Outfeed Table - Day 2

This morning I sat down to review my SketchUp plan and realized I had made a mistake in the way I had planned my cuts.  On my drawing the length of the long apron sides was six inches too short.  So that was disappointing but not really a big deal. I had some long pine boards lying around so I used those instead.  I guess that's the nice thing about building shop furniture.  Moving on...

With the legs glued up I began to assembly the two short sides of the table frame.

Clamping the side apron and shelf support

Two short sides complete

 Next, I clamped up the long apron sides and shelf supports to the two short sides.

Table frame all clamped up

Then, I encountered an unexpected delay...

Unexpected visit from the toddler safety auditor, she doesn't look impressed.

Once I was finally given the go-ahead I got back to work.  I finished screwing the frame together and placed the table top on to check for fitting.

Table top slightly over-sized, will be flush trimmed later

Lastly, I cut out the midsection supports but have yet to attach them.  One of the benefits to my earlier mistake was that it gave me enough wood to create an outer apron for the table top.  This will make the sides flush with the legs.  It wasn't something necessary I just thought it'd look better so I cut those out too.

So here's what's Left:

• Attach midsection supports
• Attach table top
• Cut out shelf top
• Attach shelf top
• Attach outer apron
• Flush trim table top
• Cut out extension wing
• Attach extension wing
• Attach leveling feet
• Sand & varnish table top

Overall I'm pretty happy with the work I got done in a weekend.  I wish I could have had everything assembled apart from the extension wing but the remaining tasks are things that I can knock out during the week.

Outfeed Table - Day 1

I started working on the outfeed table today.  The basic design came from another Wood Whisperer video (which in turn came from a project from the New Yankee Workshop).  The idea is to build a simple table out of nothing but plywood.  The legs are made from two strips of plywood joined in an "L."  The table top is a single piece of plywood and the rest are just various supports.  I really liked the simple design especially since I wanted to get the majority done in a single weekend.

I made a few small variations with my design.  Instead of having the table top nest inside the legs as Marc did, I'm choosing to have it sit completely on top.  I like the idea of just a solid sheet on the top surface, less things wood could snag on.  The other thing I'm adding is a split fold down wing, more on that in a bit.

Dimensions of the table will be 60"x 42" not including the wing

Before I began cutting anything I set up a temporary outfeed table by stacking my small work bench on some cinder blocks.

A bit precariously perched

This illustrates an issue with the basic design of the outfeed table.  My table saw has a bracket used to attach the blade guard that sticks out about five inches from the back of table.  So the closest you can fit an outfeed table is five inches away.  That's a pretty big gap.

Blade guard bracket prevents the outfeed table from sitting flush

Blade guard installed

So my solution is to build a fold down wing with a cut-out for the blade guard.  Normally table extensions would fold out from the bottom, not down from the top.  However, because of the shape of the bracket, if the wing folded out from the bottom the cut-out would need to be about six inches wide.  A wing folding down from the top needs a cut-out of only about two inches wide.  The only time I would need to raise the wing would be for attaching and removing the blade guard.  I'm still working out exactly how I'm going to do this, finding the right hinge will be key.

Once I had the temporary outfeed table set up I got to work.  I was able to cut out the table top and build all four legs.  The table top was much too cumbersome to try to cut out with the table saw so I cut it on the ground using a circular saw.

Getting ready to cut out the table top

Big sheet of MDF used for a fence

While I was just planning on using glue and screws for the legs I ended up putting some dowel pins in too.  They made it much easier to line up the boards. I still used screws so that I didn't have to wait for the glue to dry before removing the clamps.

First leg all clamped up then screwed together

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get all of the remaining pieces cut out and to assemble the table frame.

Upcoming Projects

My next projects are all going to be a bit more involved than the last few.  I'm hoping to get back into documenting as I build instead of just a single post at the end.  I actually have three different projects lined up and I'm going to try to overlap the work between them. I realized that when I get to the sanding part of each project I have a tendency to lose patience and rush it (I'm betting this is a fairly common thing with woodworkers).  My hope is that by having another project to build I can sand until I get bored then switch to building a little of the next project then go back to sanding the next day.  We'll see how it works.

So the first project is an outfeed table for my table saw.  After just a little experience with the table saw I already know I need one of these.  Ripping wood and having it start to fall off the table towards the end of the cut is cumbersome and a bit scary.  Here's the initial design:

The goal of this project is to do it quickly.  Since it's just shop furniture I'll be focusing on fast construction and minimal finishing.  I'll probably be using screws and angle brackets instead of nice joinery and I'll probably just finish the top surface.

The next project is a pantry organizer.  We want to replace the shelves in our current pantry with slide out drawers.

Current Pantry

Sliding Drawer Design

In addition to being more convenient this should also almost double the usable space.  I'm hoping to try some dovetails for the drawer walls.

The final project is a toddler bed.  Our two year old is quickly outgrowing her crib and needs somewhere else to sleep.  My first draft is relatively simple, depending on how things go I may actually try to do some inlay work on the head and foot boards.

So the plan is to start this weekend.  I'm hoping I can get the majority of the outfeed table built in one weekend and move on to the other projects from there.

End Grain Cutting Board

After buying the table saw I wanted the next build I did to be something small that would help me get familiar with the table saw operation.  An end grain cutting board was a perfect project.

I didn't document the step by step build process, however, Marc Spagnuolo (the Wood Whisperer) has a great instructional video.  I just followed his directions.


For the wood I chose to use hard maple and walnut.  I really liked the contrast of the dark and light woods.  I ended up buying the lumber from a somewhat local supplier, definitely a different experience than Home Depot but another one of Marc's videos helped me with that too.

Here's the finished product:

I chose to use this offset checkerboard pattern.  I like that the design messes with your eyes so you end up staring at it trying to figure out how it was put together.

Instead of routing out the recesses as Marc did in his video I chose to route slots in the sides.  I wanted to have the option of using either side of the board and still be able to easily pick it up.

Overall the project was just as easy as Marc made it look in the video.  Sanding was the hardest part and only because it took a LONG time.  We've been using it for a few months now and it's holding up well.  So far much better than our other wooden cutting boards.