hey I'm Bob at I Like To Make Stuff today I'm gonna make a table that looks
like this or this or this here in our backyard we've got an old gazebo and
it's a really great place to sit and hang out it also it would be really nice
to be able to have a meal out here so we're gonna build a table to put right
in the middle we've got six people in our family and the gazebo is a hexagon
so we decided to mirror that shape and make a table that had a space for every
person we laid it out here on the wood on the floor to figure out the overall
size basically just making sure that each section was large enough to pull a
chair up too and there was enough room behind it to walk around the table but
rather than one giant table actually split this down the middle and we're
gonna make two tables instead I did that so that we can split it up and use it in
different places both in here and out in the yard I measured the longest point of
this hexagon and made sure that it would fit against this railing so if we want
to have a large opening in the middle we can split it up and put it against the
sides we've got our measurements we've got our shape let's go make it to cut
down all the steel I'm using a new tool and this is a large band saw for cutting
metal this is one of the cheapest ones I could find and it wasn't very expensive
so you could totally pick one of these up if you're going to be doing a lot of
metal fabrication of course like I've said before there's a bunch of different
tools you can use to cut down steel we did a whole video recently on angle
grinders and that's still a great way to make pretty precise cuts on all sorts of
tubular steel so in this case we're gonna start with the square tubing
because all the cuts need to be at 90 degrees so we're gonna put them in here
and cut all the legs first
when you put the two tables together they're gonna make a hexagon so 360
degrees divided by six sides makes each one of the angles and all the corners 60
degrees so we're gonna have to cut some angled cuts on all these pieces that
need to be pretty precise we're gonna use this bandsaw again for that
currently it's cutting at a 90 degree angle so it cuts straight cuts which is
simple but this saw also is made to be able to rotate this piece and hold the
workpiece at a different angle so we're gonna set that up and start making some
angle cuts
it's kind of weird cuz I had to flip it around and over and since this is an
angle iron it it's not sitting on a flat side luckily this little vise holds it
in place and I think it's gonna hold it at the right angle so this thing can cut
through it but we'll find out alright so this is the first single side I've got
the right angles on there so this one's all good to go and now I just have to
make quite a few more
I've got all that steel cut down now and that saw was really helpful it made it a
lot even but also a lot more precise and in this case with the angles needing to
match and be exactly correct that was a big plus alright now it's time to put
this thing together let's lay it on the floor and start welding now the only
pieces that haven't been fully cut are this back piece right here this actually
needs to sit like this and these outer corners needs to wedge together so I'm
gonna lay this in place and then Mark off the section to cut out of this
bottom panel so that these can kind of fit together but before I cut those
corners out to fit them together I want to make sure that these three pieces are
in the right position so I've got them laid out relative to that long side and
now I'm gonna just tack these together and we'll go back and cut those out
when you're putting pieces into the angle iron you got to remember that
there's a small radius on the inside of it so you got to knock off the corner of
the piece that's going to sit in there so that it will sit all the way in now
I've got these in place it's time to tack them and then go full weld
everything
one thing I want to note here is that I am welding on concrete and generally
that's a bad idea because if you put too much heat in one spot right up against
the concrete the concrete can explode now in this case I'm not spending too
much time in one area so I think I'm safe but just be aware of that don't do
a whole lot of welding in one little spot when it's sitting on concrete
alright so now it's time to finish out all these welds so montage time
I've got all the full welds in but like these need to be completely ground flat
because a leg is gonna sit right here so I'm going to grind this one down and
then this one down on the outside so that you don't see the well and to do
that I've got a couple of grinders set up one with the big fat grinding wheel
and then also a sanding disc so that I can really smooth out the final finish
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I've got all the big welds off but the surface is still pretty rough so we're
gonna switch over to a flat disk and we did a whole video on angle grinders and
all the different things you can use them for go check that video out if you
want to find out why you would use one thing over another
the frame is pretty much done now I just got to put on the legs and I've got
these big square tubes to put on these have already been cut flat like you saw
earlier so we're gonna set these right on this face now I intentionally got the
same size for this and the angle iron so it should line up pretty well I just
have to decide exactly where I want to fit the pieces since you're gonna be
able to sit at every side of this table these are square so they can't really
fit into the angles so at some point you're gonna see the side of a leg
versus the front of the leg it's not a big deal just gotta make it uniform all
the way around and this is going to be a welded butt joint this edge right
against this edge so when I go back and do is chamfer this so that there's a
little recess and it will be able to fill up with the filler material when I
weld it
I'm gonna use this magnet to hold this in place and that should also make sure
that it's at a 90 degree angle to this surface
so once I've got that there I'm just gonna tack it run around and tack all
four of these in place and then go back and do the full welds as usual and I
should say that the reason that you tack these before you do the full welds is as
you add a lot of heat to a joint it starts to warp the metal a little bit so
if you tack them in place first it keeps them where you want them and it's not
going to warp and make the the legs lean as you add the full welds the last
little bit of welding we got to do is to put in a couple of support so now these
are gonna go in here just need to be trimmed down and those are gonna support
the wood that's gonna lay this way it's a really long span and it'll end up
flexing if there's nothing underneath it it also acts as a spacer this is a half
inch piece the material that's gonna be on top of this the wood is gonna be
three-quarters of an inch and that fills up this gap on the inside of the angle
iron so theoretically the wood should be right at the top with the same level as
this outside edge
that wraps up all the welding so the last thing is to smooth out these welds
on the faces where the legs attach to the frame I'm not going to touch the
welds on the inside because I want them to stay there and stay strong but I want
the aesthetic of a smooth transition between the leg and the frame
all right so finished up the first frame now I just have to make a second one now
one of these actually turned out really well the legs are straight down the
other one works just fine and by itself it looks fine but when you put them next
to each other you see that one of these sets of legs is flared out a little bit
it's possible that I put too much heat and everything bowed I'm not really sure
what happened but the good thing is that all of the legs do sit on the ground it
doesn't Rock it doesn't wobble there's just a little bit of gab done here not
too long ago I made a lounge chair to go in the backyard I'm gonna mimic that
look a little bit with these tables so for the tabletops I'm gonna use strips
of cedar now first off I have to cut a piece to go right here that's gonna act
as the anchor on both ends of each one of these side tables then I have to rip
down some slats to go all the way across I measured this full width divided it by
five and that's gonna tell me how wide each one of those needs to be so I've
got this big stack of cedar boards I'm gonna take these over to the table saw
and rip them down to the right width
I put some spacers across the table and those are half-inch thick now these
boards that are gonna act as the spacers on the ends or 3/4 so I'm going to run
them through the planer to get them down to the same thickness in an ideal world
these angles would all be exactly the right but I know myself well enough to
know that they are probably not perfect so instead of pre cutting all of the
angles on the pieces of wood I'm gonna lay them out across here and get all the
gaps in between the pieces the same then from there I'm gonna strike a line from
this corner to this corner across those pieces and that tells me the line that I
need to cut and then also make sure that each one of the pieces is exactly cut to
fit within this side and within this side and there's a good chance that the
ones that fit on this table will not necessarily fit on that table so we're
gonna take it one at a time cut each piece
so those first cuts were actually just kind of approximate just to be able to
fit the pieces down inside the frame they're not exact they're not all at the
same angle and currently they make the board's just a little bit too long so
I'm gonna have to go back and trim each one just a little bit to get them in
there then we'll fix them together then we'll take the whole thing out and cut a
nice clean edge on both of these angled sides I got that piece trimmed down and
that let me get the space in between each one of these even so now they're
laying in place on top of the wooden spacers that I put in here on the edges
so I'm going to drive some Brad's up through those to hold all the wood
together and then we can take the whole thing out trim the clean edge and then
put it together with some screws so that it'll be nice and strong you can see
here that this edge is not the same distance from the steel on all these
different boards and the angles are not all the same so now we're gonna strike a
line about an eighth of an inch in from both corners all the way across
that'll give us a reference line to cut all of them and so the gap will be the
same all the way down
so now I've got this whole gap down here is the same all the way across it looks
good all the way around so the last thing is to finally fix these top pieces
to that under support we're gonna flip this over and use some stainless steel
screws so the last outside I also drilled holes and all the steel so I
could drive up some stainless steel screws from the underside into the
bottom of the table I use a chamfering bit on a router to soften the edge where
your arms would go all the way around the table then we gave the tabletops a
really good sanding made sure to get rid of all the extra dust to get it ready
for finish outside I spray-painted both of the frames with an enamel paint
enamel hardens and is really good for use on metal surfaces and for things
that are outside we did a whole bits video a while back on why you would use
different finishes different varnishes to cover surfaces for this one you're
gonna use a spar urethane because it's gonna be outside it's gonna protect the
top surface and it should be pretty easy to put on and after this dries is just a
matter of screwing this onto the frames and we're all done
so the pieces together work as one big hexagonal table it's plenty of room for
chairs to pull underneath it and you got a lot of elbow room next to the person
next to you in fact you could probably put a short bench here and put two kids
and each one of these sides so you could hold a lot of people but you can use
these two tables in a different configuration here too another option is
to push the long side of each of these tables up against the outside rail they
fit in each one of these segments so you can put them together to make this shape
you could put them across from each other but you can take them out of the
gazebo and actually you do something else with them if you put the tables in
to end you end up with a big long table which is really cool and just proves how
versatile this shape is of course it's really simple geometry but it does prove
that middle school math was worthwhile I was really happy with how these things
turned out I'd love to know what you think about them so let me know down in
the comments I've also got a whole bunch of other types of videos that you may be
interested in check some of those out don't forget to subscribe and hit the
bell so you get notified as soon as I upload that's it for this week guys
thanks for watching I'll see you next time
and snap guess I shouldn't say snap hey I'm Bob it I like to make stuff today
I'm gonna make it tape so we've got our shape from this now let's go make some
steel make some steel make some go forward steel