Cantilevered Tables

(upbeat country music) - Hey, welcome to the American Woodshop.

I'm Scott Phillips and today we're going to make a cantilevered table.

What the heck is that?

Well, stay around.

You'll find out.

- [Narrator] The American Woodshop with Scott Phillips is brought to you by.

- [Narrator] Woodcraft since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

- Pro tools for tool pros.

(dramatic music) RIKON tools.

- [Narrator] Woodcraft Magazine projects, plans and web links designed to help you make wood work.

PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf Swedish Silicon Steel Bandsaw blades, and super sharp scroll saw blades.

A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals.

A house that feels like a home.

The furniture bank of Central Ohio providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- At the American Woodshop, we make everything with wood from the period furniture pieces that you saw earlier this season to mid-century modern.

And today that's kind of the direction we're going.

It's called a cantilever table.

And what it is, it's an X form that has this slab that is cantilevered off the ends and it's pretty amazing.

And I have this wood right here ready to go over to the miter saw.

But this kind of is going to help you understand what I'm talking about cantilever.

This is cut at a 45 degree angle.

This is cut at a 45 degree angle.

It's a slab maple, 13 inches cross, inch and 3/16 and 40 inches long.

And so I need another piece which is coming from this old reclaimed barn beam out of white ash.

And let's do one other thing.

See this, right here?

This is called air dried mousey, gray walnut which is the best color and you just can't beat this color.

And you can tell it's been air dried because it has the sap wood.

If it's kiln dried, that heart color bleeds into the sap wood and it really diminishes the quality for a slab.

So this was one board wide and I cut it in half with track saw so we can work it at the miter saw.

And everything on all of this has to be checked for moisture content, no higher than 6%.

And on this edge it had gotten a little bit wet but I know this is testing right at 6%.

It's air dried for four years.

An inch of thickness, a year drying.

That's the rule.

So let's roll this over to the miter saw, make those cuts.

The first order of business is to lay out my cuttings and the top is there.

I've got that marked with a white marker on walnut.

And you can see this piece of ash is laid out, ready to cut.

Hearing protection, whatever you do, be sure to read, understand and follow all the instructions that come with the tools and products you use in your wood shop.

And I'll turn on the dust collector and make those cuts.

From here, it's over to the planer and the jointer.

(miter saw hums) Now it's checked in, but we're gonna work with that.

I'll make all those cuts.

(miter saw hums) This piece of ash isn't much to look at right now, but let's see what we've got.

(planer hums) Oh yeah.

(planer buzzes) Looking good.

Work this down.

And then planing the walnut boards and then I'm going to join it.

(planer buzzes) So this is going to be the tabletop.

And to joint this edge, I put a mark here that goes against fence and I put a mark on the back, on this board.

Why do I do that?

As long as I'm looking at the mark here and looking at the mark on the back when I joint the mark is out.

If the, for whatever reason, this is not square to the table in the cutter head, then let's just say it's off a little bit.

Then that angle is going to match by making sure those marks are opposed when you join it.

So let's make those jointed cuts.

That makes the edges 90 degrees to the flat and that makes it straight and that gives us a good glue seam.

We'll also joint the edges of the ash board.

This is locked in place, it's set at 90 degrees.

So I want the mark out on this one and I hold it down to the in-feed table and against the fence.

Hand position is very important.

On wide boards like this, I just use my hands.

If they were not this wide, I would be using a gripper to hold it against the fence.

This keeps my hands safely away from that edge.

That was a good pass.

Good solid pass.

That's straight.

And now the next board mark out, that's gonna give me a perfect glue joint.

(cutter hums) That's perfect.

And you'll see how that draws together.

Now I'll joint the edges of this reclaimed barn beam.

It's been checked for metal with a metal detector, no metal.

It's not gonna be perfect, but that's okay.

I like the look.

Look at that union, of those edges that have been jointed.

Now these boards are cut because it's been air dried.

And you know what?

I work with that.

I can use hand planes to level this out, but to do the glue up and we haven't done this much this year so this is a good workshop.

Use a good, yellow aliphatic wood glue and one that's really, pay the most for the glue because you want these edges to last.

And I make two beads keeping it moving on one edge.

And I know for the advanced wood workers out there, they go wait a minute, you gotta put glue on both edges.

Yeah, I know, I get it.

Okay, watch.

Okay, with this live edge up, meaning the bark is on it, I'm just moving this back and forth gently and watch what happens.

Now this is called sizing the joint.

Voila.

Hey, you got glue on two edges and it looks pretty uniform.

But just in case there are some dry spots you use an acid brush to work that glue out.

And the cool thing about doing it this way, you get just the right amount of squeeze out and you don't have glue all over your work bench and all over the place.

So glue ups are important, and temperature in your wood shop.

Right now it's nippy in here, but it's still right at 68 degrees which is as cold as I want to do a glue up.

They say you can do it colder, nope, not for strength.

And once this cures out, it will never break that, the glue seam.

So watch what we do here.

We lay this down now like so, but the edges that are perfect and it will be cut to finish length after we do the glue up and the grain matches.

You wanna be careful about that.

And I'm going to put one under first because I can, you want to alternate the clamps, okay?

And that looks good right there.

Doing the same down on this end.

And I'll show you the quick trick.

Oh yeah, look at that squeeze out.

That's perfect.

And this needs to be pressed down, 'cause it's sprung up a bit.

Boards aren't perfect so you have to learn how to read the board and work with it.

Pressing down.

Okay?

And look at that perfect squeezed out bead.

Now, take a straight edge and lay it across there.

I've got just a hair of daylight there and a hair down there.

But that's nice and straight there and tight.

So let that cure out for two hours and then we can work with that.

Now while that's curing, clean your glue brush at the sink, water soluble glue.

So rinse it out and that'll last you years and years.

And the next thing I'm going to do now, while that's curing, is take this ash board, cut it, beveled on each end at 45 degrees.

And to do that, I'm going to tilt this miter saw down.

I'm going to have to move this clamp over here on this one.

Okay?

And then I know from experience, this extension on the fence has to come off and I tilt this down to 45 degrees and then lock it in place.

That's locked.

And when I make the cut, I want to plan this in a way that the scrap falls away from the blade.

So the good end is right here.

I'm going to cut some of the end off in order to get rid of a couple splits down here.

Tight to the fence, down to the table.

I have hearing plugs in.

I'll do the same cut on the opposite end.

(miter saw hums) So those 45 degree angles are complimentary in that when these are opposed to each other, that creates a frame that's going to cantilever the tabletop.

So I have the notches laid out for the thickness right here.

And what I'm going to do is bring this up to the miter saw with it set back to 90 degrees.

Swing this around like so.

Here, let's do this one, the thicker one first.

And you can see I have the notch laid out that's gonna lock in.

So I just bring the saw blade up.

Right?

Actually I'm going to swing it around this way so I can lock it in, bring it down, make the notch cuts to my stop cut, which is five inches back.

So now I'll make those cuts and then I can use a handheld jigsaw to notch it out the rest of the way.

(miter saw whirs) Now clamps off and that glue up is curing.

And the easiest way to clean up glue squeeze out on your bench and also on your work piece before that glue gets super hard, you just scrape it off with a card scraper or cabinet scraper.

And you don't want to let this dry overnight, but as long as you get to it with around a two hour timeframe, it knocks it right off.

No wet rags here cause it can contaminate the joint.

Okay?

And that cleans up my work bench.

Now the next thing I'm going to do is clamp this down so it hangs over enough that I can use the jigsaw.

I'm gonna get another clamp on that just so it doesn't skate all over the place.

Okay, now you can see the cuts here and here, right?

And that defines a width to match the thickness of the other material.

And now what I'll do is use jigsaw to cut this all the way open.

The key thing is it's square to the bottom here and you have to keep that flat as you make that cut.

Get it lined up.

Now make those cuts.

(jigsaw buzzes) So here's this notch in the big thick piece of ash.

Here's, the notch in the mating piece.

And as they start to go together, it gets tighter and tighter and tighter to the point that when these are malleted together, they're never coming apart again.

There's room for them to expand and contract.

But before I put all that together, I'm recycling this piece of maple and so I want to cut this curve out.

This will go to the underside of the table and it will add a graceful quality to it.

The other thing that I've done, right here, take a look at the glue up.

I worked with it a bit.

Find the joint.

Where's the gap?

It's perfect.

It just blends together.

The grain, the color, everything's right about it.

Now I laid in a line here that's curved and line on the other end that's curved and I'll use a band saw the for that too.

Okay, so that's 1/3 inch 3 TPI blade and it's got good tension on it.

This needs to come down just a hair.

So I'll turn that on and get the dust collector on.

We'll make those cuts.

(bandsaw hums) Here's the arch for the bottom.

Here's the top.

And as I notch these together, this is it.

This means they are there to there stay.

And let's rotate this up.

And that's rock solid.

Now, what we're going to do is bring up the top.

Just like so.

Live edge forward.

Now what happens is these are called construction fasteners and I oversized pilot holds on the bottom to dog this into this top.

But let's see how I did.

Suzy put in an order.

She wanted the finished table behind the couch to be 29 inches.

What do we have?

28 and 7/8.

Close enough.

Okay, well I could put pads on the bottom to bring it up a bit, but look at that.

And it's just as attractive on the backside as it is on the front.

And the whole idea is it's gonna be rock solid before the dogs, no legs.

How about that?

Now what I can do is bring this up and put it on a anti-fatigue pad.

This is so doesn't mar the good face.

And I'm going to sand this down using an N95 dust mask and get this all perfected.

Then I'll drill the holes for these and see how it marries together then it will be on to finishing.

I'll get set up to do that.

Get my mask.

You can hear the ambient air cleaner circulating the air that catches the fine dust, which is better?

The stuff you can see through like screen or the stuff that just has the whole pattern.

Well in this case, the stuff with the hole pattern works way better.

Match up three holes with the bottom disc.

And by having it on the dust extractor it gets most of the dust plus this this stuff you have to have an interface pad with.

So I'll just sand this down and I like the five inch to get into these curves and then tack it clean.

And then we have to join all the parts together.

I work through 100, 150 and 220.

(sander hums) Now I'm over sizing the hole in this piece that will expand and contract.

And this is ready to go into that hole.

I have wiggle room and this is a star drive.

So we'll just take that on in, being careful not to over torque it.

And the other four are already in place and everything's been tacked off and I changed my mind.

And that's cool thing about making your own pieces.

I love the way this cantilevers like that.

Just like that.

I want the offset of the front and the straight back will go against the couch.

So look at this.

This is all prepped.

I've already tacked it thoroughly, sanded it through 220 and now watch what we have.

This is a payoff.

I'm using Arm-R-Seal.

And if I'm going to brush something, that's what I'm going to use.

And it always, always takes my breath away when you get the first coat, the finish on because that grain just comes alive.

And some people say with live edge, you know the bark I can't keep the bark on, save the bark, let dry out glue it back on, no harm, no foul with that.

So air dried walnut, this is my favorite wood.

(chuckles) We've used a lot of other woods this season.

And cherry, those high boys, would probably be my favorite project.

Next to the addition that you saw go up and still don't have the boat.

Still working on that.

Suzy put the brakes on that.

Landlubber.

Anyways, look at that.

Now I'll get this all finished out and we'll take a closer look at it.

Well, what do you think?

That's just the first of three coats and I'll sand lightly between coats with 220 and tack it thoroughly.

And I mean very lightly indeed.

But if you're gonna do live edge, make it your own.

And that brace, I know it's been around before, but I've never made one before.

So it's always fun to experiment and keep woodworking fresh.

And I hope you found that's what the season has been.

All sorts of wonderful new ideas, from Suzy's spin on carving to mine on building extra room in your wood shop, to honoring period furniture and making mid-century modern inspired pieces with live edge.

Well that's a wrap for season 30.

Now on to season 31.

Can't wait.

(laughs) Thank you so much for everything, for being with us this entire season.

- [Narrator] Woodcraft, since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

- [Narrator] Pro tools for tool pros.

(dramatic music) RIKON tools.

- [Narrator] Woodcraft Magazine projects, plans and web links designed to help you make wood work.

- [Narrator] PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf Swedish Silicon Steel Bandsaw Blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals.

A house that feels like a home.

The furniture bank of central Ohio providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- For more information on tips behind the American Woodshop and watch free episodes 24/7, check us out online and like us on Facebook.

(upbeat music)