Pallet End Table (Conclusion)

(Continued from Part III)


Like I mentioned in my house repair post I got a new and awesome table saw to replace the rickety and broken Craftsman I had been using. Unlike the Craftsman, this Hitachi is a pleasure to use and I am not terrified of it. Well, I treat it with due respect, of course, but I don't feel I have to approach it as though I were sneaking up on a spooked pony.

Where was I? Oh, yeah... I cut the tabletop boards to size. I cut the sides to create flat surfaces and laid them together on the shop floor as flush as possible to get an idea of the best length for the boards to use most of the wood while keeping the tabletop square. In the end, I ended up with a 28 1/4” square – fairly large for an end table but not overly so.

Christmas rolled around about the time I was trying to figure out how to join the boards together. I was going to ask for a biscuit joiner for a gift but I was told by a couple of my friends that they are are tricky to use and I should consider other options. I am glad I took their advice because as it turned out that one of my friends bought me a Kreg Tool.

For those of you that don't know, a Kreg Tool is a jig and special drill bit that creates what are called pocket joints. With a bit of glue, a couple of self-tapping screws, and virtually no skill (a definite plus for me) you can create flawless and super-strong side-to-side or face-to-side joints in under a minute.

This tool is by far the most enjoyable contraption I have in my shop. The ease of use and the number of things this tool can do makes me feel very conflicted. On one hand, it is so awesomely useful a huge number of potential-project doors have been not just opened but blown completely off their hinges. On the other hand I feel very, very stupid that this sort of solution never occurred to me before. Sure, I could hide behind the fact that I am 100% self-taught but, to steal a line from Douglas Adams I was “as stunned as a man might be who, having believed himself to be totally blind for five years suddenly discovers that he had merely been wearing too large a hat.”

I love this tool a dangerous amount. I am pretty sure that I am going to wind up on the street a burnt out Kreg Tool junkie, bumming change for “just a few more self-tapping screws, and then I'll quit, I swear”. I can almost hear people shouting “Quit rapidly making high-quality picture frames and get a job, hippy!” from their cars as they drive by. On the upside I would have the sweetest, sturdiest squatter's lean-to in whatever alley I chose to call home. So lose-win, there I guess.

The table top was assembled using pocket-holes and wood glue (see pic for how these joints look after they are plugged). That used up the most of the first pallet. The plan for the second pallet was to scavenge what I could to make the table skirt and the legs. The usable slats, although thinner than those of the first, were in much better shape so there was no need to plane them over and over – just a few passes did nicely and the hand sander did the rest.

The skirt is just a simple box assembled using the pocket joints I gushed on and on about earlier with some 45-degree angle pieces (cut with the miter saw) to serve as leg mounts. The entire box was firmly mounted to the underside of the tabletop using pocket joints and wood glue. Elapsed time for the skirt creation from wood recovery to final screw – about two hours. Awesome!

Only a couple of the center studs were usable and they were all very full of nails so there was no chance of running them through the planer. Instead, I cut the studs in half and used a Dremmel to cut the rusty metal bits as flush as I could. This was actually kind of fun and it gave the legs-to-be a sort of “industrial” look (see the cool but informationally bereft picture on the left). I sanded the legs using a hand sander and a sanding drum on my drill press.

I needed to make the table legs removable since I will be mailing this to my brother as a sort of belated Christmas present. This was done by countersinking T-nuts and running mating hardware (all left over from the Windsor II Playset project, btw) through the 45-degree leg mounts. The legs slide into place nicely and I think they will be tight enough to result in a sturdy end product. The table is 22 ½” high.

Since I am working with less-than-ideal materials, I labeled each of the legs and the leg mounts so my brother will know where to place each of the legs. I will be including some felt to act as a sort of compression gasket to ensure a tight fit if he needs a little more stability on one or more of the legs. I don't think he will, though, since the end product holds my weight when I sit on it. Sweet!

The “final” step was to stain and seal it. I thought I had screwed this part up since the wood turned so dark when I applied the lighted stain Lowe's carried. I forgot that very old wood turns very dark even when a light coating of stain.is applied. After many coats of gloss poly sealant, the project was done.

Everything actually turned out fine and the final piece is actually pretty elegant and something I would not mind having in my living room if there was room. Not too bad for 99% reclaimed materials, IMHO.

Now all that is left is to mail the thing, which is going to cost a fortune. I will try and make that happen this week.