A great looking dining room table
doesn't have to be bought from the store.
I'm going to show you how you can build one
using an old door.
This is the door I'm going to use.
It's going to make up the top of my table.
She looks a little bit rough now, but once I clean it up,
it'll look mint.
Now, the standard height for a table is 750 millimeters.
Now, the thickness of my door is 40 millimeters,
so I'm going to take 40 off 750.
That gives me 710.
Now, this board that I've cut here is 710 high.
The width of my door is 810 wide,
so I've also cut this to 810 wide across here.
This is going to be our pattern for our legs.
Now, I've ruled a line from corner to corner.
I'm using this reamer here for our legs.
They have the dimensions of this, 80 millimeters
by 80 millimeters.
So from our centerline, I've ruled 40 millimeters
from either side, and that there is going
to be our pattern for our legs.
So this template has given us the exact length and end
shape of our legs.
We're going to take our leg.
We're just going to put on an outer mark.
Lay that down.
Just make sure you got plenty of length to play with.
And let's just mark underneath on the board onto our leg,
so that there is the exact shape we're
going to cut on the dropsaw for our leg.
I've just marked the other end of our leg.
Next thing we need to do is mark where our other leg
intersects this leg.
So I'm forming a mark off our board.
Let's just rule those up.
Now, on this join here, I'm going
to half check the legs out, so that
means they've got to sit over top of each other,
and they're going to end up finishing flush.
So the thickness of my leg is 80 millimeters,
so I'm going to rebate 40 millimeters out of this leg
and 40 millimeters out of the other league,
and they're going to set over top
of each other nice and tight.
So I'm just going to mark out 40 millimeters,
and then I'm going to chop 40 millimeters out of the top.
Now, you just want to join up your two lines.
Now, it's this piece here that we need to take out.
We're just about ready to cut out our rebate.
What I'm going to do, here's a little tip for you,
just going to put my ruler up against our mark.
Just going to use our knife and put a score on there
just before I start cutting.
I'm just going to kick us off on the outer lines only using
my handsaw.
This is an nice little sharp tenon saw.
This is going to ensure I get a really fine cut.
Now, you can finish this off, make
it a few more cuts using your handsaw,
or if you're feeling confident and you
can use your circular saw, setting it the right depth
and just take care.
Rightio, all my fins are cut.
Next thing we want to do--
now, just make sure you've got a really nice sharp chisel.
It's going to make the world of difference,
and let's just go on our line there.
Flip that over and just do exactly the same
on the other side.
And when you're using chisel, just
make sure you got your flat part of your chisel
on your line and the bevel of your chisel facing out.
Now, we've set all that out with our chisel.
Let's just gently knock all these over,
and then we'll just finish that up with our chisel.
Yeah, just come from each side.
That way, you're not going to blow it out.
And because I've got a nice sharp chisel here,
let's just finish that off by hand.
Right-o, that's looking pretty good.
Time to cut the shape on the ends of our legs.
The rebate and the legs are all cut.
Let's just see how she's looking.
Absolutely beautiful.
We're going to park these aside and bring in our door.
I've paint scraped it, and I've given it a good sand.
Let's flip this over and bring in our legs.
Now, we just need to fix our legs to our door,
so what I'm going to do is screw a 60 by 20 piece of timber
to our door here, and then have an L-section coming out.
And then I'm going to fix a bolt through our upstand
into our leg that's going to support everything.
I've cut up a 60 by 20.
That's going to set hard on the table top.
And I've made a 90 by 20, which is
going to sit on top of the 60, and I've cut a 45 degree.
Just follow the same line as the table legs.
Leagues
Now, I've pre-drilled the holes, and I'm
going to fix these two together.
Let's put a little bit of PVA on our upstand
and take our 60 by 20.
I've got our screws sitting in there, ready to roll.
Make sure they're nice and flush on the end.
We've made our bracket up.
We're going to attach this to our door.
Rightio, let's just mark a centerline all the way down.
I just want to pre-drill a hole, so
aim about the center of each one of these tongue and groove
boards.
Thrown a little bit of PVA on the bottom,
what known in the trade as a liberal amount.
Get that flush with our ends.
Now, you just want to make the same L-bracket
for the other end.
Rightio, legs are sitting in there
nice and lovely all flush with the end.
So what we need to do now is drill a hole through the center
of the legs, through our bracket,
all the way through our legs, and I'm
going to drill a 13 millimeter hole to take a 12-mil bolt.
I've clipped my leg to my bracket,
and I'm just going to do a three mile pilot hole first.
Yeah, we're working with pretty hard timber here,
so just make sure all your drill bits are just really sharp.
I'm using a 12 millimeter galvanized coach bolt.
Try to get that washer on.
Now, we don't need to do it up super tight.
Just finger tight will do for now.
Yeah, just repeat the same for all your other sides.
To make this type of nice and solid,
I'm going to add a rail that goes in
between our two leagues.
To get the length of our rail, we're
just going to measure in between our two legs, where
it's fixed to the table top.
These little bad boys here are our dowels.
These go all the way through our legs into our rail.
So I'm now going to cut a hole through our legs
to take the dowel.
I'm using a 32 millimeter dowel, so I've
got a 32 millimeter spade bit.
Now, when we drill through, we I'm
going to come halfway from each side.
That's going to avoid any splitting.
Now, to get the center of our legs,
we're just going to put our ruler in between our two leg
points and just rule a line.
The next thing we need to do is drill a hole
in the end of our rail.
Now, to get the center, this is exactly what we're going to do.
Draw a line just from corner to corner.
Boom, let's just punch a hole in there.
Now, we want to go in there about 50 millimeters.
Here's a little tip for you.
Now, if you measure from the flat part of your spade 50
millimeters, and let's just throw a little bit of tape
there.
So as soon as I start drilling, and I come up to the tape,
I know, bang, I'm right on the mark.
Next step is cutting across into the end of our dowel.
To do this, we're going to use a tenon saw.
The reason for cutting this slot is
because I'm going to slip a wedge into those little cut
marks, and so once that's gone through the hole in the legs,
that's going to form a really nice tight fit and a really
good detail.
And I've got a 32 millimeter dowel,
so I'm going to come 16 millimeters
to get to the center.
Let's just rule a straight line, measure up 16 millimeters,
and let's just get 90 degrees to that.
And I'm going to cut back about 40 millimeters
along the length of the dowel, so we'll just
put a nice straight line on either side.
And we'll just follow that with our tenon saw.
I've just cut my dowel to length.
Now, I know that I'm 50 millimeters into my rail.
My leg is 80 millimeters thick, and I've
got about 15 millimeters hanging on the outside
here that I can chop off later.
Now, here's a little tip for you.
I've cut a 32 millimeter hole, and I've
got a 32 millimeter dowel.
So when I fill this full of glue, and I put the dowel in,
the dowel is more than likely is going
to pop out because there's no allowance for air in there,
so a little tip here.
Let's just take our dowel, and let's just cut a few slots.
Beauty-- that's not only going to allow a fair bit of grip
inside the hole, it's also going to allow any air bubbles stuck
in that hole to come out.
Everything is set.
We've cut our rails, our legs, our dowels.
Now, let's take apart our legs, set them aside,
and start mixing up some glue.
So glue your legs together, and then lift them back into place.
So just reassemble your legs to your L-bracket
and tighten them up.
Just wipe off any excess glue before it dries.
So we're also going to need some glue on the inside of our rail
just before you put that in.
Just make sure you don't have any dust in there.
Just give that a little tickle up.
Lovely.
So let's just set our dowel in there, but we want it--
we don't want it to go all the way through.
Just leave that so it's just sitting short of it.
Repeat the same for the other end.
So let's sling our rail in.
We're just putting our rail vertical.
Don't worry about, at this stages,
about getting it all the way.
Now, a quick little tip.
Our cross that we've put on the end,
let's just make sure that it;s sitting parallel over our legs,
so it forms a nice beautiful straight cross running
in the same line as our legs.
Now, that's looking pretty good.
Now, we need to crimp this up, and I'm
going to use a ratchet tight end to do this.
Let's just gently tighten that up,
so we can see the glue oozing out
between the rail and the leg.
That's looking pretty sharp.
Now, let's just-- pretty good there.
Now force a little bit of glue through the sides
of that cross.
Going to take a nice long wedge that we made out of Rimu,
and we've got two little wedges to go
on either side of that one.
This is going to form a beautiful little cross
on the end, and also sit that dowel on there nice and tight.
Sweet, she's all glued up.
Everything's set, and we're going
to just let this glue dry for about 24 hours,
and then we'll end up chopping that off.
Before the glue dries, wipe off any excess.
Now, I've got a nice sharp handsaw here.
Just a fine panel saw is all you need, and just real gently--
now, I just give this wee little tickle up with the sander.
Rightio, we've just about finished our table.
Now, I've got this 60 by 20.
I cut this down out of an old weather
board I found lying around, and I've put a slight round
on the edge of it.
That's just going to create a nice, soft edge
when we're leaning on the edge of the table.
Now, before we start nailing this on,
we're just going to evenly space out our nails
to make it look nice and pretty.
I'm just going to pre-drill this timber.
You know what?
It's pretty old.
It's been sitting around for a while.
If I put a nail straight into that, it's going to split.
Let's just run a bit of glue all the way down.
Make sure we're flush with the end of our table.
Cool.
And just make sure you take off any excess glue,
and the reason for that--
once we put our oil or stain on, if the PVA's still on there,
it'll show up as a white patch later on.
So it's quite important to get that looking good now.
Sweet, she's starting to look mint.
I'm giving her the sand, taking off any pencil
marks, any rough edges.
Now, I'm just going to give it a wee little dust down before we
start putting on our oil.
That's looking mint.
I'm ready for a feed, easy is.