(upbeat music)
Marc: Welcome to Episode 11
of The Woodworking Whisperer podcast.
I'm your host, Marc Spagnuolo,
and today we're gonna do something
just a little bit different.
We're gonna actually start in the office.
I've got a new project coming along
that's a table/desk for a customer.
It's relatively simple in design.
Sort of reminiscent of the arts and crafts
mission style period,
but I figured it would be a great project
for you guys to take a look at.
Now I'm really under a time crunch here,
so part of this video may not be
as good as it normally would be,
but I thought it was more important
for you guys to get an opportunity
to get the cut list, see how some of these
things were done because at this point
there's no reason why if you followed through
the previous videos why you can't
do a project like this.
We did milling in one of the earlier episodes.
We showed in the Cutting Board episode
how to do some basic lamination's and glue-ups
and we also even covered more in episode 10,
which is the primary joint
of this entire project.
So, sit back and relax and we'll take a look
at the process on how I get started
from the minute I get the request from the customer.
Now the customer has already sent us
a jpeg image of a table that looks very similar
to the one that they want,
so we're actually gonna use that as our model.
Now we don't know what the dimensions are
of this particular desk, but what we do know
is that the customer wants theirs to be
about 36" deep and 72" long.
So we essentially have to reverse engineer
this project.
I need to look at the dimensions,
the proportions, and the average size of things
in this picture and then bring those into
what we're actually doing.
And I think ours is gonna be a little wider
and a little longer than this
particular unit here, so we'll adjust
those numbers as we go.
But let's get started and see how this works out.
So the first order of business
is to make a list of the dimensions
that we're absolutely sure of.
Now we know that we want the table
to be 36" deep and 72" long.
We also know that we want it to be
about 30" in height and that's
an average desk height.
Meaning with a 3/4" top, our legs should be
29 1/4" long.
The legs themselves,
I'm gonna go with a 3" x 3" square leg.
That'll be nice and sturdy for a 6' long table
and the next thing for us to look at
are the aprons.
We've got a nice long apron in the front and back
and then shorter aprons on the sides
and we need to determine what the optimal length
would be for those.
The easiest way that I know to do this
is to draw it out.
I like to envision flipping the table
upside-down and looking at an overhead view
where you could see the leg, the apron,
the tables dimensions.
You could lay everything out that way
and it becomes very clear once you do.
So either get a ruler and a piece of paper
and start drawing it out
or you could use a program
like I use called SketchUp.
It's a free program available from Google.
You could get it for PC or Mac
and if you have a computer with
an internet connection you should be able
to run this program with no problem.
Now it is a very, very deep program.
You could really get into some really
cool stuff with it.
For me personally, I use it as a tool
to quickly organize, get my dimensions
all straightened out, and make sure
my proportions look good.
I also use it as a sales tool sometimes
to give that to my customers
when they want to see a 3D rendering
of what their project will look like.
In this case we're not gonna get into
any of that.
We're gonna keep it very simple.
We're just gonna draw out the basics
to we can determine what our final numbers are.
So let's go ahead and take a look at that.
Let's start by drawing the table top.
I use the rectangle tool to do this.
Just click to a point where you want
the rectangle to start, type in the length
and width separated by a comma and hit enter.
The rectangle should be exactly 36" x 72".
Next I select the push-pull tool.
Select my rectangle.
Start pulling it in a direction I want it to go
and then type in 3/4".
The next thing I'd like to do is add a leg.
In order to do that I want to make sure
that the table overhangs the legs
by 1" on each side so I need to draw
that square in 1" from one side
and 1" from the other side,
so I use the measuring tool
to just put layout marks on a table top.
1" in each direction and then I use
the rectangle tool the same way we did
with the table top and just type in
3", 3" enter and it should give me
a nice 3x3 square.
Next I use the push-pull tool
to extend the leg up to 29 1/4".
Now I know there's a smarter way to do this,
in Sketchup.
You could create models and objects
that could be reproduced
and just copy and paste it in the drawing,
but I'm not too familiar with it
so I'm just gonna quickly re-draw
another 3x3 square and use the push-pull
to bring it up to 29 1/4".
Finally, I add a third leg
just like the other two.
We only need three legs
to get the answers to our questions here,
so I'm not gonna bother with the fourth.
So at this point it's relatively easy
to determine what the length of our aprons
is going to be.
We've got a side apron here,
our long apron for the front and back
is over here and we could simply
just strike line and measure it,
but right now we want to take it
one step further and I'd actually like
to draw the entire thing in there.
So what we need to do
is look at our picture again,
the original jpeg image.
To me, what I see here,
it looks like our aprons are probably
a little bit wider than the width of the leg.
So if the legs are 3",
I'm thinking it's pretty fair to call
those aprons 3 1/2".
So let's go ahead and draw those in
and see where it takes us.
I want the aprons to be about 1/2" in
from the outside edge of the leg
so I use a marking tool
to place a reference mark on the leg itself.
Using the rectangle tool
I draw a 3 1/2" x 3/4" rectangle
on the inside face of the leg
and using the push-pull tool,
I pull the rectangle to the inside face
of the other leg.
I then repeat the process for the front apron.
Now the next thing we have to do
is determine the location
of these bottom curved rails.
Again, using the picture
and elements in the picture,
you could determine where the location
of that piece will be.
For me, I'm looking at this distance.
How far is it from the bottom of the leg
and in relative terms, looking at other things
in the picture, looks to me like it's about
twice the thickness of one of these legs.
So if the legs are 3", I would say
this is about 6" from the bottom of the leg
and that's where we are going to start
drawing it into SketchUp.
Using all the same methods as before,
I add the bottom rail 6" up
from the bottom of the leg.
Now let's take a look at the vertical
slat pieces here on the side.
This particular picture shows three
and to me they look like they should be
about 3" wide and given the numbers that we have,
when I place 3" wide slats in there
it just doesn't seem to look right.
There's just too much space on either side.
So I'm actually gonna add a fourth in there
so there will be four 3" slats
across this distance and we have to figure out
how we want those spaced.
That was just trial and error.
I know I want a larger space in
the front and the back
and a smaller space in between.
And what works out really well for me
is 5" til the first slat,
then a 3" slat itself,
and then 2" in between each
and that gives us the exact distance across here.
I did draw that to confirm it in my picture,
so let's take a look to see how that turns out.
Using the marking tool, I place reference marks
from left to right at 5",
then 3" for the slat, then a 2" space,
then 3" for another slat and so on.
Next I use the rectangle tool
to draw each of the slats.
(upbeat music)
Then using the push-pull tool,
I extend each slat to the bottom rail.
Now the one last detail,
which I'm not gonna bother putting into
the SketchUp drawing.
It's just too much work.
Is the fact that these slats
will actually give a bit of a reveal
where they meet the cross rails
and the top side apron,
so these are going to be about 1/2" thick
and then the aprons themselves are
going to be 3/4" thick and that'll give
a little 1/8" reveal on either side
of these slats and just give it a little
bit more visual interest and appeal.
So you can clearly see that I'm not
a professional SketchUp user.
I'm certainly not an advance user
by any means.
I do what I need to do to get the job done
and I know there are much better ways
to do some of these things
and I'm trying to learn those
and as soon as I learn them
I'll definitely show you guys,
but I don't really need to know that much
to get this far and it didn't take very long
for me to do this.
Basically what we have here
tells us that our proportions are right.
Tells us we're getting exactly what we want.
Let's us know whether those four slats
look right and to me they do,
so I don't see any reason why we can't,
at this point, on paper,
write down our cut list
and head out to the shop
and start cutting some wood.
And here's the final cut list.
Keep in mind that these final dimensions
do not include the extra length required
for tenons.
I plan on using a loose tenon construction
method for all of my joinery.
Now, if you decide to use traditional
integral tenons, add 3" to the length
of all of your apron pieces
and 2" to the side slats.
This allows you to make a 1 1/2" tenon
on the aprons and 1" tenons on the side slats.
(soft banjo music)