When you send your kids off to college you never expect to have to furnish a bachelor pad.
My son spent his first year in the dorms at Louisiana Tech University, then he and two other aspiring Mechanical Engineers moved into an apartment together. Of course three young men are kind of lacking in house furnishings. When I saw him eying his mother's dining room table I figured I had better step in and help the boy out.
I beat a trail down to E.B. Smith's Cypress Depot in Port Barre, La. and picked out enough cypress to make a sturdy farm table for the boy's kitchen.
He came home one weekend and, together we built a nice simple cypress table.
I don't have any measurements to put on this post, on account of I do carpentry about the way I cook. I just throw it together and it seems to always taste good.
Well, that isn't exactly true. I used the measurements from my wife's dining room table to determine the height and other dimensions of the end product.
We used all rough cut lumber and ran it through the planer to ensure the same dimensions of each matching piece.
The legs were cut from a 4 X 8 plank cut to a rough 4 X 4 posts and were passed through the planer all at the same time, rotating each piece 90 degrees until all the pieces were square and the surfaces smooth.
We ripped enough 1 X 4 rough stock to make the sides, ends, and center piece as well as the corner braces. These we planed to their final dimensions. We were careful to pass each piece through, using the same settings before readjusting the planer so that we didn't end up with different dimensional stock.
We assembled the frame using three pocket holes at each joint. Gotta love Kreg jigs! If you look close, the picture shows that we recessed the frame into the legs about an inch.
We cut four short corner braces and cut 45 degree angles on each end to fit flush inside the side and end pieces. Then squared the frame and attached these with pocket hole screws. This really stiffened the base up. We also attached a center brace that mitigated any warping near the center.
Next we picked out the best 1 X 6's from my stack of cypress , and planed them all to the same dimension. Using the biscuit jointer we glued up these planks, used pipe clamps, and left them overnight to dry.
The next morning we squared up the top and using the biscuit jointer again, we cut a 3 inch frame to border all four sides with 45 degree angles at the corners. While this dried we sanded the frame.
Using the biscuit jointer again we cut slots about every 8 inches around the inside top of the table frame to insert table top fasteners to secure the top.
After the top was assembled we flipped the table over and used a square and tape measure to determine the center.
I had purchased an acrylic template of a fluer de lis and this was the perfect opportunity to use it.
We used double stick tape and secured the template to the table top and using the router cut a recess into the table top and then the corresponding inlays from a piece of scrap walnut.
We glued this into the tabletop and placed a weight on it while it dried. Then we sanded the inlay flush and sanded the whole thing down to 250 grit finish.
The piece was finished with clear polyurethane. We applied 3 coats, sanding between each coat.
I think it turned out quite well for a bachelor pad table!