It feels so good to have a proper place to ponder current projects! My workbench/outfeed table is finished and I couldn’t be happier with it! I made most of the base from a plan I saw on ana-white.com, a simple & sturdy workbench, but I wanted to add an inspiring top. I had 2 pallets of gorgeous oak in my workshop, so I started brainstorming… I was making this workbench because I needed the storage & I also needed a long table to push stock out of my table saw. This got me excited about soon refacing my kitchen cabinets, creating the Shaker style fronts on the table saw is a project I’ve daydreamed about for a while now, so I saved up for a Magswitch featherboard for said table saw in order to cut the rails and stiles safely… long story short, my newly acquired featherboard inspired the herringbone-pattern of my tabletop! It has an easy construction to it, but took forever to put together!! Taking apart the oak palettes is a ton of work in itself since each board, which made just one piece of my top’s puzzle, has 6 nails that I had to pry and hammer out. Once apart, I cut each end of each piece at a 45 degree angle, size of which was cut to match a template board previously made from drawing a center line down the middle of the plywood top. I needed to buy a few pieces of poplar, the green complimenting the pink oak extremely well! I used some scrap plywood for the top and shelf, the bottom shelf to be used as storage. I painted it in a white & mint green faux bois pattern (false wood) to match a previously painted focus wall in the room. Can ya tell I’m a wood lover?! My top was 24″ x 51″ and I wanted a two-inch overhang on each side, so I had the scrap piece of sturdy 19/32″ pine plywood cut to 28″ x 55″. This would be the piece that all the other pieces would be glued and brad nailed to. Once all the pieces are cut with the same 45 degree angle at each end, I layed them out like a puzzle on the top, sanded, glued, and nailed. I wanted the finish of this piece to stand up to dings & be somewhat slick so that boards from my table saw would glide down it. Epoxy fit the bill and is an easy finish to apply, well, easy compared to lacquer & poly. You just mix, stir, and pour on your table top… I added tape around the edges so that gravity could do it’s work and fill it. I used 2 coats of Rustoleum Super Glaze Epoxy which I picked up from Home Depot and the results are great as long as you follow the directions perfectly. After it dried for over 12 hours, I removed the tape and added a 1×2 frame around the edge. I couldn’t be more in love with it! The herringbone patterned wood on top looks incredible! So that’s about it… now I have an outfeed table so I can get back to daydreaming about my Shaker cabinets!
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Crafty Puzzles
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