My mother has been working in the field of early childhood education for almost all her life and is currently a reading expert at the primary school I attended when I was a child, working in a room connected to the library.
Not long ago, the library decided to update their database and switch to electronic systems, which made the Dewey Decimal card catalog method, which many of us grew up with, obsolete.
She was so eager to get a bite out of their well.
The old card video rack that was discarded during the renovation thought that her fledgling manufacturer\'s son might use it one day.
Years later, as an aspiring Carpenter, it\'s time for me to think about this and make aof-a-
Recycling furniture centered on the furniture of my alma mater.
Seeing that this is a unit of five drawers, I naturally tend to have the idea of turning it into some sort of table and the size of it (33\" x 17\")
Tailored for coffee tables.
See, this is a recycled piece of wood.
In a way, part of my childhood
I want to integrate recycled wood in the rest of the design.
So every part of this table is made of recycled or scrap and I\'m excited about it coming out.
As always, I would like to hear any questions, ideas and suggestions in the message board section at the bottom, when you have finished reading, please take a moment to vote for my project in the recycling contest and furniture contest at the top of this page!
In order to see more of my work on my journey to become a carpenter, please give me a tracking on instagram at @ sexywithpowertools shere, which is my planerJointerTable saw on this project (
Have cross sledge and cone pull fixture)
Oblique cut SawRouter TableBrad nailerbital woodworking Sander and sand PaperBelt SanderCard ScraperBeadlock JigClamps (
Parallel, bar and F-style)Drill and BitsGRR-
Tape and double sides of RipperPropane TorchCraft SyringePainter
Double sided TapeMaterials: old book catalog card rackreclaim LumberGeneral complete armR-
Semi-sealing system for epoxy resin sealing (105)and Hardener (205)
Mineral SpiritsWood Glue3/month \"pin plug-ins safety gear (
Goggles, respirator, hearing protection)
Rubber gloves and shop towelsShirt Fabric (
Application completed)Ketchup (I know. . . keep reading. . . )
A few months ago, one of my neighbors provided me with several pallets and he has been sitting in the garage for many years.
Of course, I hesitate to accept them because (
Like many of you.
I have enough pallet wood in my garage for my own pile. . .
But he has something special.
Most pallets are made of heat treated pine wood, and almost all of them are the same except for some cosmetic effects. (
Note: Please take a look at my tray Bible notes for more information on finding, checking and building with pallet wood. )
However, these pallets are made with a different variety of hardwood floors that I have never seen anywhere else.
I took a plane to one of the boards and learned what was laid under a rough, dyed surface and was shocked by the unique texture patterns and features of the wood.
I gladly accepted the two pallets and kept them neatly in my garage until the project came along.
I\'m still not sure what Wood these pallets are made.
I did some research, asked friends of the wood work, the online community and my local hard wood shop, and got a variety of possible species.
The most common advice is mahogany, while others have confidence in jatoba, blackwood, or some of the less common oak.
There are no stamps on these pallets, which means that they may have been in history for decades, so if they are these non-
Domestic hard wood recommended to me.
The recognition problem here is that the features vary greatly from plate to plate, some of which have several dark black stripes.
These are caused by the phenol reaction in the wood because the Daning in the wood interacts with the iron oxide deposited by the hardware (
DingTalk and brackets)
Used to assemble pallets.
This leads to some notable features that combine with the wild gain pattern, resulting in the production of truly unique wood.
Anyway, my rambling about timber identification, it\'s time to start working.
I use the combination of a crowbar, a mallet, and a saw to separate the pallet plate from the string bar, and then remove any and all metal from these shards.
Because I am going to use planks and longitudinal beams in this project and need to grind them to the right size with joints and planing beds, I can\'t take the chance to tear my cutting head with any small nails or metal pieces.
Cheap hand-held metal detectors ensure that there is no hidden metal in this wood.
Carpentry is a key machine that does not exist in my shop, so I went to my friend\'s shop to start the milling process.
Before returning to my store, I used his carpentry from American woodworking machinery in early 1940s to flatten one face and one edge of each board and iron ring.
I used my shaved bed to grind all the boards to 3/4 thick, my longitudinal beam (
All I need is a table leg)
To 1/2 square meters.
Then I used my table saw to tear the boards and legs to the final size (
11 3/4 \"leg length, board length 33 \").
With the grinding size of the top board, it\'s time to attach them together.
I recently worked in a friend\'s garage shop to discuss the carpentry, and he suggested that I go and check out the Beadlock carpentry fixture to complete simple carpentry tasks like this desktop.
There are many ways to connect these parts together: Mao and Mao, pin, biscuit joint, pocket screw, and so on.
Mao and Mao are the most reasonable methods of structure, which combines the strength of the pin with the easy alignment of the biscuit.
However, cutting these by hand is a difficult task, requiring superb skills and patience, as well as cutting machines for D-type carpentry (
Like Festool dominoes)
It can be very expensive for amateur carpentry.
The Beadlock system is cheap and offers joints that are easy to copy and work very fast.
All you need is a drill bit, some of the mugs with fixtures and wood glue, and you have the perfect joint on your board.
I bought a 3/8 Beadlock kit for about $40 and was very happy.
After marking my connection point on the surface of the board with straight edges, I drilled the hole with a fixture and cut some 3/8 of the material into length (
I went deep into every edge of the board for my mortises 3/4)
, Rounded on the edges of these tension to help them slide more easily into their mortises, apply some wood glue and fix them in the appropriate position.
When bonding with a multi-plate laying plane, I recommend using some clips on the surface of the plate to ensure that there is no bending during the bonding process.
After the glue was dry, I took out the excess extrusion with a spatula and made a rough sanding on my track Sander with 80 sands.
I deliberately cut the boards into length and plan to put the old nail holes on the tray on the table because I think this adds to the beauty of recycled wood.
I decided to fill these holes with epoxy and will use two
Epoxy resin and hardening agent-my go-
For any type of hole/crack/void filling in the wood.
Since the nail holes go through the board all the time, I need to close the bottom of the hole to prevent the epoxy from coming out of the bottom.
The standard blue painters tape is perfect for this situation, as long as you apply a lot of pressure when laying the tape to ensure a solid seal is obtained.
You also want to clear these nail holes and remove any dust, debris or loose wood before filling.
After solving these problems, I mixed the two parts of the epoxy resin together to make sure to stir the mixture thoroughly.
Depending on the type of blank I want to fill, I apply this epoxy in various ways in my project.
In this case, I will use a small process syringe to inject the epoxy resin into the hole from the bottom.
This will help drain most of the air out of the hole and help reduce any internal bubbles you may encounter.
Still, after filling these holes, there will always be some small bubbles in your epoxy and there are several ways to remove them.
First of all, be sure to pour the epoxy resin generously-
Bubbles rise up to the top, and if they harden before you eliminate them, you will gouge them off or polish them anyway.
Secondly, after you fill these things up, give some good complaints to your work surface with your fist --
This will help stir some hidden bubbles to the surface.
Finally, there is a flame source at hand when doing epoxy work.
I use a small propane torch, but the torch lighter is OK with even the BBQ lighter.
Gently pass the flame briefly onto the epoxy filler to ensure that enough heat is not applied to cure the epoxy
You will see bubbles coming out soon.
Make your epoxy cured for about a day and it\'s hard to touch.
Use a sander or a flat surface to scrape off the excess until it is flush with the wood surface.
You may encounter small bubbles hidden in hardened epoxy (
As I did in the picture above)
, You can blow out the dust inside and fill it with a little epoxy.
After we have assembled the desktop, we will proceed with some other steps, and we will re-read the building when it needs to be done.
I wanted to build my table legs with the same recycled material as my desktop, so I used the thicker pallet string.
Grind them to 2.
5 \"square x 11 3/4\", I know I want to design the legs into a rectangle that is more interesting than a normal rectangle.
I decided to gradually refine the bottom 2/3 of the legs a few degrees, at least to make them smoother and to draw the eyes from the floor to the table.
There are several different ways to cut them to a certain angle and you can do that with almost any saw.
The safest and most accurate way to complete a slight angle on these legs is to use a cone clamp on the table saw, which allows you to safely secure the legs in the appropriate position, at the same time, the cutting can be repeated easily every time.
There are a lot of cone clamp designs and guides there, including some very good designs and guides on youtube.
After doing a bit of research, I decided to adopt an adjustable fixture design with a triangle, which you can see on the Web, would be good for my purpose.
I\'m not going to build this fixture because you can find a detailed guide in a few other places.
I decided I wanted my leg to start with the foot of the leg and transition from 2.
5 \"square to 1.
5 \"square at the foot.
After drawing this on one side of a leg and aligning this mark with straight edges on my table saw, I aligned the cone clamp at this angle (
It is measured about. 5° of slope)
Tighten the bolts.
I can now repeat this cut using GRR-accurately, with a total of 16 repetitions on all four sides of all table legs
The Ripper push block safely maintains the position of the leg during the cutting process.
Now that the legs are cut, I want to fix the nail holes of these legs with epoxy in the same way I did for the desktop in the last step.
The only difference here is that the holes don\'t go through the pieces all the time, but there are holes across the side and the holes are in the middle of the legs, which means I have to make them Harden twice, not once.
When all the holes were filled, I quickly cleaned off all my legs with my desktop Sander with excess epoxy and rough sand, and also cleaned the lines from the tapering cut.
After doing this, I still feel like the legs can be improved using more design-
They just didn\'t jump out to me.
Since doing any decorative engraving is beyond my current skill range, I chose to use a little bit on the router table to mount some small woods on my legs, although be careful not to cut anything that will interfere with my plan to use a PIN to connect my legs to the body of the table.
I set up a 1 \"round bit on my router table to cut this groove and lift that bit to 3/8 \".
I offset the fence on the router table, put this directly in the middle of my leg, and then continue to route out the grooves on all four faces of all legs.
If I didn\'t have a prominent design before, I definitely have it now.
This groove fits very well with the cone of the leg, as the groove will slowly disappear as you look further down the leg.
The last step on the leg is drilling holes for the carpentry.
To do this, I want to create a fixture that I can use on all four legs and table bases to make sure all pin pins match correctly during the final assembly.
I cut a 1/2 square foot 3/4 \"ply that fits perfectly on the top of the table legs and marks a square on this piece from 5/8\" per edge.
The intersection of these lines is where I drill, which makes enough gaps in the grooves on the legs.
I mark the hole positions with the punch and drill out 5/16 holes on the fixture to accommodate the pins I am going to use.
If there is any slight error in hole alignment, I mark each face of the fixture with T or L (
Make sure the fixture is positioned correctly at the top of the table or leg)
And pay attention to which two edges of the fixture will be on the angle facing the outside.
With some double sided tape, I attach the fixture to the leg, drill out all the pin holes, and use some blue painter\'s tape on the drill to make sure the proper hole depth.
The legs are now completed and ready to be completed.
Go to the drawer now.
The original drawer had a wooden panel with some brass hardware attached to a plastic base suitable for storing the old library catalogue card.
I would definitely like to upgrade these and throw away the cheap plastic so I decided to use the last few pallet boards (
Especially those table panels that are not cut through)
Make new drawers.
Since the slots for these drawers are very specifically built into the table base, I have to build these slots precisely in order to ensure good fit.
I took off the surface of the drawer and put all the brass hardware on one side --
I will go back to these later in the guide.
It is at this point that I decide whether to patch the main body of the table, that is, the card catalog.
The exterior of this piece is made of oak and there is a cheaper cork inside.
The color of this oak and its finish are not exactly the same as the finished color of my desktop and legs.
I took the face of a drawer and polished the edges with a light hand to see if I could know what the unfinished color was.
Unfortunately, oak has a natural color similar to the finished product, and this old finished product may be a shellac that doesn\'t add too much color to the wood.
So my choice is to have it done as it is now, or peel off the old finish and use a darker stain on it.
I chose the previous option and will keep the base look the last few decades.
I crushed the wood inside the drawer just to make it level and don\'t worry about the size at this point.
I then ripped off a series of 3/8 \"2 1/2\" width bars for the drawer border.
The side panel will be 16 1/4 long and the back panel will be 5 5/8 long.
The cross-head sledge on the table saw is ideal, as you can set up a block that can be cut repeatedly each time and ensure a perfect 90 degree cut.
If you haven\'t had it before, I highly recommend that you build your own cross sledge
For me, this is a game that changes the rules of the game and there are many guides on the web that design your own.
I am now starting to cut the bottom of the drawer from some 1/4 scrap on my Wood truck.
It\'s time to sand. . .
Then do some polishing. . .
Then you understand.
To make sure I didn\'t remove too much material, I polished all of this with my hands instead of on my Sander.
When the drawer is ready for assembly, I collect all the materials together.
I will use the wood glue and my convenient new electric Brad DingTalk (
I get tired of having to light my air compressor every time I need to drive a few nails. . . )
In order to assemble these boards, because these pieces are too thin for any woodpile Joiner, I don\'t have enough confidence in my Yanwei joiner to build five worth of drawers. . .
I applied a lot of glue on one of the side plates, and when I placed the first side plate, supported the bottom with another plate, guaranteed 90 ° angle with Carpenter Square, and fix the glue together with a few brad nails when it dries.
I then connected the second side block in the same way and followed up with the back panel.
I clean up the glue as much as I can, then rinse and repeat it four times.
The dilemma now is how to connect the panel because I don\'t want to cut or nail the surface of the drawer.
I chose to test a simple adhesive butt joint for this work and will discuss this in a minute.
Since the part of the plate I connect the panel to is a short of a short amount, I need to get as much glue as possible in this joint.
After queuing up, I tightened it firmly with a parallel clip to make these things dry overnight.
After taking them out of the clip the next day, I did several stress tests because it was a weak joint, assuming that if there was a lot of pressure on the surface, I can simply come up with another way without losing anything.
However, I was surprised by the strength of this joint and could not remove the panel --
Even if the pressure is great
I polished all the drawers (
Panel, of course)
Around the corner, improve the sliding function of the drawer (
I will add some paste wax to the bottom of these drawers to help them slide).
After a quick test, they all slip comfortably into the drawer slot of the base!
The final step in the drawer construction is to clean up the original hardware and restore it to a previously shiny state.
These drawers have been pulled for ten years.
I don\'t want to completely remove the worn petina on them, but I want to remove some surface staining and make them bright. Store-
Buying a brass cleaner would be more than I wanted, so I decided to use a more natural solution.
I heard that tomato acid was used to clean the brass, so I took a Tupperware container and filled it with drawer hardware and tomato sauce in the fridge.
After soaking for about 45 minutes, I removed the pull with a rag and scrubbed it under warm water.
This does a good job of keeping the aging properties of brass while removing all the dirt.
My motto in carpentry has always been: \"I like carpentry and I hate polishing.
\"Although this has become less annoying, there is not much time --
As I become more efficient in the sanding and finish preparation process, it still takes a lot of time to polish all surfaces to prepare the finish.
The table top, drawers and legs all need to be thoroughly polished with more and more rough sandpaper, and I use a random track Sander for most of my work.
So far, all of these parts have been rough ground once or another with 80 or 100 of the sand, usually after grinding or cleaning the epoxy on the planing bed.
I continue to polish them to a finer surface, starting with 120 of the sand, then 150 of the sand, and then 180 of the sand.
This will provide a very smooth surface without most defects, which I have done manually with some 220 sheets.
The completion process is very tactile, with a great focus on hand feel, so I recommend using your free hand to feel the work piece while grinding and going back to any rough place or raised grain you may encounter
With all this sand grinding, I will move in and apply a clear coat.
At this time of year, New England is too cold to have proper treatment outside, leaving my garage store to do the process will give me a better chance, avoid dust or sand debris settling on debris when the finish is dry.
Obviously, most of the finishes you will encounter have smoke and you don\'t want to expose yourself to smoke, so the respirator is a must and you \'d better work in a well ventilated environment. .
When using any type of wipe
I prefer to use the old t-on varnish or finish-
Rectangular shirt fabric.
The rag you buy in the store usually has a problem with small pieces of lint, and the brush or sponge will leave lines on your surface that you have to be very careful about. Some old t-
Shirt fabrics are perfect for this task and I fold their edges and make them thick cushions to absorb a lot of finishes.
Now, there are a number of finishing strategies where the type of wood and finish you are working on can completely change the process.
My favorite finish is the universal finish for the armsR-Seal semi-
Gloss wipe on varnish
I find it easy to work with me and always get good results.
While I will go through the steps I have taken to complete the completion process, I would like to point out to you where I have developed a basic completion strategy.
Matt Cremona, one of my woodworking idols, has a great video on youtube about wiping with varnish, so please check out some valuable tips and detailed instructions.
I first wiped the surface of all my pieces with a rag soaked in mineral spirits.
This is a great way to remove all the sanding dust on your debris and clean the surface to reach the finish.
Your first layer of varnish will soon be soaked with Wood as the wood is very thirsty at this step.
Apply a large amount of finish on the surface with a rag, wipe it in, and then go back to where it looks more soaked than elsewhere.
Note: For a piece like a desktop, you will be done on both sides, always done first on the \"less important\" side (
Also known as the bottom of the table, the back of the panel, etc).
If you use the painter pyramid like me, they can leave tiny marks on the side of the top of the pyramid, so you want to finally coat your main side.
With the finish on the wood, I like to pick up the rag and gently wipe along the pattern of straight overlap throughout the length of the table.
This eliminates any pattern in the wood finish and ensures a uniform coating.
It takes a few hours to finish this (
See your complete can for instructions)
So hopefully you have some other projects to do at the same time. . .
When you go back to completely dry and not dry
The surface is tacky and it\'s time for more polishing. With 400-
600 sandpaper, you will want to polish the finish surface very lightly enough to smooth any scratches or defects on the surface.
I suggest using the texture of the wood to avoid any trace of the vortex.
Now you will need to repeat the above steps several times.
Clean up a little mineral spirits that Polish dust, a lighter finish coating (
It\'s all about slowly building a finish on several coats)
, Let it dry and gently polish to remove the flaws.
I put a total of four coats on my desktop, two on my legs and one in the drawer.
When you\'re done, you should have a pretty smooth surface without any bumps or nibs.
If you have any problems, do it with a 1000 sandpaper.
It\'s time for me to go ahead and assemble, but keep in mind that if you\'re not happy with your end, you can always polish it down and start over.
Back in my shop, it\'s time to put everything together.
I initially decided that I wanted some sort of border on this table to hide the seams between the desktop and wanted to use metal instead of wood.
I\'m not a welder, so I took my plan to a local welding shop to see if they can assemble a quick border for me.
They want the job for $150 which is out of my price range as there is only one decorative element on this table. . .
I\'m happy with the look of this table with no borders, but once I get my flux core welding platoon up to standard, I\'ll probably come back to this later.
Now, on the leg.
Assuming the holes are drilled correctly, everything should be perfectly combined (
Spoiler alert: they are! )
, So apply a flat plate on some wood glue, place the pin in the hole, and then clamp everything to dry for about an hour.
Due to the difficulty of cleaning up the dry glue on the leg/table seams, I carefully went as much as possible to remove the moisture glue with wet shop towels.
There are several factors to consider on the desktop.
The most important thing here is the wood movement.
Even if the old wood expands and shrinks during the change of the season, if this is not considered, it will cause your woodworking project to break and be destroyed.
So I don\'t want to use the wood glue that would limit the movement of the wood in all directions.
The option here is to use the diagram-
8 fasteners, fixing my desktop in place while allowing the wood to move.
I used a 5/8 forstner drill bit to punch a hole at the top of the bottom of my desk and attached two drawings-
8s there, fix them in place with mallets and connect them with screws.
This method is especially easy because I can get into the bottom of the desktop through the base, so I insert the rest of the screws there and the desktop is securely connected. Lastly, I re-
Connect the brass drawer, pull and insert the drawer.
Before moving the table back, I did the last light sanding with 1000 sandpaper, wiping everything with a very small amount of mineral spirits, just to clean up any dust on the debris.
I can tell you patiently.
The finished desktop is almost the smoothest thing you can imagine.
The table is now ready in its new home. ------------------------------------------------------
This project is very interesting, let me start again
Put an article from my elementary school on a table and I can stick with it for the next few years.
The building contains several different types of carpentry, and this is the first time I have had the opportunity to grind wood in my garage, forcing me to come up with some creative design ideas to bring the final product to life.
Thanks for reading, again I welcome all questions/ideas/suggestions in the comments section below.
I would also like to thank you very much for your vote in the recycling contest and furniture contest in the box at the top of this page.
Happy woodworking!
