Project: Table Top for Porch

[Jim Becker]

When we moved just over two years ago, the table we used for eating in the kitchen at the old property got split into two pieces...the top and the base. The natural edge cherry top became my office desktop on a sit/stand base and the table base, made from reclaimed beams was put on our three seasons porch with the intention of it becoming the nexus for outdoor eating. It's been waiting patiently all this time for a job to do.

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Last week I finally unstacked the lumber that was milled in the summer of 2021 at the old property (we had already moved, but still owned the property at that point) and it was time to give that table base some work to do going forward. At the bottom of the stack were several spruce slabs that came out of a large tree that was taken down from our former neighbor's side of the driveway..she gifted me that hunk of tree. These were about 9' long and reasonably flat, although not of even thickness because for some reason, that log was a real bear to cut. I brought them into the shop and then trimmed the ends so that the slabs would fit on my flattening table as well as to pick the best 85" or so of length to support a planned final 80" of table span. Width was planned at 42" but I eventually knocked that down to 40" for a reason I'll mention later.

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I processed the two "narrower" slabs first...all three would not fit on the table in their initial state. I'm using a TrueTrak flattening system I acquired a couple months ago but had not yet used just due to "stuff going on". The working area of this setup is approximately 4' x 8'. While I'm currently leaving this set up all the time, it does break down and can be stored away should I need the shop space for some reason. I will do a review on the product at a later date as I need to get a few more miles on it. (and that's a good word to use...miles...flattening is a major back and forth process with MANY passes to get where you need to go)

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It's also a very messy process. LOL After that first bit of processing, I took to wearing my turner's smock to keep the "stuff" out of my shirt, my pockets and whatever.

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The first two went well...that little dish remaining on one will be on the bottom. I could not take off any more material as these ended up at about 25mm which is as thin as I wanted to go.

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[Jim Becker]

The third slab is next up...this is the widest at just over 20". It's also thicker, but given this will be a table top, I have to normalize all three pieces to the same thickness of about 25mm. That's ok, however, as there is a deep gouge on the one side of this one from where the Woodmizer band started to wander. (remember, this log for some reason was a bear to mill)

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Speaking of messes...and there was more of that to come, heh...heh...

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I used a piece of 1"/25mm exterior MDF as a thickness gauge when setting the final thickness for the last pass of the router. While I'll go into it in more detail when I review the TrueTrak setup, the router I'm using at present is my DW618. It's a great tool and it had no issue doing the cutting for this project. But it also has a limited vertical depth adjustment. The last couple of passes I actually had to remove the adjustment ring to avoid having to remove and shim up the slabs further to get the final cuts. While I'll deal with this better as I get more experience with the flattening system, in the moment, I had to rely on doing those last depth adjustments "by hand" and securing the setting with just the clamp in the router base on the fixture. Having that setup block made the last one easy and consistent. (I also ordered a new piece of tooling with a longer shank than the one I pulled out of my existing collection)

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This last slab machined easily and I was pleased with the end result

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Have I mentioned the mess? And that's after some broom work. My whole shop needs a major clean now...there's a "sawdust drift" in the front window, even. LOL

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[Jim Becker]

One of the nice things about the setup for flattening is that it's not just for flattening. It's also my saw table for using the tracksaw and a big-butt assembly/clamping setup. Both of those benefits come into play with this. Up first is edging the boards using the tracksaw and long track. I did this carefully as the intention was to go directly to glue-up and these boards are too long an unwieldy to run across the jointer.

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Prior to gluing, I played around with the width and refining one edge that wasn't quite true. My starting point was 42" wide as previously noted, but the reality of clamping combined with double checking space on the porch over the rug under the base allowed that to be reduced to 40". These are staying at the length they are for now and I'll change the length after the top is out of clamps and sanded at least partway to where it needs to be.

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And...glued and clamps. Yea. A lot of clamps. But that open table made the process a snap to keep that sucker flat, although I did add two cauls just because I could.

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Next up will be the sanding, some creative repairs to the "more rustic" aspects of these imperfect slabs (which is totally in character with the base that was made from reclaimed beam material) and so forth.

[Jim Becker]

This afternoon I put all the clamps away...that was a lot of clamps...and broke out the Rotex to clean up the surface and deal with any minor anomalies along the two glue lines. While I was cleaning up the bottom site, I got Tyvek tape on under all the areas where I would be filling the defects up on the top since a number of them would certainly leak resin straight through.

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While it was upside down, I also trimmed the ends to length and managed to get 81" without getting into trouble with a few, um "features" that remained on the bottom.

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Well...there were a lot of "problems" to fill. Due to the more rustic nature of this project I deemed it acceptable to use that one wide board that unfortunately included a bit of the tree's pith and the resulting defects. That's certainly a "no-no" for what I'll call "fine woodworking", but here suddenly becomes a feature visually. So a whole bunch of dark tinted Total Boat high performance was used to fill everything up, including the cracks, pitch pockets (mostly cleaned out) and a few insect channels. I kept the workpiece clamped to the structure below it and that insured it stayed flat while the resin cured. It should actually be a little stronger at this point because of that. But since this top is a little thinner than I originally intended it, I'm likely going to build under the edges to add some strength and hide that with a chamfer...'still thinking about that.

Oliver did approve of today's work, however.

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[David Falkner]

Nice project, Jim. Your setup looks perfect for this, too. Well documented and good photos - looking forward to seeing the finished piece!

[Jim Becker]

Thanks, Dave. It will be nice having a more formal eating area on the porch...we're currently using a metal patio table and chairs, but it's kinda limited to four people or maybe six if a couple of them are not too large. And there's a bit of joy being able to use both reclaimed timbers (the base) and lumber milled from the old property to complete the project. There's also the pleasure of "beating this spruce into submission" after it was such a bear to mill and cost three bands because of embedded metal deep in the log.

[Jim Becker]

Didn't get anything done yesterday due to other distractions, but spent the afternoon in the shop today working on this project. The resin defect fill was all sanded down (I'm very happy with the results), the edge doubling was applied to the bottom, two cleats were also added to the bottom for additional flatness support (and yes they take into account wood movement...), the bottom of the edge doubling got a heavy chamfer and then the edge of the top got a smaller chamfer that matches those on the existing base. There were a few "minor edits" with the resin to deal with a couple of "newly revealed" defects and a few pinholes. When I re-engage with this tomorrow and Thursday, there will be a whole lot of sanding to be done in preparation for finishing. Oh, joy...sanding is such a favorite activity, especially on a workpiece that you can't reach all the way across. LOL

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[Tom Bender]

You have gotta be loving the luxury of space in that new shop

[Jim Becker]

You have gotta be loving the luxury of space in that new shop

Oh, yea...big time. No way I'd feel guilty about working on multiple projects at once, either, because of that. There is, however, still the dance that everything else has to come to a standstill when the finishing process starts on one of them. That's the case here. I do have some other, smaller things I'm working on, but I've put them away for a few days so I can get this one "done".

Got the color on yesterday. It took quite a bit of iterations to "match" the color of the reclaimed d-fir barn beam base using scrap, but I got it close enough. Once UV does it's job over a bit of time, things should be even better. I don't normally use oil based products, but in the interest of time and consistency with existing, I did that here, mixing up the color from "mostly" Minwax Golden Oak with some additions of both Gunstock and Honey to get things were they needed to be. I also used the pre-stain conditioner to avoid major issues...this spruce is pretty soft stuff and has some minor tearout issues that were too deep to sand out. I'm actually impressed with the results.

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I need to get a coat or two of something on that to protect it for now so I can flip it and deal with the bottom which will not get such a "royal" treatment.

[Christian Hawkshaw]

Very nice...the color and grain match is great. I also like the wide boards...having wide boards in tabletops is really nice and eliminates grain match issues as there are fewer boards to match.

[Jim Becker]

Christian, I've always been a "wide board" fan ... to me, it's downright "sinful" to rip nice wide boards down just to glue them back up again in most, but not all, cases. It wasn't possible this time around, but what I try to achieve for wider surfaces is the look of a single board as much as possible. That can be done with careful material selection to match grain and color so there's little or no evidence of the few, but still existing glue joints.

[Greg Parrish]

Hey, that place finally looks like a wood shop Jim! Nice project and glad to see you getting to use the shop finally.

Really like the track saw / router sled table and wish I had space for a setup like that in my current space. Even with the ability to fold it up, I wouldn't have the floor space for it now. Will keep that in the back of my head though.

[Jim Becker]

Greg, that flattening system/saw table/assembly table is knock down. I can literally tear it apart in about 5 minutes if I need to reclaim the space and when it's reassembled it remains true as long as I shim the horses level/coplanar with each other. The rails are on strips of wood that fasten down with two small tee-handled bolts in each. The top surface disassembles into two pieces with three bolts. You literally could have something like this or a smaller version and even use it in the driveway if need be.

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I put a coat of varnish on the top this morning and will follow up with another two coats or so this weekend. At that point, I can both decide what I really want to finish the top with as well as flip it and deal with the bottom before all the "more special" work on the top to get it nice as well as durable in unconditioned space.

[Tim Andrews]

Great looking table top Jim. I’m sure you got a real workout handling those slabs.

[Jim Becker]

Tim, these spruce slabs were actually pretty light and easy to handle considering their size. If they were walnute, cherry, ash, etc., I would have needed help for sure!

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I had three coats of the finish on the top and decided to do a fourth and from a new container yesterday. (I used up what was in the original container to seal up the underside) It clearly was a different consistency so I'm going to have to level it with 1200 and buff it to a consistent sheen at the very least. If I have to coat it again, some thinning is going to happen...but that will absolutely be the last coat for this thing destined for the back porch. I'm really, really, really happy with the color/tone and it's going to look great on the existing base.