Garden Table Build Process

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It has been several weeks since the last update, but I have been making slow progress. For each of the eight prepared pieces, I started by planing the first face flat, using the stop I showed in the last post, along with a wooden jack plane and a couple of bits of 2020 aluminium extrusion that I use as winding sticks:

The wooden jack plane is generally my "weapon of choice" when I've got quite lot of planing to do (but not so much that I need to resort to the scrub plane). It's a lot lighter than the #5 and that makes quite a difference when you've got a lot of pieces to plane (especially in the middle of summer).

Once all the pieces had one face that was flat and twist-free, I held them in the vice and planed the first edge square using a #7:

I then used a marking gauge to mark them all the same width (80 mm) and again used the #7 to plane them to dimension. There wasn't much to remove as the bandsaw had cut them only slightly over 80 mm.

With both edges and the first face done, I measured all the planks and set a marking gauge to slightly less than the thickness of the thinnest piece. This ended up being 32 mm. I then marked all the way round all the boards and got the wooden jack plane out again to bring them to dimension (following up with a #4½ for a nice smooth finish):

With that done, I have a nice stack of pieces that will form the outer edge of the table, all approximately the same width and thickness.

It's probably about time I emptied the shavings bin:

It's getting too hot to do any more garage work now, so I doubt I'll manage any more this weekend, but that feels like a nice milestone to have reached. I've still got all the stock preparation to do for the inner pieces (not to mention the legs etc); however, I'm quite tempted to get on with the joinery for the edge pieces first just for a change. Of course I might change my mind by the time there's next the opportunity for free time when it's cool enough to be in the workshop.

I am a hobbyist metalworker and woodworker. I work as an electronic design engineer and spend most of my working days in front of a computer so I enjoy having the opportunity to use my hands and make things in my spare time. I particularly enjoy making tools as I can then use them on other projects. This website showcases some of the things I've made.

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