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Thread: Outdoors work table pointers

  1. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Fairbanks AK
    Posts
    1,566
    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!

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    1,950
    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.

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Fairbanks AK
    Posts
    1,566
    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.

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Fairbanks AK
    Posts
    1,566
    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

  5. #20
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Fairbanks AK
    Posts
    1,566
    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.
    Attached Images Attached Images

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