HGTV... I do not think that means, what you think it means...

Baen Books editor Toni Weisskopf writes:

Toni WeisskopfSince when did hideous 1950s decor become "mid-century modern." (Confessions of an HGTV addict.)

It isn't and never will be...

The sort of garbage that she is talking about, which HGTV, and bad realtors, will often call "mid century modern", would be... Say, fake wood paneling, geometric green couches, red plastic "organic"chairs etc...

They're the cheap mass produced awful imitations of the style, with no grace, proportion etc...

They're lime green, seafoam, or "pink coral" bathroom (I bet you thought that sort of horrible bad taste came from the 1970s didn't you).

It's... whatever you would call this:

That's not really Mid century modern.

Mid Century Modern is Eames, Nakashima, the Philco Predicta etc...

Mid century modern is an aesthetic that emphasizes the fusion of clean geometric and organic shapes and lines. It's about deriving style from shape, form, and texture (and particular the textures of wood, metal, and leather); with limited, or no, ornamentation.

This is what good mid-century modern decor looks like:

It's an aesthetic I quite like in general, though it can be taken too far, and there are many poor imitations.

Monkeypod (used badly), shag, flocking, fake brass and fake chrome, are NOT mid century modern.

I like GOOD mid century modern, for it's simplicity and functionality.

Unless we're talking serious hand crafted, beautiful wood antiques, I like clean and simple design. Blending of the geometric with the organic, comfortable, functional, and with little ornamentation.

I'm not a huge Eames fan specifically; he could have a tendency to be... overly clever shall we say... but he's the only major American designer of the period most people have ever heard of, so he makes a good exemplar.

I grew up in a New England town that was founded in the 1630s, and boomed as Boston grew; and it shaped my aesthetic and architectural appreciation greatly.

The architecture I grew up with was largely Colonial, Federal, or Georgian on the older side (including two of the oldest standing homes in the united states); with a few queene anne or "victorian" (and very little gingerbread), a lot of craftsman and shingle style, and a smattering of mid century modern, and late century contemporary.

The house I grew up in was an almost prototypical Craftsman house, built in 1913. It had 12 foot plaster ceilings, knee to above head height divided light oak mullion windows, wide oak floors, plaster and lath walls with solid oak (not veneer) wainscoting and chair rails, built in cabinets and closets, baseboards and crown moldings etc...

It didn't use modern mill cut 2x4 pine studs for framing, it had BIG solid oak and california redwood timbers under the plaster and lath (I don't think any of the walls were less than 6" thick, and some were 8" or more).

The foundation of the house wasn't concrete; the back side of it was carved into a granite hillside, and the front side from the hill forward, was mortared granite block.

I LOVE that architecture. It's beautiful, warm, and organic, while still being clean and functional.

What I hate is overly decorated, gingerbready stuff. I hate odd colors or textures just for the sake of being different. Trendy colors and shapes... Style, or impact, prioritized over function.

Too often, that's what American architecture and industrial design WAS, from the late 1930s... and particularly from the late 1950s... through the early 90s.

Wood Butchery - "Free" style

Wood Butchery - v. def:
1. An amusing and self deprecating reference to high quality hand crafted woodwork
2. Rough carpentry, low quality, fast, and cheap

Normally, when I refer to my woodworking projects as wood butchery, it's in the sense of definition one. Frankly, I'm seriously anal about... well, just about everything I do... but in particular I'm anal about doing high quality artisan work.

I spend a lot of time and effort making sure what comes out of my shop, and off my bench, is the best work I can possibly produce; with the highest quality materials and finishes.

...But sometimes, you just need to do a little bit of quick and dirty carpentry... Like today for example.

After a wonderful indian summer here in North Idaho (days have been in the 60s 'til a few days ago; much warmer, much later in the year, than is normal); the weather has finally turned, and it's getting cold.

Although they've been wrong each time, the weather people have been predicting snow the last few days. I was pretty sure they'd be wrong Sunday and Monday (we had cold rain, but no snow), but I'm expecting the snow to show up in the next few days... Possibly tonight, or tomorrow.

As it happens, I've got 2 cords of three year split and seasoned; silver, black, and white birch firewood; sitting stacked under tarps, on top of my shooting platforms (they were convenient when I was dropping the wood off last fall), behind the house.

Unfortunately, behind the house is a pretty bad location for it; particularly when it's been snowing. Also, it gets in the way of the plowing of my driveway and parking area (and takes up a good bit of said area etc... etc... ).

... in case you weren't aware, north Idaho can get some pretty serious snowfall.

So, at this point, we have to get the firewood out of the big bulk pile it's been in, and stack it neatly in firewood racks that are convenient to our entry doors; and we have to do it in the next day or two.

Now, the original plan was to build some firewood racks from dimensional lumber and plywood this spring and summer. I even bought the lumber etc... And had the plywood for six racks rough cut to my desired dimensions (96" width, by 48" height, by 16" depth; enough to hold one face of a cord under the top, plus a benchtop surface to work on, stack kindling on etc... The six would have held both cords).

Unfortunately, my cancer had other plans; and I didn't manage to get the job done before I got too sick to do it; and I haven't got around to it since.

As it happens, we have a local business about a mile down the road from us, that gets a couple hundred pallets in a month. So many that they put out stacks of pallets free for the taking about once a month.

We're not talking the worlds greatest pallets here. They're in all different sizes and all different qualities of construction; but I find a lot of use for them around the property; and worst case, they're good enough to break up for firewood for the cast iron wood stove in my shop.

I've had a stack of about 12 relatively decent pallets sitting in a stack beside my shop for the past couple months; and there just happened to be four identical ones sitting there.

Perfect for making a couple of big firewood bins, with some quick and dirty wood butchery.

The trick to building things out of pallets, is to find ones that are as close to identical as possible to act as bases. The length and width aren't 100% critical, because you can pad those out with 1by, 1by, and 4x dimensional lumber easy enough; but all the pallets on the same side, need to be exactly the same width.

So, I could have taken all four of the identical ones and made the bins from them; but instead, I decided to make two bins, using two of the identical pallets each.

So, step one is to gather your tools and materials:

• Two identical pallets for the base
• Two "pretty close" pallets for the sides (more on that below)
• Ten 8' 2x4 sticks of dimensional lumber (pressure treated is preferred, but not required)
• One 8' 4x4 (optional, but possibly useful for cutting reinforcement blocks)
• About a gross of 3" deck screws (about 1.5lbs)
• A few 4" deck screws (optional, but may be useful)
• A drill, preferably corded, and with a quick change drill/driver set (or two drills set with one of each)
• A circular saw, recip saw, trim saw, table saw, flush cut saw, or miter saw; to trim the 2x4s to length

Next thing we do is join the pallets together at the front, screwing a toe rail in to the pallet blocks; and creating a reference plane that all other measurements and angles will be set from.

If you're using pressure treated lumber you can just let the toe rail rest on the ground. For several reasons, I prefer to have it set above ground level; so I blocked the rail up with another 2x4 laid flat, and then screwed the rail in. Conveniently, that put the top of the toerail at the same height as the pallet frame.

I did the same on the back side, but I wanted to have a ledge on the back to keep the bottom layer of wood from sliding out, so I used a 2x4 laid on its edge as the spacer; and I only screwed it in at the center to join both pallets (that's important right now. You only want the side pallets fastened to the front rail for now).

This let me slide the side pallets in, with enough tension to hold them while I screwed them in on the front side (what I was about to do here):

As I said above, the side pallets can be "pretty close", instead of identical; so long as at least one side of each pallet you want to use for the sides, is within about 3/8 of the depth of the base (the advantage of wood butchery over precision woodworking).

Of course, the disadvantage of not using identical pallets, is that you have to compensate for the differences in dimensions.

In this case, I had two pallets that were within 3/8" on depth, but to do so they had to run in different directions. Also, one pallet was 3" shorter than the other when oriented in that dimension

Also, pallets come in many different designs. Some are only screwed (or stapled, or nailed) together with boards; some have boards and blocks. Pallets without blocks (as the smaller pallet I'm using as a right side above) don't give you a lot of surface to join wood to.

So, we pad out the height with two lengths of 2x4 (32-5/8" in this case), screwed into the top rail of the short pallet.

You can screw through both at once with 4" deck screws (2x4's are actually 1.5", giving you an inch of bite on the rail); or you can offset screw them one layer at a time (which is what I did here. Just make sure you offset the laminating screws from where you're going to want to screw any cross pieces etc..):

Then I had to cut some screw blocks. Normally I'd use a 4x4 here, but since I had already cut 65" out of another 2x4, I decided to just cut the blocks from that. I wouldn't use them for a real load bearing structure, but they'll be plenty strong enough for a side wall when used as doubling blocks over an existing rail:

The one thing about using 2x4 blocks, is that you'll definitely want to predrill  to avoid splitting. You might want to do that with a 4x4 block anyway (to avoid splitting, and to make driving the screws easier), but it isn't 100% necessary most of the time.

Actually, in general, you may want to pre-drill for those same reasons; but depending on your wood, your screws, and your drill, you may not want to bother.

Also, on the base corners, you're going to want to double your blocks, pre-drill, and screw through both with 4" deck screws (and obviously, be careful to properly offset your screws, so that you don't hit the screws coming from the side through the blocks, with the screws coming in from the rails):

In general, you would prefer to situate the blocks so that you're not screwing into endgrain in either direction; but this pallet was about 1/8" too thick for me to block it in that direction, and had to cut the blocks to 3-5/8" (then trim them down by like 1/2 a kerf on the blade to actually get them into position).

From there, it's just a matter of setting the rails on the back and top, and screwing the backside corners down.


Set your top rail on your back corners first, then screw a ledger rail on to that, making a 90 degree corner; and screw through that ledger rail into the two side pallets.

Unfortunately, it was getting too dark for me to get pics of that... So I'll finish it up tomorrow morning, and get the rest of the pics up then.

Shop Talk, Part 2 - Tool Time, Episode 1

Ahhh, it's a few minutes til Friday, and my plan is to finish setting up my shop tomorrow and Saturday; and maybe get some small projects done by Monday.

Now, as I said, I've got a decent, but not huge, space to use; my two+ car garage (it's not quite big enough for a three car, but it's bigger than a standard 2 car).  I've got 672 square feet on the ground floor; about 512 of it free space, clear of walls, stairs, and builtins.

Not bad.. and certainly a lot better than things have been. In Arizona my "shop" was my front "porch" (actually a converted single car car port) and a 12x12 E-Z-UP style pavilion.

In Arizona.

In summer...

Yeah... I didnt get much done between May and October.

Now I've got a decent space, that I could theoretically heat and cool (though neither are in place as of yet); with both a regular entry door and a nice big garage door; and an upstairs loft for wood storage etc...

So... What am I going to fill that space in with?

Oh yay, we get to have some tool porn.

So, I've been accumulating tools for a while; but I never wanted to make a big investment in the fixed "anchor" tools, until I had a real shop... in fact, since this house is just a rental (albeit one we plan to spend at least two years in), I still don't.

BUT... I also want to do a bunch of precision work. I'm going to be using this shop to build a BUNCH of furniture for our house, plus patio furniture, to build a playset for the kids, to help convert my 28 foot race trailer into a toy hauler (yay, custom cabinetry and benchwork), to restore an old wooden boat or two, and maybe to build a new one or two as well.

So I really need some decent quality tools. I really can't get by with what I was working with.... Or at least I wouldn't be able to put up with the frustrating difficulty of getting it done using that stuff. It's time for REAL tools to work with (if not necessarily the ones I'll have as my primary tools when I have a permanent shop that I build from scratch)

The Anchor Tools

In every wood shop, there are some fundamental or perhaps foundational tools. I tend to think of them as anchor tools... Basically, they are the big, important tools, you really don't want to do without.

The most important tool in a wood shop, is the table saw. Without a table saw, it isn't a wood shop. Really, everything else is convenient, and nice to have, but optional.

Theoretically, you can do MOST of what a table saw will do, with a circular saw, a router, and some hand tools... but you really don't want to do without a good table saw.

In a close tie for second place, are a miter saw, and a band saw. You CAN do the jobs they do with other tools (hand saws, jig saws, circular saw); but your life is going to be a lot harder without them.

Next up is a drill press. Again, you can do most of what a drill press will do using hand and handheld power drills; but it will be slower, less precise, and a hell of a lot harder... And trust me, you dont want to hand drill a few dozen regularly spaced holes in hardwood.

Those are the tools I consider absolutely essential (not including the hand power tools like drills and sanders etc...). There are another couple of tools that are optional, but HIGHLY desirable.

First among these, are the jointer and planer. If you're going to do any furniture making, or other finish carpentry, you really must have either a large number of hand planes, and table saw and router jigs; or a jointer and planer.

The jointer and planer (and you really need both; though with a large jointer, and a good sander and router with the right jigs; you can do without the planer for smaller stock 6" wide and under) allow you to mill your lumber down close to finish dimensions, and make it strait, fair, and true... critical for any fine work.

Also optional but very useful, is a combo disc and belt sander. This lets you move the stock, rather than the sander; for working on large flat surfaces, stock removal, and the edges of pieces.

A "nice to have", that has only recently become affordable for the home woodworker, is the wide belt or wide drum thickness sander. This is a lot like a planer, but instead of cutting knives, it has a wide sanding belt or drum; that will rough sand the surface of the wood you are milling. They ARE rather expensive however. Most woodworkers don't have them yet; but I'm willing to bet that in 10 years, there will be more people with drum sanders, than with planers. People are already starting to give up their planers in favor of buying an equivalent capacity and quality sander (they cost about the same).

The final big "really nice to have" is a dedicated dust collection system. You can always run your shop vac over to each tool as you use it; but they aren't actually all that good at pulling dust, and doing that is a real pain in the ass. You're much better off with a dedicated dust collection system. They start off relatively cheap (in the $250 range), but can easily run into several thousand dollars.

Then there's a third category of  "man, that'd be handy, but I can do it some other way".

In that category, I'd put a router table (for dadoes, rabbets, and edge shaping, but can be done with a router and jig), drum and spindle sanders (for edge sanding, but can be done with a drill press and jig), and a dedicated mortising machine (which you can also do with a jig and drill press).

A bit of a special case is the wood lathe. If you're going to do turning, it's not optional; if you're not going to turn you don't need one... I think every shop should have one, but it's something you can put off until you specifically want to do some turning.

Molders and shapers are similar, in that if you aren't going to do a lot of beading or molding, you can get away without them (using your router, router table, a molding/shaping head in your planer etc..), but if you are, you need'em.

In Arizona, I got by with a 10" benchtop saw with a floor stand (not really a contractors saw), a 10" benchtop bandsaw (WAY too small), a 10" direct drive miter saw, a 10" benchtop drill press, a benchtop belt and disc sander, a 4" benchtop jointer, and a 12" benchtop planer.

The sad part is, that's still $1300 worth of tools (oh and it wasn't intentional buying all craftsman, I got them all at different times... it just sort of happened that way)... and all of them will get the job don... just not as well, and much less conveniently than better tools. Trying to work with these tools made things a lot more difficult than they had to be. They just didn't have the power, the capacity, or the quality, to get the results I wanted.

Of course, $1300 doesn't quite get you a decent 10" cabinet saw (though you can snag a decent hybrid for a couple hundred less) from a major manufacturer... So there are certainly tradeoffs.

What that means though, is that I knew I'd be buying a lot of new tools to rebuild my shop here in Idaho; and since I knew I was replacing them, I didn't want to carry the smaller/lower quality stuff with us.

So, I sold, gifted, just gave away, or otherwise got rid of the tools I was planning to replace (I kept all my really good tools),or otherwise didn't want, or need, to keep.

Of course, that left me with big gaps to fill.

Time to rebuild...

(to be continued in "Tool Time episode 2", tomorrow).

Shop Talk, Part 1 - 672 Square Feet

By Friday, this 24 foot by 28 foot space:

Will be cleaned up, reorganized, and laid out as my new workshop.

672 Square feet downstairs, plus another 400 square feet or so of usable space upstairs (properly structured, insulated, floored, but not fully finished). Right now there's a good bit of lumber and other random storage up there.

Actually, as laid out, the downstairs has more like 16x26 plus 4x24 usable (512 square feet) clear floor space; giving clearance to the stairs, doors, the wall without the benches, and the benches themselves (which are firmly lag screwed to the wall, and run 22 foot along it. The side door, utility service, and a built in cabinet taking up the rest).

And it looks like whoever built the benches, had a radial arm saw there.

The garage is a pretty good space, with LOTS of outlets. It's got a double or quad 120v box every four feet around the walls; plus six light fixtures. They're on four circuits in a 100 amp separate service from the house... ... But they didn't put a SINGLE 240 drop in the entire garage.

Five 240 circuits in the main house (two in the utility room one to the hot tub, one to the oven, and one to the cooktop), not one in the garage... Which will be corrected shortly.

Now... to figure out the layout... Gotta find a good floorplanning tool.

Splinters...

So, I didn't have a BAG day gun this year... Mostly because we bought two home defense guns just before I moved: a new AR carbine, and a Saiga 12 conversion (I'll do some pics of those soon). Then moving went almost $8000 over planned expenditures and I am broke for the month of April (plus all my March bonus for 2009 is bye bye).

...But...

I did find something on tax day this year... something very interesting... and I got to check it out and make the purchase decision today (we'll be picking it up from the owner, with cash in hand, after my next check).

Knowing I didn't have the money yet, but wanting to keep abreast of things, I'd been scanning the local nicklesworth,and craigslist, for boat ads. A very interesting one popped up on tax day... and now... well...

Here are some pics of my new project: An all wood 1970 Carver Custom Cruiser.

It's similar to the '69 Monterey 2580, but  I've got the original dealer bill of sale and options sheet (and all the original user manuals, and the first 10 years of records, which is very cool), and it's labeled as a "Carver 25' Custom Cruiser", not a "Carver Monterey 2580"; and the builders plate doesn't have a model or series number.

I think it might have been a hull that was assembled with power in '69 (the stern drive is a '69 OMC. I've got the original manual for that too); but wasn't completed, as a '69 leftover, until 1970.

It's FULLY optioned up, with all the optional hull and cabin teak, the extra instruments (aqua meter including compass and depth sounder), electric windshield wipers, the chrome horn, the monomatic electric head, the propane stove, shore power, the teak steps and boarding ladder (the ladders not mounted at the moment), ALL the factory canvas (mildew free, amazingly), the extra handrails and "custom" bowrail, even the original curtains, and the contrasting top stripe on the hull (though it's been repainted since).

Everything is there, everything is functional, and most of it is in pretty good shape.

Here's the link to the factory brochure from 1969 (Carver is a great company, and they really appreciate their history. Warning, PDF). Here's the 2580 page from the brochure:

It's got an OMC 210hp motor (a GM 307 small block V8); and the last owner put in a new carb and exhaust logs. The motor runs strong, and clean, and sounds good.

The hull is sound with no rot, and just a few sprung or loose planks (easy fixes), and the wood is in great shape.

I did screwdrivers tests all over the hull inside and out, and didn't find a single soft spot in any structural or cosmetic wood (some of the plywood decking was a bit week, but not rotten); though there are some rubrail repairs and patches made with the wrong screws. 

It runs, doesn't need much pumpout (like any wooden boat, when its out of the water, the wood dries and shrinks; and when you put it back in the water, it will leak a fair bit until the wood swells), doesn't smoke, and doesn't burn oil.

The guy has run it all season for five seasons; he just hasn't had the time or energy to complete the project work... and his wife likes their 28' party barge a lot more.


I picked it up for less than scrappage value (seriously, it wasn't free, but it might as well have been). Oh and the custom trailer comes with it of course...


...WAY below scrappage value...



A functioning stern drive, with a decent condition small block in front of it... at least $1500.
The trailer alone would have cost me more than $1500.

I didn't pay nearly that, for the whole thing.



Now I just need to scrape, sand, seal, and stain or paint; 4000lbs of 40 year old mahogany...

The Saw Stop in Action

The SawStop is a great system. Really, it would be wonderful if it was widely available on every saw. Unfortunately, the owner of the technology won't license it to anyone for less than extorionate rates (as in doubling the cost of a table saw.

Ok, every inventor has the right to make money of their invention, and I wouldn't begrudge the man that, but for one thing: Hee's lobbying congress, and the CPSC (consumer products safety comission) to make SawStop mandatory on all tablesaws in the U.S.

Sorry buddy, it won't fly for the microstamping scumbags either.

The system works, very well in fact; though not with all saw blades (the blade has to be within a certain range of inductance). In fact, sometimesit works a bit too well, in that some woods with resinous saps; and wet wood; will set it off too.

Ooops.

Oh and when it goes off, the saw has to be rebuilt at the cost of from $80 to $300; plus the cost of the blade (and premium saw blades can be very expensive).

Another Workbench Post

So, last time we saw the humble workbench/blogstation, it looked a bit like this:



A bit crowded, a bit messy; not very efficient etc...

Well, over the past few weeks, I've built a second workbench for the gun room (and two for the shed that I haven't built yet, that are currently taking up half my car port).

But that wasn't enough... so a couple days ago, I built a powder hutch

But that wasn't enough... so this morning, I grabbed this riser and cabinet set on sale for $50 (I was going to build one anyway, this saved me some time and money).

and now... well, it's still not enough, but it's a ell of a lot better, and it looks like this:



...and from the other side (the blurred out bit is a wooden cut of my ham call sign):



Most of my frequently used small tools are now within easy reach on the pegboard; the rest are either in drawers under one of the benchtops, or in the rollaway which is about three feet to the left of my chairs position.

Immediately to the left is my ammo storage rack, a six foot five shelf black wire shelving unit. Theres about four feet of space behind my chair position and then a four foot long table, with a "love seat" (which is actually the third row bench from my truck, which we never use) next to it against the wall and two more sets of blackwire shelves the same size and configuration as the ammo shelves; for general storage; one of which has the short end of the table pressed against it.

The whole thing makes a wraparound J from the ammo shelf on one wall, around the benches and love seat, into the rear shelving, and then hooking out with the table. Basically theres a work surface and storage space accessible from every seating position in the room.

I'd get pictures of the rest, but the place is a bit of a mess at the moment. I still havent re-built it form when we destroyed it before and after the Texas trip.

So, still not done... but better.

Oh and the large empty space behind the press and powder measure on the left side of the bench? Yeah pretty soon that press and measure will be gone, replaced with a progressive press. I'm going to build a small portable bench for the other press and measure so that JohnOC can load at home (technically it's his press and measure. I sold them to him like two years ago; but he doesn't have a home workshop space).

I should note, this is just my small project, gunsmithing, and reloading bench. My woodworking area (excepting the scroll saw; which is for fine work) is two 3'x4' flat top heavy work benches, built to te same height as my tablesaw.

Building the Damn Thing

Ok, so a request has been made that I publish a plan, BOM, and instructions on building the cargo box; well here it is in Google Sketchup format, along with views to illustrate construction detail:

This basic box design is shrinkable down to about a 24" long box (any smaller, and you'll want to go to thinner wood), and extensible to about a 4'x8' box; but anything larger than 2'x6' is going to need extra bracing. Instead of just face framing the rim of the box, at six feet, you would add a center strip; and at 8 feet you would add two framing strips, one each 2 feet in from the edges.

BOM for a 60"x20"x24" box:

2x sheets, sanded A-A hard wood plywood (plenty of leftover) - Oak ply appx $40 ea x2 = $80
8x 1"x2"x10' hard wood strips - Red oak appx $8 each x6 = $64 (should be leftover, 8 is just in case)
1x 48" Piano hinge - appx $8 (alternately 4 door or cabinet hinges could be used)
1x padlock hasp - appx $4
2x sash lock - appx $4 ea x2 = $8
2x 28" lengths of a fine chain (used to limit the travel of the top of the box on its hinge)

Fasteners, finish etc...

50x 18ga 3/4" brads
100x 18ga 1" brads
100x 18ga 1-3/8" brads
1x bottle gorilla glue (appx 2oz used)
1x bottle (8oz) resin wood glue
1x can (4oz) Minwax Colonial Walnut (23) "wood finish"
1x can (8oz) marine spar varnish

The total materials costs were around $175 plus or minus a bit including fasteners and finish; but you could substitute cheaper A-C modified plywood and strip poplar and end up at under $120. Also, unless you screw up a lot of cuts, you're going to have plenty of left overs; but they'll be of odd lengths and sizes.

Total construction time including finishing was about 12 hours; but should have been about 8 (I screwed up some of my setups and had to reset them several times).

Construction:

1. Plane the strips down to 1-1/2" x 1/2" exactly

2. Crosscut and rip the ply panels to length using a fine finish plywood blade, and a zero kerf insert, to avoid tearout

3. Run a 3/8" wide rabbett 3/8" deep around all the panels.

4. Using a corner clamp, glue and inset lap the two ends to the front face panel using Gorilla glue or a similar waterproof expanding glue; then cross nail with brads. Repeat for the second side, and then the back. In an inset lap, the front face should completely cover the end grain of the side face when place in position.

5. Flip the box over, careful not to chip the top. Run a gorilla glue bead around the bottom rabbet, and drop the bottom into place, cross nailing once it's in position.

6. Frame miter the oak strips to exactly match the outside dimensions of the box (top front, top sides, and top back face;bottom front, sides, and back face).

You are essentially building two 2" high 1/2" thick picture frames, exactly fitted to the top and bottom rims of the box, and flush and level (if you cant do both, make it level, just below the high spots in the plywood; and we''ll sand flush later).

Glue and brad the face frames in place, including cross nailing into the end grains of the miters. You may want to biscuit, dowel, or joint lock (a specially shaped piece of wood or fastener) the miters instead.

7. Cut the two front, two left side, two right side, and two rear vertical risers; trimmed to fit exactly into the space between the face frames, with a gentle tap with a mallet.

Fit the front and rear face frame risers flush with the outside edge of the top and bottom miter frames, and glue and brad in place. Butt the side face frame risers into the front and rear risers. Glue and brad in place, including cross nailing through the front face, and top rim.

8. Sand the top rim of the box flush and level.

9. place the top on the box, and measure the width from the edge of the top to the outside face of the oak strip frame. It should be 1/2" all the way around. Plane 14 feet of oak strip down to 3/8" thick, and rip in half. then plane the strips to 1/2" x 3/8".

The object here is to end up with a filler strip exactly flush to the top and face frame of the box, and long enough to completely surround it, with miters.

10. glue and brad (use the short brads) the filler strip down to the remaining oak top face frame strips, building an L shaped frame strip.

Alternatively you COULD start with 1.5" or 2" thick stock, then plane and rabbet it down. This would be stronger, and more attractive, but expensive and a lot of work.

11. Using this l shaped frame strip, build a flat mitered frame, butting the filler strip carefully flush to the top rim of the box face frame all the way around; then glue and cross nail it into place.

It is critical that the front and rear frame of the top, be absolutely flush with the face frame of the box; to mount hinges and closures.

Optionally, at this point you may wish to pre-drill and drive a 1" screw into all of the face frame joints, plus one at each end and the middle of the face frame joins to the plywood. (meaning each of the rim strips would have 5 screws - 1 in each miter, 1 at each end of the plywood, and one in the middle of the strip)

12. Allow the glue to dry overnight.

13. Rough and finish sand the entire box, inside and out. Scraping away any excess glue; and rounding all sharp corners.

14. Fill all gaps, cracks, and nail holes with putty filler, or oak flour (you should have enough of it by now) mixed into a filler with thick resin glue, and let dry.

15. Hand rub the entire box, evenly, inside and out with your stain or tinted finish sealer; then buff off after a few minutes. Let dry, and then lightly sand. and tack cloth away the dust. Add another coat if desired.

16. Apply at least three coats of marine spar varnish, or similar water resistant finish; lightly sanding between each coat.

17. Mount the hardware, and test function.

The Damn Thing Is Almost Done - Damn Thing Number One

Said "Damn Thing" being my oak cargo box of course. I was going to finish it yesterday, but I ended up being 18" short of strip oak for the top face frame; because there was a bit more odd length scrap than I planned for.

Anyway, Mel grabbed another stick for me today, and I finished off the wood work after work; did the final sanding, then cleaned sealed, stained, sealed, and put the first coat of spar varnish on the thing.

These pics were taken as the first coat flashed over (the point where the surface has dried, and color has changed).

Oh and the distortion is from the lens and the angles I was taking the pics from, not from the box. I messed up some of the corner joinery (like I said, getting to 1/16th" precision over 60" with a portable table saw is a bit hard, and honestly after I missed the dimensions I didn't bother to try and make it fine joinery), but didn't do THAT bad.

Here's the front:

The two latches are window sash latches, which tighten the top down over a gasket to make a nice tight weather seal. The center latch is a rotating padlock hasp.

Here's the top:

Big SOB aint it. It's a 24"h x19"d x60"l box, made from 3/4" oak plywood with a 1/2" x2" red oak face frame. All panel joints are stair step lap (full lap joints) water proof glued and cross nailed; for strength and water resistance. All face frames are glued and nailed; and I'm going to put some countersunk screws in as well before the next finish coat.

Heres the left front corner with a closer view of the latch, and the chest handle:

And the left rear corner, showing the piano hinge detail (and my poor miter joint):

And the right rear corner, to finish the circle:

Overall I'm pretty happy. It's not furniture quality; but it's huge, it's strong,it's waterproof, and to my eye it looks pretty good. Most importantly, it's ready for the Texas trip.

I'd be done, if I weren't an idiot

With the chest that is.

I ripped and crosscut all the panels (3/4" oak ply) to size this morning (actually early afternoon, and using my new tables, which are working out very well by the way).

Remind me never to try and do precision joinery on large panels ever again, with anything less than a cabinet saw. Trying to get square and trim down to 1/16" over a 5 foot length of two foot wide panel on a saw that barely weighs more than the panel....

Let's just say Ripping these panels to width was not the most pleasant experience, and its one I'd prefer to not repeat.

Then I put a 3/8" rabbet all the way around each panel, so I can inset the floor, and stairstep lap all the corners; both for strength, and for waterproofing.

Once I was done, I started gluing up; using gorilla glue, because it's expanding, gap filling, and water proof. I wet the rabbet, ran the glue bead, spread it, and corner clamped the sides together; then brad nailed the sides together in position (thank god for air nailers) , and move to the next corner.

This is where I made my error.

As I was doing the third corner, after the glue on the other two had already set, I noticed that I screwed up. Because I wasn't paying careful attention (I was chatting with Mel at the same time as I was working) I had screwed up the lap on one of my sides.

I had intended to inset both sides behind the face of the front and back, just like the floor; but instead I had done one inside lap, and one outside lap.

...and they were already well set with a waterproof expanding glue, and cross nailed in place....

Oh joy...

So I knocked the third corner apart (I was halfway done building it) and changed it's lap orientation to keep the box square, so now I've got two inset laps, and two outside laps.

That's OK from a joinery perspective, it's still strong and water proof etc... but it leaves me with a problem...

Remember, I'd already cut and rabbeted the top and bottom to the original dimensions. Well now, with the changed joints, the box is 3/8" narrower, and 3/8" longer.

So now I have to re-rip, re-crosscut, and re-rabbet the top and bottom; oh and of course the top and bottom are now too short; so I have to glue and brad two filler strips, and then cover them up with the face frame.

One the face frame is in place, you won't be able to tell a thing went wrong, but I'll know, and it will irritate me.

All that is about an extra two hours work, because I had already broken down the saw setup. So I had to reset everything for the rip and crosscut. Then re-set again for the Rabbet.

It was a PITA, and I'm irritated because if it weren't for all the extra work, I'd be done tonight; except for finishing.

Oh and even better, the box has a length constraint and a width constraint. The width is going to be OK, because the box is 3/8" narrower... unfortunately, the LENGTH is a problem. The box is now 3/8" longer, and I've only got 1/4" of wiggle room on my original dimensions...

So I'mna have to plane down the 1" oak (which is actually 3/4") to 1/2" on the sides in order to clear the side walls of the cargo carrier (I have a planer thankfully; doing it by hand is a royal pain; and doing it on the tablesaw is nearly as bad).

Anyway, all I need to do now is the face frames (all four walls, the top, and the floor have an oak face frame; glued and screwed to the panels, and each other, both for looks and for strength), and final fitting on the top, and I'm done. In theory it should be about two hours of work, maybe three. Hopefully the chest will be done tomorrow.

Tired, Tore up, and Tabled

Well, I finally have the third table done; and I'm ready to start tomorrow afternoon on the chest. That one should be interesting.

Doing this one was pretty simple; this time I pre-measured and precut almost all the wood; then I drilled once the pieces were in place (and square in some cases), and glued and screwed things down.

Anyway, I'm tired and sore, I'm off to bed.

Another Day, Another Damn Table

Two down, one more to go.

Well... for today.

My tool addiction progresses, but at least I'm doing something useful with it. As you can see from these pictures, I've been doing some panel cutting:


Which is the whole reason I was driven to build these damn tables right now in the first place.

Of course, I'm following the traditional bootstrap method; I'm using the tools I've built, to build more tools, and then using those to build other things etc...

First I built simple little jigs to help me build the tables. Then I built one table. Then I used the table and the little jigs to build more complicated and useful jigs. Then I built another table, faster, and more precisely...

Anyway, I'll build the "final" table today, and then my "shop area" will be organized enough, and easy enough to use, to get satisfactory results building my cargo box.

Of course when I get back from TX, I'm going to need to build a "saw station". What's that you ask?

See the stand the saw is resting on? Those metal legs? Yeah... they suck.

It's not just THIS saw, it's pretty much all "portable" or convertible saws. They have bases that are designed to be easily moved; and easily moved bases are... well... easily moved, both intentionally and not. Intentional moves good, unintentional moves bad. With some of the sheetmetal saw stands you can bolt them down to the floor; but that's a pain in the ass, and the relatively thin sheetmetal still isn't all that stable.

So, a home built saw station consists of a stable (and heavy) base, surrounding the portable saw on two or three sides; and having a table top matching the height of the saw (with the thickness of the base being such that the height of the saw table end up the exact same height as your other worktables and benches). This effectively turns your portable saw into a cheap cabinet saw... or more accurately you're building your own Biesemeyer tables which does something similar.

(an aside, Biesemeyer is like 10 miles from me. Too bad they don't offer a "factory discount")

Now, why bother?

Well, other than that whole stability thing (like I said, unintentional motion BAD) a REALLY BIG work surface for your saw is an amazingly useful thing.

With a BIG table, you can horse big work pieces around, clamp them down, run them along full length straight edges (MUCH more dimensionally accurate and stable than the piddly little rip fence on your saw), spin them at any angle, use any kind of weird jig you want etc...

...and of course, it's just a damn big, stable, table; which is a remarkably useful thing to have around.

But... didn't I just build three big tables?

Sure, but those tables are not very big, and not very stable. They are designed to be movable and convenient worktables. A saw station is meant to be set in place and not moved... STABLE, STABLE, STABLE is the watchword here.

Have I mentioned stability? It's not just for sawing; a stable platform is important for any number of "building and making" tasks.

BIG in this case means at least six feet long by four feet deep; and maybe as much as 8x6 or 8x8 if you have the room (I don't). Big means big enough so that whatever the biggest work piece you think you'll be cutting, will be stable in whatever orientation you think you might cut it in

Note: If you're going to build it bigger then 4x8 or so it's best to build it in modular sections that can be bolted together and then unbolted for transportation, because nobody wants to get an oversize load permit to move their tablesaw.

Heavy means 300+ lbs. Enough weight so that any work pieces you are moving around aren't going to movie the table; though not enough that you can't EVER move the thing.

Stable means you aren't building it on four widely spaced legs, you're either putting a big post of a leg every 2 feet; or preferably you're building a subfloor frame... though putting some adjustable feet on it is a good idea so you can easily level the thing. Oh and if you want to be really fancy, stick some retractable casters on the corners and center posts to make the thing easier to move when you want to.

Basically, you aren't building a table, or a cabinet, or a countertop here; you're building a house. In fact, you are building a stable floor, with decking (you didn't think I'd leave all that space empty did you? and give up 100+ cubic feet of storage? I'd have to be mad), silled and headered walls, and then another stable floor on top of it for the "second story", which in this case is your worktop. Oh and level... everything has to be completely level and plumb along the way. Enclose the whole thing in sheathing if you want, and add doors. It looks neater, and adds torsional rigidity.

Oh and the part just under the saw? box it in and put in a port for your dust collection system (in my case a shop vac, but hey). Then you've got 100 cubic feet of cabinet space AND less dust.

Now, here's the really fun bit.

Once you have your saw station built, you build tool stands that set the height of all the fixed tables on your shop tools at the exact same height (or at least the ones that should be. Some tools benefit from having chest height tables). That way you can move heavy work pieces from station to station without changing elevation.

Honestly, it sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn't, and you aren't using high quality finish grade wood here, so it's not TOO expensive. The wood and hardware for a 4x8 saw station should run something on the order of $100.

If you want to get really fancy and add on some aluminum channels and rails for jigs and fences, and a steel scale and straightedge on the front, maybe another $100 added on. That's still a hell of a lot less than the $500+ for two Biesemeyer tables (on side, one back), and to my mind just as good or better.

Oh and it's still a lot cheaper than buying a cabinet saw as well; though it's not a real substitute, more of a temporary standin. Once you DO buy a cabinet saw though, it's not like you need to toss the old saw station. You can just cut out the part of the saw station that your portable saw fits into, and then match your station to the new saw (using a circular saw and a recip saw).

If you're "design challenged" and don't want to draw up your own plans (hey, I paid good money to get an Aerospace Engineering degree, I have to use those skills SOME time right?), Norm Abram did one in "The New Yankee Workshop" a few years ago; and plans and measured drawings are available on the web site. I think the version he made is a bit small, but it was designed to still be portable. Oh, and the two parter he did on table saws is excellent; and includes how to use your saw properly, as well as how to build a bunch of great saw accessories (like side and outfeed tables, featherboards etc...).

Also very useful from Norm are this Chop Saw Station, this Router Station, this Workshop System, this Miter Bench, this Shop Cabinet/Tool Stand, this Grinder/Sharpening station; and most useful of all, Norms plans for his Work Benches, Jigs, and Shop Helpers. I just wish they would get around to putting it all on DVD rather than VHS (some episodes are on DVD, some aren't).

Confessions of a Tool Addict

So in a week and a half, we're heading off to Texas for the NoR shoot; and we're going with four people, probably about 30 guns, at least 5000 rounds of ammo, a camp kitchen and a camp pavilion, some folding chairs, and some shooting tables; plus clothes, air mattresses, bedding...

Anyway, it's a LOT of crap, honestly more than I want to carry AND have all of us in the truck, and I don't feel like towing a trailer; so I picked up a new hitch carrier.

I was thinking about the 2” Hitch Haul, with a side rail kit. I had been thinking of the Hitch haul magnum, which has the same carrying capacity and 4"x60" of extra space (20"x60" vs24"x60", but I found out they don’t have rails for it. Cabelas is currently selling them for $65 plus $45 for the rail kit; and $40 if I want the folding receiver, for $150 all up.

I was also considering the Valley industries heavy duty model. It has the same cargo carrying capacity, but lower rails. However, the rails are welded not bolted on; and it has a folding receiver built in, for $140 all up (or $120 for fixed - $10 more than the Hitch Haul for fixed, $10 less for folding compared to Hitch Haul).

Oh and the Valley can fold with the rails in position (because the rails are a fixed welded part of the frame); the Hitch Haul can’t fold with the rails in place.

What I ended up buying was this:

MasterBuilt Hitch Haul 2" reciever hitch cargo carrier

MasterBuilt Hitch Haul folding receiver bar mount

They totaled out at $110 plus tax. It would have been $25 more for the Magnum model, which has the same weight capacity, but an extra 4” of depth on the platform; and $45 for the side rails.

I looked at the depth of the side plates, and the structure of the thing; plus the size of the cargo box I’d be building, and I decided no way did I need the rails, or the extra 4”.

Anyway, on to the topic in the title...

Have you seen what they want for a truck cargo box lately? A 20x60 will cost me $150 for a cheezy plastic model, and at least $300 if I want a nice diamond plate one.

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick.

It’s 10 small pieces of sheet metal presuming fully cut sides, or two pieces from a press and brake, a piano hinge, some weather stripping, two handles and a lock.

1.5 sheets of aluminum, $20 worth of hardware, and a half hour worth of welding.

The plastic ones are even cheaper to make; and NEITHER of them have what I would consider acceptable fit finish or quality for a piece you’re paying that much for.

Anyway, I looked at that, and I looked at the cost of plywood and said “Screw that, I’mna build one”. I can build a really nice one out of oak plywood with oak stringers, marine epoxy, and spar varnish for about $100. Probably take me two hours without the finishing".

60x20x20 main box with a 4” deep lid; rabbeted corners and a mitered 1/2” oak face frame all the way around. Brass piano hinge and some generic locks and handles from the hardware store; or use amplifier handles and road case locks from musicians friend for fancy hardware if the Lowes doesn’t have it and it’s an extra $20.

The main difference of course is that I’ll actually be PROUD of the way the oak box looks; never mind the price.

I went to the local Lowes, and picked up two sheets of 3/4” oak plywood, 4x 10 foot and 3x 8 foot 1"x2" strips of red oak for the frame, a piano hinge, two handles, two latches, and a hasp.

Total: $150 after taking $20 from a friend for the half sheet I’m not going to use; $118 in wood, $32 in hardware.

I wanted to use 1/2” oak for both the plywood and the frame, and they didn’t have any; it was special order only. That would have dropped my cost about $20 on the plywood and $20 on the framing wood for $110 total if I’d had time to wait a week for the special order, but obviously I didn't have that kind of time.

The box is going to be 24"h x 20"d x 60"w outside dimension, 3.5” smaller internal length and width (because of thickness of wood) for a total volume of 22374 cubic inches, or 13 cubic feet. Unfortunately it's also going to weigh about 100lbs; but it's going to be beautiful, solid, weather tight, well made, and should last longer than I do.

What does this have to do with my tool addiction?

Don't worry, I'll get there... you need to context to understand how it all made sense at the time.

Ok, so that was Saturday morning to mid afternoon. Then, on the way home I stopped by the pawn shop closest my house which I try to check out once a week. While I was there I grabbed up a nice Bostich brad nailer for $30. I don't know where my brad nailer disappeared to when I moved last, and it's damn useful to have one around in general; plus I wanted one to build the box with.

Sunday I head out to start building the box, and I'm getting excessive vibration from my table saw; a 10" Ryobi portable.

Anyway, I decided to remount my saw "permanently" on my "temporary" work bench. I put the "temporary" in quotes there because it's a ripped sheet of 3'x5' 3/4" plywood, and a pair of heavy duty saw horses; and it's been my main wood working and general use outdoor work bench for about six months now. I keep meaning to build a couple of real benches, I just haven't had time.

I didn't have any carriage bolts handy, and besides, I couldn't find my glue brushes (those cheap aluminum tube brushes that you buy 5 for $0.99); so I headed out to the local ACE.

In the process of picking up the carriage bolts to mount the saw (and some extras to remount my bench grinder, my band saw, and my drill press, which were all mounted on these Black and Decker x-fold aluminum tool stands, which I love by the way), I hit the discount bin and grabbed a couple pairs of cheap vise grips, and a bunch of small clamps, all $o.99 or $1.99 each. It's amazing how a $5 trip can turn into a $50 trip ain't it.

But, you can never have too many clamps.

So I get home, remount the saw and test again, and the vibration is worse. I try and make a cut, and it wobbles so much that the 1/8" kerf blade is making a 1/4" kerf cut.

I tore down the saw, and the wobble was in the motor... seems the bearings are gone.

Great... time for another table saw... but not on Sunday; by then it was time to go pick up the kids from grandmas.

Monday afternoon rolls around, and I take a long lunch to go pick up a new table saw. I looked around the websites of all the local tool retailers looking for a good deal, and unsurprisingly it seemsthe best deal and selection are at Sears.

So I'm on the web site checking out the deals, and I find a couple of really spectacular ones, but for some reason when I call the local store they can't tell me if anyone in the area has them in stock; so I head down to the store directly.

There was a special closeout deal that I really wanted on this saw:

It's just a spectacular deal, $265 for a $600 entry grade cabinet saw.

One small catch though, the nearest one is in northern California, wouldn't arrive for 14-21 days, and would cost $251 to ship.

Which actually is STILL a decent deal, but no way am I going to pay $250 for shipping, and I can't wait two weeks anyway.

So, my second choice was this other spectacular deal, $250 for a JET convertible saw that lists at $500:



Another small problem, the nearest one is in Ohio, wont even ship for 21-28 days, and is $60 to ship (80lbs on this saw, vs 350lbs on the other saw).

Well damn.

So after the little bait and switch act, I'm still looking for a half decent table saw in the $250 price range. Of course Sears has a half dozen saws between $99 and $269; but the cheapest ones are really crap, and the more expensive ones aren't really worth the premium over the $200 saws. Really you're better off just buying one of the $200 saws, or going all the way and and spending the $500 to $1000 for a contractor grade saw.

Anyway, that's what I did; buying this convertible saw:



I payed $199 on sale from $220. There was a similar saw mounted on a plastic cabinet for $220, but I saw no real advantage to it. There was another saw $30 cheaper, but it had a smaller table, that didn't extend as far, and had a smaller outfeed support etc....

I read all the reviews on the saws in the price range before I went to the store, and the one I bought had the best reviews; and seemed the best value for the money, so there you go.

One REAL irritation I had in this process, other than the bait and switch: ALL the saws in this price range have these little tiny t-slot miter gages. They're so small as to be basically useless, and the t-slots are not only unstable, but you cant replace them with a standard miter gage, or a panel cutter, or any other jig that runs in the miter gage slot, because of the stupid "t-slot"

Ok, so I pick up the saw, and then head over to Harbor Freight, to pick up a couple of those cheap roller stands they had on sale for $10.

Tactical error on my part.

There are so many things waiting for me to buy them at horror freight, most of them under $5. I grabbed two new vises (one tiny hobby vise for gunsmithing, and one big benchvise) for $30 TOTAL for example. Sure, they aren't very good, but they work, and a good vise is $200. All the bar clamps were on special sale 50% off, so I grabbed about a dozen various bar clamps for a total of about $30.

Remember, you can never have too many clamps. Seriously.

Funny how a $20 trip can become a $200 trip ain't it?

So anyway, I put the saw together Monday night. I ripped some pices up and was VERY happy with the saw overall.

I started to rabbet the edges of the ply panels for the box with my router, and it was just irritating. For stop rabbets, or curved rabbets yes go for router, but were talking about long straight lines here. The proper tool for this job is a dado head cutter.

Unfortunately, I can't find mine anymore.

Also, working with the limited bench space and saw space that I had was REALLY irritating with these 5 foot long panels.

I've been needing to build a couple new benches and work tables lately anyway...

So, I headed down to the Lowes again, pick up the dado set ($40) three sheets of plywood (1x 23/32" and 2x 15/32" A-C - $65), 10x 10 foot doug fir 2x4s ($27) and 3lbs of 3" deck screws ($15); or $107 total for three tables, or $35.33 a table.

That's gonna give me three tables; two 3'x4' and one 2'x4'. The tables are saw height (35.5"), with two layer tops 1-1/4" thick (one layer is 1/2" the other 3/4", glues and screwed together), with the frame fully deck screwed together, and a 1/2" plywood shelf on the cross braces.

I may make the tables 32' to fit through standard interior door jams, or 24" to fit through exterior jams; I haven't decided. The two larger tables are intended for exterior/shop use, and I could use the extra couple inches of work space. Besides, I have a sliding glass door I can get the tables through if I have to. Of course I may not always have that option, and it IS only losing 2" or4"... I'll figure it out as I go.

Unfortunately, while I was loading the plywood, I managed to jerk my arm free and accidentally ram a 1" long 1/4" thick splinter deep under the surface of my left forearm, exactly at the spot where I cant get to it, and deep enough that Mel can't dig it out.


And by can't dig it out, I mean can't get it out with a scalpel, a 1/4" deep 1/2" long incision, and forceps. I was an EMT basic at one point and I don't see any point in going to the emergency room if you can do it yourself.

Anyway, it's bad enough, and deep enough that we cant get it now; so I've butterflied it up. I'm taking antibiotics (tetracycline lasts for 3 years without refrigeration), and waiting a couple days to see if it pushes towards the surface enough to get at it. If not I'mna have to go in for surgery to have it removed.

Oh Joy.

Anyway, nothing I can do there; and now I'm really irritated, so at about 6pm I saw "screw it, I'mna go build a damn table.

At 9 'clock, I had this:


A 2' by 4' saw height smooth top table. It's not completely done yet, I still need to put in the final two side stringers around the bottom, and screw down the lower plywood shelf; but other than that it's ready to go.

The best part of course is that now that I have one table, building the other two is going to be MUCH faster; because I have a nice large work surface at the right height. It should be two hours each for the other two tables, maybe less.

The BOM on this table is pretty simple:

1. 1x - 2'x4'x3/4" a-c plywood. Used as tabletop base glued and screwed to the finish top
   
2. 2x - 2'x4'x1/2" a-c plywood. Used as finish tabletop and shelf
3. About 40 foot of 2"x4" whitewood. Longest length is 4'.
   
• 4x 48" long stringers (top and bottom)
  
• 4x 34" legs
  
• 2x 19" top side rails
  
• 2x 15" top rail doublers
  
• 2x 11" bottom side rails
  
• 2x24" feet
  
4. 70x 3" deck screws (just over a pound)
   

The plywood top configuration here assumes you are making multiple tables, and taking advantage of that extra 2' whacked off the end. If you want to just built a 2'x4" table you can do it with just one sheet of 1/2" plywood, cut into 4x 2'x4' planks, and tripled for the top.

A 1/2" sheet of a-c ply is $20, 4x 10 foot studs are $11 and a pound of deck screws is $6. Throw in an extra stud for insurance, and you've got a total of $40 for the whole thing.

Considering Home Despot will charge you $60 for a "kit" for a similar, but lower quality table (thinner, lower quality wood), or god forbid $150 from Sears for a cheap sheetmetal one... that's a pretty good deal.

I built this table as a workbench with a 2" clamping lip on the front edge; if you want flush rails, add 2" to the side dimensions. Obviously, for the 3'x4' tables, you just add 12" to each of the side pieces, and another 8 or so screws.

The same design can be extended out to about 4'x6'; but any bigger than that and you'll probably want to go to 4x4 posts for the legs (or use a doubled 2x4 mitered or lap jointed into an "L" angle beam, but a 4x4 is simpler), and 2x6s for the main frame members.

Oh and you can build 3x 32" deep tables from the same number of sheets, if you are looking to buld tables you can move through interior doorways... or you can take the extra 8" and make two back splashes (I prefer no back on my benches and tables so I can slide stock around on them).

...Anyway...

So, what started off as a simple $110 cargo carrier, is ending up as a $110 cargo carrier, $500 worth of tools and $300 worth of wood and other materials... oh and maybe a $500 urgent care trip to boot.

Hello, my name is Chris, and I'm an addict... but I swear, I can stop any time I want to.