width and then sort out the length afterwards. The portable workbench got shifted onto the main bench, the framework and drawer underneath it got removed so that the bandsaw could come past and then the framework and drawer were reassembled to act as an out-feed table.
I then took the two shorter lengths of sweet chestnut, sliced them up into two 80 mm (plus a bit for planing) widths and then sliced the remainder up a little narrower and hand sawed the remainder pieces to the length that they remained parallel. That left this lot (the shorter pieces are lying on the bandsaw table):
One of them has a crack left in it, but I'll be able to remove that when I saw them to length.
The pieces I've chopped up so far should give me plenty of wood for the outer rim pieces and the central cross-piece. There might even be just about enough for the slats, although I suspect I'll have to rip a little bit more to get all of them.
For now I've got plenty to keep my #5 busy, so the bandsaw will get put away again and the three remaining full length pieces shoved back up on the roof hooks out of the way. Once all those pieces have been hand planed to thickness, I can think again about what else I need.
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