Hi all, hoping to pick the brain of some local woodworkers out there. I’m looking to build a simple kitchen/dining table (~5’x3’) on some hairpin legs as a one-off project for a condo, and I have been doing a bunch of research for it over the last couple of weeks.
I’m looking to build the tabletop from a 8/4 thick hardwood - specifically thinking white/red oak, black walnut, cherry, or ash. My plan was to grab a couple of S4S planks and glue them together to make the width.
Couple of questions:
Does anyone know any good suppliers of 8/4 S4S hardwood? I know places like Home Depot have some, but they're mostly 4/4 to my knowledge. I have checked out Black Forest and Windsor Plywood, but they seem to be primarily rough sawn.
If not S4S, is anyone familiar with any reasonably priced wood planing and jointing services for rough sawn wood?
Any have any other information/advice for a guy like me?
So obviously I’m not very tool loaded, but I was planning to borrow what I needed from friends or elsewhere. I'm looking to keep the project as simple as possible with as little opportunity to mess it up as possible. I am relatively budget conscious as well.
Thanks in advance!
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my only thought might be to try a practice table with some cheap cut of wood as to me there seems to be no sense using expensive wood for your first time.
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my only thought might be to try a practice table with some cheap cut of wood as to me there seems to be no sense using expensive wood for your first time.
Good point for sure. I have done a cheap plywood based table before. Just what I've been looking at seems simple enough (famous last words) so that's why I don't feel too hesitant.
Black Forest will plane and joint 3 sides for you for free ( They did a year and a half ago anyway). Then you'll just need your table saw to square up the fourth side.
Oak isnt too bad, but its not quite as easy just gluing it up and calling it a day. A biscuit joiner might help lining up your edges a bit easier. For the glue up, you will want some pipe clamps as well.
A good thing to do as well for a table top is to alternate the orientation of the grain of wood. Wood is pretty stable, but its always moving. If you were to look at the end grain of each board you would likely see the grain in a sort of half moon or smily face shape. To maintain the stability of the table top, its a good idea to basically alternate....smily face, sad face, smily face, sad face.
Its a bit tough to do with a lack of tools. I did a butcher block counter top roughly the same size. We glued it up in 3 separate sections, then planed each section, then glued the 3 sections together.
As always, with fun projects like this. YouTube is your friend.
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Black Forest will plane and joint 3 sides for you for free ( They did a year and a half ago anyway). Then you'll just need your table saw to square up the fourth side.
Oak isnt too bad, but its not quite as easy just gluing it up and calling it a day. A biscuit joiner might help lining up your edges a bit easier. For the glue up, you will want some pipe clamps as well.
A good thing to do as well for a table top is to alternate the orientation of the grain of wood. Wood is pretty stable, but its always moving. If you were to look at the end grain of each board you would likely see the grain in a sort of half moon or smily face shape. To maintain the stability of the table top, its a good idea to basically alternate....smily face, sad face, smily face, sad face.
Its a bit tough to do with a lack of tools. I did a butcher block counter top roughly the same size. We glued it up in 3 separate sections, then planed each section, then glued the 3 sections together.
As always, with fun projects like this. YouTube is your friend.
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Thanks for the reply and for the tips. I've definitely been YouTubing a bunch. I was planning on grabbing these:
Pipe clamps
Table saw / circular saw (whatever I think I need)
Orbital sander
How did your countertop turn out? Any lessons learned from that?
8/4 is pretty overkill for a table top. I was initially planning on making a table around 2 inches thick but in the end I went around 3/4 inch and put a 2 inch thick edge around the entire table.
I'm curious how one would do this without a planer. Even if you do buy S4S. I guess if you have a good #4 and #7 hand plane and put in a lot of elbow grease.
Thanks for the reply and for the tips. I've definitely been YouTubing a bunch. I was planning on grabbing these:
Pipe clamps
Table saw / circular saw (whatever I think I need)
Orbital sander
How did your countertop turn out? Any lessons learned from that?
Biggest thing I learned was the differences with working with hardwood and how wood reacts.
Pine and hardwoods are different beasts. My butcher block is 2 inch thick Maple. 6ft x 3 ft. I was just going to use my modest shop with modest tools to do the job. I ended up bringing it over to a neigbours place who has a 220v cabinet saw, 16inch planer and all the fixins. Maple is quite dense, so when cut it releases. Those nice straight boards weren't very straight anymore. Not a problem on a 10inch cutting board, but on a 6ft butcher block it made for some fun.
That was a few years ago and my first"real" project. But it basically got me into woodworking.
Even though it probably seems simple, that's actually a pretty ambitious project to take on without much in the way of tools or experience.
Gluing up a slab isn't particularly complicated, but with a large one like that and a design that doesn't have any kind of frame or apron to secure it to, there's actually a lot that can go wrong. If your milling and glue up aren't dead flat and straight, any error is going to show up in the finished product. Whereas if you're making a butcher block counter or a table top that will be attached to a frame, then minor warping doesn't matter because it gets corrected by what its secured to.
Wood is quite strong along the length of its grain, but tends to sag without support across its grain. So I'd think about adding some sort of cross support underneath at a minimum. And if you do that, make sure you secure it in slotted holes to allow the wood to expand and contract.
All I can add is woodworking without tools is a fools errand, it will look like crap and you will discard it, you should view a project as an excuse to purchase the tools you will need for the rest of your life, planes, saws etc but of course that means the cost of the table is about 4 times the cost of an Ikea table.
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A project is a great reason to buy tools. Even better if you’re a geek like me and enjoy finding seemingly derelict tools and restoring them. My $5 Disston panel saw looks beautiful, and with any luck will be ripping lumber for another 80 years.
PS, if you do build this, keep an update. I’d like to see how it works out for you. And how much $$$ 5’ jointed S4S Maple goes for.
Going to be following this thread as I've decided to undertake my own minor woodworking project.
I'm wanting to build 3 floating shelves. Wheres a good place to get wood from? I found 'Windsor Plywood' online and like what they have. I'm thinking Walnut with a live edge, 8/4 and 52" long x 10"-12". How heavy would this be, and would there be issues with the the floating shelf brackets supporting this?
I was looking on amazon, and came across these: Amazon Bracket
What sort of price range as I looking at for 3 boards 8/4 - 52"x12" in walnut 1 live edge?
Most domestic hardwoods are about 35-40 lbs per cubic ft., so a 2" x 12" x 52" piece would be in the 25-30lb range.
Just as important as the weight of the wood though is the force placed on the bracket due to the width of the shelf. The further your shelf sticks out from the wall, the more leverage is placed on the mount. Theoretically at least, a weight 12" out from the wall will exert twice the force that one 6" out does. So for a 12" shelf, you're going to want to be pretty conservative with the weight ratings of the brackets which may be based on shallower shelves.
As for the prices for live edge walnut, I've seen huge ranges; everything from $5 to $25 a board ft which would be $125-750 for the amount you'd need. I'd expect a place like Windsor Plywood would be on the mid to higher end of that range while a sawmill or a private seller would be lower, but that might be tough to find in Calgary. And of course if all you can find are 6' or 7' long slabs you're going to have to allow for a lot of waste.
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All I can add is woodworking without tools is a fools errand, it will look like crap and you will discard it, you should view a project as an excuse to purchase the tools you will need for the rest of your life, planes, saws etc but of course that means the cost of the table is about 4 times the cost of an Ikea table.
I agree. I will say that the used market isn't always the worst. I picked up a $400 router for like $90 and it was in virtually new condition, and then I got to spend the saved dollars on lots of awesome bits.
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Going to be following this thread as I've decided to undertake my own minor woodworking project.
I'm wanting to build 3 floating shelves. Wheres a good place to get wood from? I found 'Windsor Plywood' online and like what they have. I'm thinking Walnut with a live edge, 8/4 and 52" long x 10"-12". How heavy would this be, and would there be issues with the the floating shelf brackets supporting this?
I was looking on amazon, and came across these: Amazon Bracket
What sort of price range as I looking at for 3 boards 8/4 - 52"x12" in walnut 1 live edge?
I'm doing the exact same thing right now and did my shopping at Windsor Plywood in Burnaby.
For comparison purposes, I bought a 48" one-live edge maple board, 1-5/8" thick and varying between 6 - 8" wide, for $195. For your board I'd guess you're looking at about $250+ IF you can find it. I was very lucky to get something so small as most other of their pieces were much, much larger and upwards of $600.
My second shelf project is 2' off the end of a S4S 5/4 maple board, 6" wide and ripped down to 4". About $30. Lighter duty and the stud placement works out for me so I went with some Lee Valley mounts similar to what you found on Amazon.
Hope this helps. Good luck with your project!
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