Outdoors work table pointers

[Scott Winners]

I have been named the BBQ pitmaster at my church. May 2019 I made food for 120 hungry people, 80 people showed up (the preacher said "plan for 50"), I had zero left overs.

It was like locusts. I have never seen a 17 pound brisket just evaporate before. Poof. It was gone. So now I have two assistants, I am scaling my operation, but I need some outdoor tables.

What I need is an outdoor capable work surface, 18-20-22-24 inches wide, 48 inches long, roughly kitchen counter top height. They need to be uniform so I (we, my team) can use them as sawhorses when we need to process a whole cooked pig.

I am leaning towards building the saw bench in the back of Chris Schwarz's workbench book, only taller with the lower braces pushed down to about 12" off the ground, then a bread board of 3 parallel 2x6s above, all of that in pressure treated, with a 20 x 48 piece of plywood on top as a sacrificial tip top work surface. I also have the Paul Sellers artisan course book, but that chair side table looks like a lot of work considering I need three of them yesterday.

I have a pretty high quality RAS and can bang out 15 degree splay x 15 degree spread table legs pretty easy and get them half lapped in nothing flat.

What else should I consider?

Attached photo is what my 15 year old assist came up with after one "class" and two test cooks. He claimed he could barely make himself oatmeal before the first class. He needs a horizontal surface near the grill to set down his spatula.

Butterfky.jpg

Thanks

[Jamie Buxton]

I wouldn't use plywood for a chopping surface. I've seen indoor breadboards made from plywood, and they get pretty ugly. The show laminate gets all beat up, and starts producing splinters. Once it gets splintery, you can't clean it because the rag gets stuck on the splinters. Instead, I'd use hardwood lumber. You can use 4/4 lumber to make the chopping surface, and rest it on those 2x6s for strength. Or you can use "butcher block", which is thicker hardwood already glued up into a counter top. You can find it in many species. Here's one four-foot example -- https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hardwood...2550/300688696

[Scott Winners]

Not intended as a chopping surface, good points though.

These are going to be outdoors in the weather uncovered year round. We will use cutting boards when we want to chop on them. Just looking for a place to set down a tray of uncooked food, some pegs on the side for spatula and tongs, enough area to wrap a brisket in tinfoil when using the Texas crutch, a low shelf to hold stuff like a rib rack or the charcoal chimney once it is cooled off.

My thinking is to replace the sacrificial plywood top every year or two, part of its job will be to protect the underlying pressure treated structure from snow fall and meat juices.

You know what - I am thinking of it as the rest of the work bench. If the grill is my face vise, I am looking to build an outdoor table, an assembly table really, that is the "rest of" the bench that goes with the vise. Maybe I will try to draw something.

[Jamie Buxton]

Outdoors year-round— in Alaska?! Okay, I’ve got no experience to offer...

[Scott Winners]

Outdoors year-round— in Alaska?! Okay, I’ve got no experience to offer...

Well, fair enough. The trouble is exposed end grain in spring and fall when we have daily freeze/ thaw cycles and lots of water stored above ground.

This is a foot on an outdoor saw horse. It was old when we bought the house in 2004. I think it is plain old construction grade lumber, no treatment no paint, nothing, just bare wood.

20190626_203348.jpg

I built a saw buck in 08. Nothing special, just a bunch of 2x4s shaped like a comb. All I did to that was paint exposed end grain, top and bottom, anytime I had a paint brush wet in my hand. All kinds of different colors, interior, exterior, whatever, just seal the end grain. I gave it to a buddy of mine and then his wife got the house in the divorce, I haven't seen it in a couple years but it was looking good in 2015.

[Scott Winners]

I read up quite a bit on gluing PT lumber. My nearest dealer of KDAT (kiln dried after treatment) is 360 miles, one way. So I bought some construction grade lumber, settled on 10 degrees for my slope and made some half lap joints, then got the end pieces glued and screwed tonight.

If I ever buy a timber slick I am very likely to name it "Lickety", cause this went pretty fast with a circular saw and 1.5" framing chisel with a square edge for a slick. So therefore Lickety Slick

4x4 legs, a rectangle of 2x4 bearers around the top, a rectangle of 2x4 stretchers around the base. I am planning three side by side 2x6s for the top framing, all attached to the short bearers only, then a scrap of plywood to cover.

Anyway, I got the ends done. Tomorrow I need to make the long bearers, the long stretchers, glue and screw that together and then put a top and shelf on it. With three of the corners lined up i am 1/4" out at the fourth. Not ideal, but likely plenty good enough. And I need to make two more of these. Total for sticks at my local Borg was $40.26, plywood scrap and wet paint brushes I got.

[Greg Parrish]

May not not help but I take pieces of 1/8” or 1/4” plastic marine board and screw to the bottom of my wood legs that sit on concrete or other outdoor surfaces. It gets them off the floor/ground and helps prevent water wicking. I’ve even used a small cut off of trex deck board before. Seems to help the wood not do what is shown in your picture and it doesn’t affect the level of the bench since the marine board is uniform thickness.

Well, fair enough. The trouble is exposed end grain in spring and fall when we have daily freeze/ thaw cycles and lots of water stored above ground.

This is a foot on an outdoor saw horse. It was old when we bought the house in 2004. I think it is plain old construction grade lumber, no treatment no paint, nothing, just bare wood.

20190626_203348.jpg

I built a saw buck in 08. Nothing special, just a bunch of 2x4s shaped like a comb. All I did to that was paint exposed end grain, top and bottom, anytime I had a paint brush wet in my hand. All kinds of different colors, interior, exterior, whatever, just seal the end grain. I gave it to a buddy of mine and then his wife got the house in the divorce, I haven't seen it in a couple years but it was looking good in 2015.

[Scott Winners]

Thank you Greg Parrish!! I made three sets, one for each table. Brilliant like a Guinness! Thanks. One set is already on the ground under s/n #2.

speedfeet.jpg

My third build is underway. I am calling this a table, not a workbench. The box of sticks around the top of the legs I will now call aprons. The box of sticks near the bottom of the legs I will now call stretchers. I have switched from 10 degrees tilt to 8 degrees tilt on number three. It should be stronger and I plan to illustrate why in a few days. The first two are 48" long, the third one is going to be a six footer.

If all your aprons are s4s and exactly the same width you can do your layout with a speed square. Mine are s4s-ish, so I am glad to have a pair of protractors for layout.

2prot.jpg

Myh internet is getting wonky, probably all the forest fires. I shall return!

[Greg Parrish]

Those look to be marine plywood instead of the plastic board I mentioned. If so I’m not sure if they will still stop moisture absorption but they may. Just not sure as I’ve always used plastic pieces.

[Scott Winners]

At Greg's brilliant suggestion I am using plain old regular plywood foot spacers to get my primed and painted end grain out of ground contact. Cheap, replaceable, they should help the tables last longer.

I am kind of at sixes and sevens as they used to say. If I wasn't in a hurry I would do these differently- like let them sit for a month or two to finish drying before applying finish- but I really don't have that option. Saturday gone by was 27 days remaining before I have to cook and serve a whole pig. I did volunteer for this project, but it is now Monday night, I have 25 days left before I light charcoal under a pig that is on order, one minute after midnight on the morning of August 24th.

The trigonometry problem I mentioned. On the first two tables, the four footers, I used 10 degrees tilt on the legs and pulled the feet in from the edge of the table top a little bit. I feel fine about it and am not worried. Here is a pic of a four foot long table in primer, with no top and no lower shelf. The outer edges of the outer pair of 2x6 that will support the 24 inch wide half inch plywood top are 23.5 inches apart.

trig2.jpg

One of these is in service already, the flat 2x6 seems adequate to support the plywood top surface.

For the six footer I went looking to see if I could maybe reduce the tilt on the legs a little bit, and push the toes of the feet out a little closer to the edge of the top surface so the outer flat 2x6s could rest on the long aprons. I decided to try 8 degrees of tilt, mostly because Derek Cohen used it once, and I spent a bunch more time on layout than usual. All the below are in inches. I built for the top of the aprons to be 30 inches off the floor, plus 1.5 inches of flat 2x6, plus 1/2 inch plywood work surface, plus 1/2 inch foot spacers on the ground, work surface should be 32.5 inches off the deck.

trig.jpg

I also adjusted the half lap in the legs for the long aprons so after assembly the long aprons would need to be planed down to be level with the short aprons, just a quarter inch or so.

longaprons.jpg

And it seems like it is going to work out pretty good. Instead of two screws in each of the flat 2x6s, one into each short apron, on the six foot build I am going to use three or four screws so the flat 2x6 is tacked into both the short apron and the long apron. Ought to be a bit stiffer.

trig3.jpg

FWIW the dowel stubs showing in this post are all getting cut off. Construction order for me was glue up, hold together with ratcheting tow straps or load straps, get it all squared up and tight with those, then run screws into each joint while the glue is wet. Next day remove screws, use screw hole as auger guide, install pegs with more glue. I am getting to be perhaps a bit dogmatic about not leaving metal fasteners in finished projects, though I look forward to trying the cut nails Chris Schwarz raves about.

Because they are securing legs to aprons and stretchers I can't hang anything (more than about 4 inches long) from them without banging up the finish that is going on to protect from water. The stubs are already sawn off tonight actually, hanger pegs will go on in holes bored after the pigment is over the primer, in places where long tools don't bang against the legs.

[Scott Winners]

I went back and added pegs on the stretchers tonight. Right now I have 20 days and 21.5 hours to serve a 120# pig to 200 guests, carpentry is more of a sideshow than a hobby at this point, or rather at this oink.

My immediate problem, other than the pig, is I need these tables to be heat proof and cheap, but they also have to be protected from water because it is autumn in Alaska (on August third, yes, autumn) and portable.

I have looked at a few table top coatings. Vinyl flooring off the roll at the Borg is cheap but not heat proof. Ceramic tile is an attractive option, but all three of the tables I have built are going back and forth between pitcrew member homes and the church parking lot twice annually.

Stainless Steel is an attractive option but not in my budget. i will keep an eye out on surplus sales.

Autumn, yep. It is pretty much raining all day every day now. "Always" does for the (googleable) Tanana Valley fair, they changed the fair dates several times trying to get out from under the rain. We _might_ get a few days respite from the rain after the fair ends, but "summer" caribou hunting season opens August 10. It will pretty much rain non stop from sunrise Aug 10 into moose season (Sep 1 to Sep 25). Sometime in moose season the rain will turn to snow. Somewhere after Sep 15 the daytime highs will no longer rise above above freezing. Once "freeze up" is here in late September/ early October daytime highs and overnight lows will all be below freezing, I can leave bare wood uncovered outdoors with no worries about moisture damage until late March.

So for now plastic sheeting. I bought the same stuff I use to cover my passive solar firewood kilns, see hearth dot com / woodshed / passive solar / user Poindexter.

facepegs.jpgentombed.jpg

[Scott Winners]

The four footer is generous for regular grilling, even with meat and vegetable. I did pizza's tonight, it was a bit crowded but with the peel down below it wasn't too bad.

[John K Jordan]

There's nothing like stainless steel for sanitary food processing and cleaning up, but maybe not if you have to chop, don't know. I like the roll-around tables I get at Sams with stainless top with nicely rolled edges - I use several in my shop. The will come apart, but if I wanted portable tables I'd probably use just the top and put it on sawhorses.

Here are two I use for my sharpening station, side by side, the grinders fastened to the plywood sitting on the top. You can see how the edges of the top are made. If you are in a huge hurry you could put tables like these into service this afternoon.

tormek_A.jpg

The shelf underneath and the legs don't look like stainless but are probably plated steel, looks like chrome to me. Don't know how they would hold up in the rain in the long term but could be painted or even powder coated.

Outside the barn I simply use a white freezer door on sawhorses for cleaning and fixing things but it's not pretty enough for your high-end use. Easy to clean though.

JKJ

[Scott Winners]

Thanks for the pointers John. It was decided yesterday my team will be doing a whole pig ~120# on August 24. I have a little time, l but I don't have a lot of time. My current plan is to chop the cooked pig on a temporary surface slung over a couple tables like the one under construction now.

Having slept on it I think I should have made the sort bearers much longer with through laps instead of 14" long with laps on the end like they are.

[Scott Winners]

I changed out the short bearers today, from 14" 2x4 to 24 inch 2x6. And I made all the long pieces, and I got it all glued up. I am thinking tomorrow I will bore it and glue in pegs before I take the ratchet straps down.

Corners of the top frame are at 35 1/2 x 23 5/16. About 90 x 59 cm.

I have to get some chores done around the house before LOML gets too terribly antsy, but I will have several opportunities to get end grain sealed up before the top goes on.