A table is the second item after a stool that a novice amateur furniture maker should take on. Design simple table no more difficult than a stool; an unpretentious, comfortable table for the country house or for a picnic can be built in half a day using a hacksaw, hammer and drill. But a table made using the same technology and slightly refined can look great at home, on the left in the figure, instead of an expensive one. However, the table also gives greater freedom of creative expression; it can be a significant and even key element of interior design; it is not for nothing that artisanal furniture makers are called carpenters, and not sofa makers, cabinet makers or nightstand makers. Having become proficient in carpentry, you will eventually be able to take on exclusive tables and other positions. right there.
This article discusses how to make tables from wood. Wood is an environmentally friendly, affordable and easily processed material with remarkable aesthetic advantages. In utilitarian products, it forgives beginners quite serious mistakes, but delicate woodwork requires high skill. Having learned how to make wooden things, it will be much easier to master glass, metal and plastic.
Tool and workshop
To make a table with your own hands, you need a production room separate from the living rooms: woodworking, as you know, is dusty. In addition, such good means of tinting and protecting wood as stains emit harmful fumes during the staining process; nitro varnishes too, although to a lesser extent. Therefore, home carpentry should be well ventilated, or better yet, with forced ventilation. You can use the garage, but there will be a lot of sawdust, and it will not be good for the car. Better to work in a barn; if it doesn’t exist yet, then you can build it, and it will be useful for a lot of things on the farm.
An ordinary carpenter's tool, on the left in the figure, will be enough for a start. But the work will go much faster, and the result will be better, if you attract help from modern achievements, on the right there:
- Rotary miter box, pos. 1, allows you to make cuts exactly to size and angle in 2 planes. It is advisable to take it with the complete bow saw, so everything together will be cheaper, and the work will be more accurate. A miter box is a universal device, it will always come in handy and it is better to buy it.
- Also universal is a manual jigsaw with a tilting shoe, pos. 2, which allows you to cut at an angle to the vertical plane.
- Disc grinder, pos. 3 and 4, gives a beginner the opportunity in 5-15 minutes to obtain the surface of a wooden surface, which would take an experienced carpenter with sandpaper in hand at least an hour to achieve, and a tape one, pos. 5, also process ends quickly and efficiently; There are also belt sanders for grooves and recesses with a protruding working body. These are already specialized tools, unsuitable for other work, and quite expensive, so it’s better to rent them first. True, craftsmen still successfully brush with grinders, i.e. They artificially age the wood, but this is delicate work.
- It is also preferable to rent at first manual frezer on wood, pos. 6, with a set of cutters. They process shaped edges and select holes and grooves.
In general, a universal household woodworking machine (UBDS) of various modifications is very useful on the farm. It is compact, fits on the table, power supply – 220 V 50/60 Hz 380-500 W. UBDS combines a circular saw, a jointer, a wood lathe and a set of cutters. True, you can’t just turn the table legs on it; the reach of the tailstock caliper is too small. But the caliper itself is just a steel round pipe; it’s not difficult to lengthen it. The cutter stop remains standard, it is movable, the leg and the long support are sharpened in one setting.
How to choose a tree?
A wooden table can be made from any wood of average resistance to decay, except for the softest species: poplar, aspen, alder, willow, ailanthus. Domestic ones include:
The breeds are listed in order of availability. For example, timber harvesting of horse chestnut, plane tree and juniper is not carried out at all: the former are too valuable for landscaping in the southern regions, and juniper is endangered and protected. Industrial harvests of elm are almost entirely used for shoe lasts, weaving shuttles, etc., and rowan berries are used for weapon stocks; full-fledged plastic replacement they don't have one yet. Stone birch grows very slowly, in limited places, and does not renew itself well, so its harvesting is strictly regulated, and its wood is expensive.
Note: Walnut is especially valuable for furniture - its wood combines high hardness with excellent toughness; the most delicate carvings on walnut do not chip. And walnut wood from burls - large growths on the trunk - is not inferior in texture to Karelian birch.
At the beginning of a carpentry career, it is better to limit yourself to pine, birch, oak, acacia and boxwood. The countertop will be pine or oak; birch - on legs pine table; in the countertop it warps a lot from spills. Acacia and boxwood make excellent dowels, see below.
For a pine tabletop made from boards, you can and even should use low-grade cheap boards - knotty, twisted ones. But, of course, without falling knots, cracks, wormholes and traces of rot in the form of spots of unnatural color: black, gray, blue, green, in general, not similar to this tree. For example, traces of rot on black (ebony) wood may be whitish or yellowish.
Why is there substandard quality on the countertop? Perhaps also unedged, which needs to be finished using a circular saw and jointer? And after skillful processing, they turn out to be layers of remarkable beauty, on the left in Fig. Manufacturers do not like such wood: the production cycle is delayed and waste increases. But for yourself, doing it yourself is not so scary compared to the result.
Wooden pot
Commercial pine has a clearly defined wood zonation in the form of annual growth rings; other conifers and many deciduous species also have it. On the cut of the board, the rings form the so-called. hump in the form of thin concentric arcs. If the top of the tree is directed across the face of the board, as in Fig. in the center, then when joining the shield for the tabletop (see below), the boards are oriented with their humps alternately up and down, from below in Fig. If the humps are directed towards the end of the board (on the right in the figure), then the boards are placed in the shield with their humps in one direction. These subtleties are necessary so that during operation the tabletop does not crack or warp.
Varnishes, paints, impregnation, glue
A free way to protect wood from rotting is used motor oil, but for what you eat, this is not the best option. Impregnation with water-polymer emulsion (WPE) twice, with a break of 3-5 days, would be optimal; it will provide protection to the table for the entire duration of its life. Even birch plywood impregnated with EPE is suitable for furniture front panels: coated with varnish on top, it does not delaminate.
Old furniture nitrocellulose varnishes NTs-218 and NTs-2144 with solvent No. 647 are gradually going out of use: they are superior to acrylic varnishes in all respects water based; In addition, they are safe to use. Also, glues, bone carpentry and BF-2 with alcohol are inferior to PVA; True, to obtain a high-quality seam, the latter requires applying glue to both surfaces, keeping them until they are tacky before joining and keeping them under pressure for 1-3 days, but in home production This is acceptable for yourself.
Wood for furniture can be tinted in advance and protected with stain, which allows you to make beautiful typesetting parts; an example will be given below. To tint the assembled units, you can use paints based on the same varnish and artistic (not painting!) dyes: oil in tubes for NC varnishes and acrylic water-based for the same varnish.
First, prepare the “painting”: take 30-50 ml of varnish and squeeze 1-1.5 cm of paint into it while continuously stirring thoroughly with a painting brush. The paint is stored in a tightly closed bottle and added to the varnish to the desired tone; A test for it is made on a piece of wood, the tone is determined by the complete drying of the varnish. Colored varnishes based on NC and oil paints can be mixed according to the mixing rules oil paints for painting; acrylic - no restrictions.
First steps
The country table is the first of the homemade ones. If there are 1-2 brick pallets left from the construction site, then a table made from pallets will be the first of the first. Not only because it is extremely simple, but also because it is very useful on the farm.
From one pallet, sanded, impregnated and varnished, it turns out garden table IR is like a magazine one, on the left in Fig. If you have a pair in stock, you can make a wall-mounted work desk-rack out of them in literally half an hour, in the center and on the right. You can also weave chains for it yourself from soft wire, covered with a PVC tube or, better, heat-shrinkable. To fully raise the tabletop, small tools are placed on the shelf of a wall pallet.
With a little more work, a prefabricated cutting table for the dacha is made from one pallet, allowing you to move the summer-autumn harvesting campaign outside without littering with husks and without trampling on stalks. For the winter, this table is assembled into a compact package. The design is clear from Fig; Place a bucket under the hatch in the countertop.
The next in order of complexity is the well-known country trestle table, in common parlance a goat. Its structure of 40 mm boards is shown on the left in the figure, and in addition to it is a bench of the same device. And on the right is a country folding table based on the same principle. It has articulated joints (M8-M12 bolts, washers and nuts with locknuts); in the place marked in green, a stop boss is placed on nails between the crossbars of the tabletop. When folded, this table fits in the trunk of a car, so it’s also suitable for going on a picnic. If this is not expected, or the trunk is larger, the tabletop can be made longer.
Finally, a gazebo table also does not require any special tools or skills, see fig. below. The material is the same magpie board and some inexpensive fasteners.
One step closer to art...
To advance in table building, you now need to learn some of the basics of carpentry. A table, in general, consists of a table top, its supporting frame, possibly with niches and/or mechanisms, or simply a plate - a base - legs, and the nodes that hold everything together. Let's go through them starting with the connections along with the legs, because... their fastening is the weakest point of the table.
Connections and legs
At first, we need to master the connection on dowels - round wooden bosses, see fig. Dowel joints are assembled using quick-drying glue that does not require curing: wood glue, BF-2, acrylic. Sometimes, to connect thin boards, instead of dowels, nails with bitten off heads are used, pos. 4, but this is bad: the wood dries out, but the metal does not, and over time the connection becomes loose.
For dowels, use thin-layered wood that is stronger than both parts being connected, i.e. the hardest rocks. A pine table on birch legs can be connected with oak or beech dowels. There are ready-made round sticks for cutting dowels on sale; Before use, the edges of the dowels are chamfered. Plastic dowels are also sold, but they are intended exclusively for detachable connections, eg. inserts in sliding tables.
The legs are attached to industrial tables with detachable drawers, see fig. on right. The item marked in yellow is the simplest, cheapest and worst. Buyers of Shiroptrebov Soviet furniture are well aware of its shortcomings and complete lack of advantages, let it remain there. Reliable, holds well, except for the legs, and the boards of the underframe, drawers with mortise jibs, “green” pos. They also require the least cost, but are quite labor-intensive, so they are rarely used in industry, but just right for an amateur. The drawbar with a shaped steel jib, at the top right in the figure, is even stronger; In this way, you can attach legs with a round head and any legs in general, but you need purchased shaped parts made of high-quality steel.
Note: The legs are attached to the round table as shown below in Fig.
Detachable legs are needed not only for ease of storage and transportation. In a small apartment with a narrow corridor, it is often simply impossible to push a table with legs into the living room, no matter how you turn it. Modern apartments are more spacious, and in one-story private houses the table can be brought in/out through the window, so in such cases the strength and durability of a table with tightly secured legs comes to the fore.
For tables on a rectangular base, the heads of the legs for blind fastening must also be rectangular, pos. 1 in Fig. By the way, the drawers can also be one-piece: then the legs have dowels that pass through a mortise wooden jib. From the inside, the dowels are cut flush and wedged with dogwood or boxwood wedges inserted across the grain of the jib wood. Assembled with glue, such a connection is so strong and durable that you can fight with these 200-year-old tables by grabbing the legs.
Sufficiently high-quality tables with turned legs are simply assembled on dowels, pos. 2. For simpler tables, the legs are made of timber and fastened with self-tapping screws after attaching the tabletop to the tabletop, pos. 3. Even simpler and lighter are the legs from a pair of boards each, pos. 4 and 5. To prevent them from clinging to the floor, you need to put thrust bearings on them below or put the table on wheels.
Tabletop
The easiest, but not the cheapest, option is to order a countertop made of laminated chipboard (chipboard, laminate). Laminated chipboard for countertops is produced in the form of so-called. postforming - slabs 3.6x1.2 m thick 20-60 mm with decorative coating. The upper edge of the postforming plate is rounded, the lower edge has a drip tray, see fig. Modern furniture laminate is completely environmentally friendly, no matter what those who don’t want to forget the furniture, which stank of phenol for months, gossip about.
Postforming sells well to small furniture companies. They always have his waste; They will gladly cut your tabletop to size for you at an affordable price if the company has a jig cutting machine. Perhaps such an order will be accepted by a single individual entrepreneur if he is sitting idle. The finished slab will be edged, i.e. cover the end of the PVC with edging (edge). If you do the edging yourself (sometimes they ask for an absurd extra payment for edging), then keep in mind:
- The upper and lower flanges of the edging have different profiles, see on the left in Fig. Mix it up and there will always be a dirt edging on the table.
- The edging must be taken exactly according to the thickness of the slab. You can put a 24 mm edging on a 25 mm slab, but it will soon slide off.
- The groove for the edging ridge must be selected using a manual disk cutter; No one seems to have done it properly with a saw yet.
- Before installing the edging, apply to the surface of the end thin layer silicone sealant and the “sausage” is squeezed into the groove; V in this case silicone will also act as a lubricant, without which the ridge ridge may simply become wrinkled.
- The comb is inserted into the groove with light blows of the mallet, gradually moving along the contour. The tabletop should lie face up on the support; squeezed out excess silicone is immediately wiped off with a clean rag lightly moistened with table vinegar.
Plank tabletops are held together in plank frames with wedges and spacers - wedges. It’s quite possible to make the vamps yourself; You need 3-4 per tabletop. The boards (cheeks) of the weim are wrapped in polyethylene so that the shield does not stick to them. In Fig. for example, the process of making a round tabletop; The rectangular one is put together in the same way, only cutting it to size is easier. The shield is attached to the tabletop using glue and dowels (see below); if the boards are tongue-and-groove, dowels are not needed. When rallying on PVA, the next plot is kept until the applied glue comes off before installing it in the clamp.
Often, countertops are assembled without bands on a plaza - a flat surface covered with plastic film. It will not be possible to assemble a good board panel on the plaza: either it will come out cracked, or the boards will stand on end when assembling it. But stacked tabletops from fragments are obtained in in capable hands simply wonderful. For example, at pos. 1-3 fig. – tabletop made from sawing waste, tinted with stain. And at pos. 4-5 The base of the tabletop was the platform itself, made of thick plywood. The tile and its break are glued tile adhesive, then the depressions are filled with grout, the surface is varnished and the outline is outlined with a wooden strip edge.
Note: These examples do not illustrate all the possibilities of making inlaid artistic tabletops with your own hands.
Underframe
The table base with non-removable legs is a simple wooden frame, on the left in Fig. Niches and parts of mechanisms are not involved in the power circuit. If the table is longer than 1.2 m, or the tabletop is removable/extendable, or large operating loads are expected (for example, a work table), the underframe is reinforced with stiffening ribs in the center. If the legs are attached with drawers, then the underframe is made integral with the tabletop to create a single power circuit, on the right in Fig.
Without frame
Tables without an underframe are also known, in which the tabletop and legs work in a single supporting system. Very durable, e.g. plywood table on the left in the figure; its connections are dowel. Unfortunately, this is not an economical design for an amateur: the sidewalls cannot be assembled from pieces, they must be solid. In mass production, the waste is not very large, but a sheet of plywood with a thickness of 24 mm or more will be used in one piece for large sidewalls, and another 1 piece for smaller ones. The table on the right is quite possible to make with your own hands: load-bearing frame made; connections - in a tenon with a tightening bolt and half a tree. However, the tabletop in this case should be round or square, with rounded or right corners.
... and we find ourselves in the kitchen
Exactly. The kitchen table is the next in order of complexity after the simplest country tables. It should already meet the requirements of apartment ergonomics, dimensions - 75 cm in height for people of average size; the width of the place for 1 eater/rider is 60-80 cm, depending on its corpulence, the width of the tabletop is at least 70 cm. The aesthetic appearance is very desirable, but is not decisive: suddenly you messed up with the decoration, that’s why the tablecloth. The countertop should be easy to clean, durable, and resistant to spilled heat from hot dishes.
All these requirements will be satisfied by a table made of laminated chipboard on metal legs; They are also sold separately in sets of 4 pieces, with fasteners, on the left in Fig. Factory-made table legs are usually equipped with height-adjustable heels. A table, the manufacture of which will be reduced to screwing the leg sockets with confirmatory screws, will cost 30-50% less than a completely purchased one, and in appearance it will not be inferior to it, on the right in Fig.
If you are not too lazy to put your hands to it, you can make steel legs with your own hands. This is not only a cheaper, but also a more durable option: the sockets of the branded legs are cast from rather fragile silumin, the fastenings weaken over time and need to be tightened. You can cut out the nests yourself from good steel, and weld the very legs into them.
In a larger kitchen, there may be room for a larger table. In such a case, follow up. rice. Rustic style kitchen table plans. This table is “rustic” not only in appearance: it does not have a single nail or metal fasteners at all. Just wood and glue. A connoisseur, seeing this, nods his head in understanding and approval, and the design is simple and accessible to a beginner. True, in addition to the tabletop, you will also have to assemble the panels for the sidewalls, but in this case the extra work is worth it.
Kruglyashi
A table with a round top is appropriate in any room, if it fits there. But a tabletop made of boards in this case is not the best the best option: due to availability sharp corners without a frame, which is very complex and labor-intensive, it is susceptible to splitting. Composite countertops made from small fragments, like the one described above from waste, are free from this drawback; Unlike laminate roundels, they are decorative, stylish, unique and practically free.
There are even more sharp corners in a finely-set countertop, but here the “broom law” comes into play. Not the American Senator Venik, who loves democracy in Russia to the point of complete oblivion about it at home, but that broom that is used to sweep away trash. As you know, it is impossible to break it (the broom, not the senator) when tied, but even a child will break it twig by twig. So here, thanks to the ease of distributing loads between small fragments, a table top assembled from them works like a solid slab, and after assembly you can cut it even “Zu”.
Note: The idea of the senator-broom, sorry, Broom, was brought to mind by the statement of his compatriot Samuel Clemens, world famous as Mark Twain: “I assert, and I undertake to prove it, that Mr. Cooper has no more imagination than a bull. But not the bull that moos in the pasture, but the one that supports the bridge.”
How to make a semi-folding one round table, shown in Fig; On the right there are the tabletop dimensions and assembly order. And in Fig. above right - small round table for the hallway, according to the old classification - business card. Its feature is the minimum number of connections; assembly with glue. Any round piece will fit on the tabletop, from a cut tree stump to a cardboard one, made according to the method of making cardboard shelves, but the underframe must be durable, made of wood (two-hundred-piece board) or laminated chipboard.
Let's go further: to the living room
Table in main room at home should suit the whole house. At the same time, with the modern desire for laconic design (which also saves costs on living space), the table should, for the time being, not be conspicuous and take up less space. Therefore, one of the most popular pieces of furniture these days has become a transforming table.
The simplest transformable table, which, despite all its transformations, remains a table and does not turn into a closet or bed - a table-bedside table; It is quite possible to make it yourself “from scratch”. There are 2 options that are most common here. On the left in Fig. – the table is unfoldable, it has a record ratio of occupied space in expanded and collapsed form. These are most often placed in studio apartments perpendicular to the wall on the border of the kitchen and living areas. With the tabletop wings lowered, it will serve as a bar. By lifting the wings one at a time, you can get a kitchen or everyday dining table, and when fully deployed (in the center), it will provide space for a fairly crowded banquet.
For a bachelor living in a small apartment, a folding table-bedside table, on the right in Fig. It's basically 2 small round ones. folding tables, described above, connected by a rectangular insert. You can have lunch with one folded one, because, unlike the previous option, there is somewhere to put your legs. And when you turn it around, spend a romantic evening with a beautiful stranger or intimate gatherings with friends.
All the above qualities are combined in transforming coffee and dining tables with a mechanism. The variety of transformation mechanisms is great, but for tables, which are always tables, they mainly come down to 2 types: elevator (pantograph) and book. How they both work, see the video:
Theoretically, a book is more stable than an elevator, although a lot depends on the quality of execution. Book lovers are more popular because the book mechanism can still be made independently, and the elevator is outside production conditions hardly.
How the book-table unfolds is shown step by step in Fig. on right. To make it yourself, you need to know that the key unit is the damping-balancing elastic link. Quite expensive branded designs use very softly operating gas dampers (gas lifts), but for an amateur it is better to opt for a spring damper, and not because gas lift is much more expensive.
The fact is that the gas lift must be coordinated within fairly narrow limits with the kinematics of the lever system, the weight of the tabletop, underframe and the dead weight of the levers. If the balance of the entire system does not fit into its characteristics, the mechanism simply will not work. And the spring can always be tightened/loosened; as a last resort, replace it. In general, an unsuccessful homemade transforming table with gas lifts can rarely be “brought to fruition,” but a spring table almost always does. If you still decide to suffer with a homemade acrobat table, in Fig. – drawings of the spring transformation mechanism.
Without the availability of drilling, turning and metal milling machines or access to them, most parts of the transformation mechanism will have to be ordered. Then its production will cost a little about $40, and you can buy a good ready-made one for $50-$60. A factory-made transforming coffee table rarely costs less than $200, so even in this situation the savings are significant.
The transforming table is made to fit the mechanism. One of the most popular are Mazetti transformation mechanisms, due to their good quality and moderate of this class products price. In addition, Mazetti mechanisms are produced in a supporting frame (inset in the center in the figure), which greatly simplifies installation. Other pos. in Fig. show the structure and dimensions of the table for this mechanism.
For a strong feast
Whatever you say, a normal family with children, friends and relatives cannot do without crowded gatherings at the table, and here a transforming table will not always help out. However, we’ll leave banquet tables for the living room more or less fully, as they say, for later: these are products more high order difficulties; primarily due to the sliding mechanism.
By the way, the good old “sliders” with wooden guides and wooden sliders of the tabletop halves (item 1 in the figure) are quite convenient and reliable when properly executed; in addition, you can make them yourself, but such a process requires a special detailed description. Modern mechanisms extension with telescopic guides for full extension, pos. 2, allow you to use not 1, but up to 3-5 inserts, which increases the table capacity by 6-10 people, respectively, but they are quite expensive, and their installation requires a description no less voluminous.
There are banquet tables with folding inserts, pos. 3. In elite models, when moving the tabletop halves apart, the inserts are lifted, unfolded and put into place or put back into the underframe by a very complex mechanism, but its manual versions are available for making at home.
As for banquet tables with retractable individual tables, arranged like a keyboard stand in computer desk, then they cannot be called popular: by leaning forward (and how can this be avoided if the house has no servants?), we will get the board back into the table, and our portion of the treat will be used for festive clothes.
But let's not talk about sad things. Let us remember that the table is not always moved apart, and you can use an extension, but a solid table is in any case more reliable. Therefore, in the series of pictures below there is a way to make a very durable and inexpensive dining table, and see how it looks “alive” on the left in the picture. at first.
In addition
You often want to paint a table, or any furniture, in more than just stripes or paint it artistically. To protect the design from external influences and to ensure the possibility of refinishing the varnish if necessary, the paint should not be applied, but rather rubbed into the wood before varnishing. The technique of painting by rubbing paint in layers is called glazing. So in conclusion, we offer a master class on glazing wood.
Video: master class on wood glazing
In modern conditions small apartments It’s quite difficult to give free rein to your imagination and purchase pieces of furniture that would suit everything. Among other things, it is quite difficult to find interior elements that would be attractive not only in design, but also in price. These two problems can be solved using the method self-made wooden furniture. This could be, for example, a table. You can do it by preparing everything necessary materials and tools. This piece of furniture can be used both in the kitchen and in the living room.
Preparatory work
In order to make wooden table with your own hands, you will need to prepare some materials. You will need a furniture board with a thickness of 19 millimeters. This material is highly durable and looks very attractive. At the preparatory stage, the shields will need to be marked, and then the blanks will need to be cut out of them. It is important to stock up on the necessary fasteners for assembly. Thus, you will need to prepare 6 boards that will make up the lower support. Their size is 19 x 100 x 965 millimeters. There will be 4 legs, their dimensions are 19 x 215 x 680 mm. The same amount of leg molding will also come in handy, but the dimensions of these elements should be 1938 x 470 mm. The tabletop supports will be blanks with dimensions of 19 x 125 x 610 mm. You can make a wooden table for a gazebo with your own hands to the same dimensions. The master must prepare two dowels for the legs with dimensions of 10 x 32 mm. Two lintels with dimensions of 19 x 140 x 1100 mm should also be highlighted.
Additional items
You will need a steel tie in the amount of two pieces, its size should be 150 mm. The tabletop will be limited to the following dimensions - 19 x 1020 x 1900 mm. The tabletop plank must be cut in two pieces and have dimensions of 19 x 19 x 1750 mm. Screws, washers, ties, and dowels will be used as fasteners.
Preparing tools
It will be impossible to make a wooden table with your own hands if you don’t stock up electric jigsaw, circular saw, hacksaw, drill with drills, plane, milling machine, file, clamps, brush. To attach the parts you will need carpenter's glue; the wood can be treated with sandpaper. The table will look good if you treat it with polyurethane varnish, which can be glossy or matte.
Manufacturing technology
If you decide to make a wooden table with your own hands, then you need to know that each supporting structure consists of 3 blanks glued together. An opening should be formed in the central part. Immediately you need to cut out 6 elements for two supports. Next, the master must make straight cuts using a circular saw. Corners should be rounded. In two blanks it is necessary to cut out the central part so that the groove fits on the central part of the support. The width of the groove should be slightly smaller compared to the thickness of the tenon in the leg. This will prevent the structure from loosening during swelling and drying.
At the next stage, you can glue the supports. After applying glue to the surface of the parts, they must be folded so that the upper edges are flush. Reliability of fastening will be ensured by clamps. After the supports have dried, you need to get rid of excess glue. After the clamps are removed, you need to plan the lower and upper edges.
Working on the legs
When making a wooden table with your own hands, you need to prepare four legs. Afterwards, the vertical edges must be planed and rounded using a milling machine. At the ends of long workpieces, it is necessary to mark and then cut out tenons, placing them at the bottom and top. This can be done using a circular saw, which must be equipped with a combination blade. After the moldings are cut and brought to the required dimensions, you can round all 4 ribs. It is necessary to make grooves for glue on the back surface of the moldings.
Work on supports
If you decide to make a wooden table with your own hands, photos of the design will help you decide what features this piece of furniture will have.
The next step is to cut out blanks for the supports. For gluing, select a 10 mm groove in each workpiece. It is preferable to perform these manipulations immediately. In order to simplify the task, you need to prepare a cardboard template, marking the location of the grooves on it. Next, you can perform pairwise gluing so that the cut is located in the central part. Everything needs to be tightened with clamps. Once the glue has dried, you need to clean the cuts using emery cloth.
Installation of legs
If you are making a wooden table with your own hands, you must first review the photos. It is important to initially adjust all connections without using glue. At the wide edges, the connections should be tight. A gap of 1.5 millimeters must be provided on the side to compensate for changes in the size of the wood. When edging, these elements will be decorated.
The walls and spikes must be treated with glue, after which you can begin pairing the legs with vertical supports. Without waiting for the glue to dry, you need to make holes and reinforce the connection using dowels. If you decide that you will make a wooden table with your own hands, it is recommended to prepare the drawings at initial stage. For the legs, cut the moldings to the required length. They need to be glued and tightened using clamps. The glue is applied and then left until it dries.
If you decide to make a wooden table with your own hands, you can borrow the drawings from the article. The jumper should be installed high, so that those sitting at the table do not touch it with their feet. It is necessary to make gluing using two strips, which are previously edged with molding.
After the glue has dried, you need to remove the clamps and then chamfer. Holes must be made on the short sides to install fasteners. The tabletop can be made independently; its dimensions may differ from those presented above. At the ends you need to select tenons using a jigsaw.
Next, the cut areas are cleaned with a file. Along the long edges of the workpiece, it is necessary to install strips, which are pulled together with clamps and dried. Using an edge cutter, you need to align the edges of the moldings. They should be fixed to the planks, and then dried and the joints cleaned using a grinding machine.
When you make a wooden table for your garden with your own hands, the drawings will allow you to understand how the tabletop and legs are connected. To do this, use U-shaped brackets. On the long sides of the base, quarters should be selected to secure the sides. The ends of the last elements need to be rounded and cleaned. Afterwards everything is glued and compressed with clamps, and then left until dry.
Final works
Before you make a wooden table with your own hands, you need to familiarize yourself with the technology of the work. At the next stage, with a deviation of 100 millimeters from the edges of the base, it is necessary to make holes, the diameter of which should be equal to 20 millimeters. A through groove should be placed between them. The holes are required to prevent the base from splitting. If you are making a wooden table for your garden with your own hands, the drawings should help you carry out the work.
Now the master can assemble the table; to do this, it is necessary to fix the jumper to the legs. Using a pencil, you need to mark the position of the legs so that they are perpendicular to the ends of the lid. The brackets should be installed according to the markings. You need to make 10 holes in the tabletop to install screws. Next, you can strengthen the brackets. It is necessary to place a washer under each screw; this will compensate for shrinkage; this is the only way to make a folding wooden table with your own hands.
You can change the technology and dimensions of the table at your own discretion. However, it must be remembered that the design should be as strong and reliable as possible. It's important to protect wooden elements from negative impact external environment, especially for those pieces of furniture that are supposed to be used in the kitchen or outdoors.
Of course, today everyone has the opportunity to buy any furniture in the store, including a table. But why not make it yourself, with your own hands?
It's not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. In addition, you have the opportunity to make a table that will be ideal in size and appearance for the interior of your kitchen or other room.
In addition, home-made furniture is not only a money saver, but also a reason for pride, since not every man knows how to make something these days.
What types of tables are there?
If you decide to make boards yourself, then you need to figure out what types of tables there are and decide what exactly you need.
The simplest is a regular table with four legs, a table top and a frame. Making it will not be difficult even for those who are not experienced in woodworking.
If you are experienced enough in this matter, you can make the dining table round or oval, decorate it with carvings, paintings, or burn designs and patterns onto the surface.
A more complex option is made from boards. In essence, this is the same ordinary table, but quite thick and long crossbars are attached to its legs, on which seat boards are laid on top. This is how we get a table with benches on both sides. Such furniture is well suited both for the kitchen and for installation in the courtyard of a private house or cottage.
If the room only has free space in the corner, make a corner table that will fit perfectly into this unoccupied space. It may not be as comfortable to dine at as at a classic table, but you can put a TV, microwave or kettle on it - there will be enough space there.
One more interesting option can become a window sill table.
In essence, this is the same window sill, but significantly expanded and adapted, for example, to serve as a comfortable workplace for a schoolchild.
The advantage of this solution is that the table will be well lit most of the day.
There is also a downside: sitting at such a table in winter, your feet will have to rest against very warm, even hot battery heating, which is not very convenient.
Materials and tools
Buying everything you need to make a table with your own hands is quite simple and will not be difficult or costly. The main material for dining table is a tree, or rather:
- Boards from 25 to 50 millimeters thick, 100–150 millimeters wide, quite long.
The thicker the material for the tabletop, frame and legs, the heavier, but at the same time the more durable they will be.
Choose boards from good wood, without any defects. - Beam. It is necessary for making table legs, so choose fairly thick and strong samples. The timber can be replaced with the same boards, if you arrange them in the letter “L”, or use purchased aluminum table legs. You can also use balusters (curly carved wooden posts that support the railings on some stairs) as legs.
- Sheets of chipboard or plywood, which can be used as countertop materials. Choose samples that are thick and strong enough to withstand daily abuse.
As with materials, And Do-it-yourself tools and fasteners are easy to obtain; most homes have them. If something is missing, you can buy it at the nearest hardware store.
- pencil, corner, roulette and ruler;
- jigsaw or hacksaw on wood;
- screwdriver with a set of attachments and drill;
- plane, if it is necessary to pre-treat the boards from unevenness and defects;
- kit self-tapping screws, furniture bolts and nuts;
- sandpaper or Sander;
- varnish or stain, roller or tassel for processing the finished table.
Attention! When working with a jigsaw, always remember the safety rules and keep small children or pets away!
Simple kitchen table made of planks
First we need to make a tabletop.
There are several options here:
- Cut out the required size piece from a sheet of chipboard or plywood using a jigsaw;
- Lay several fairly wide boards and subsequently secure them to the frame;
- Take a large number of relatively narrow boards, place them side up and glue them together using wood glue.
The result is a fairly thick, heavy and durable tabletop.
Stages of work
Step 1. Assembling from boards table top.
Step 2. We make a frame from boards or their wooden bars. It can be made equal in size to the tabletop or with a slight indentation, approximately 2–2.5 centimeters on each side of the table. Having fastened the parts of the frame with screws, use them to connect the frame to the tabletop.
Step 3. After we With We put the frame and tabletop together, half of the table is already ready. All that remains is to make his legs. If you use timber for this, drill two holes in it for furniture bolts. Moreover, they can be made either on one side, one above the other, or on two different ones for more secure fastening to the frame.
Important! Carefully check the length of the table legs; they should not differ from each other. Otherwise, the table will not stand level and wobble. If you do not want it to spoil the floor material, attach rubber “boots” to the bottom of the legs.
Then make similar holes in the table frame and fasten the legs and frame with bolts and nuts. The legs can also be secured from above using screws, but over time this fastening may become loose.
If you want to make table legs from boards, fold two boards in an "L" shape on the outer or internal corner frames and secure them using the same furniture bolts or screws.
To prevent the legs from becoming loose, connect the folded boards together in the lower and middle parts using screws or nails.
That's all, simple and reliable, made by yourself, ready!
Advice: Before you start, do simple drawing, preferably from several sides. Constantly check the dimensions of the parts. Some parts of the same size can be cut out at the same time if you secure the boards or beams with clamps.
Pallet table
Wooden pallets are widely used in shops and warehouses as pallets for goods.
If you wish, you can get a few pieces for free and use them as a basis for making an original and unusual kitchen table.
If at least on one side the surface of the pallet is solid, then you no longer need to make a tabletop, it is ready.
You just need to process it and, if desired, round the corners.
Note! Since the pallets were originally intended for warehouses, no one sands and cleans them. Therefore, before making a table out of them, carefully sand them and remove all burrs. Irregularities and defects in the boards can be hidden using putty.
Stages of work
Step 1. Most pallets are open and there is quite a lot of space between the boards. distance, due to which the surface of the pallet can be used as table top not very convenient. There are two ways to solve this problem: either make boards appropriate size and secure with their screws between the pallet boards, or install a sheet on top plywood or chipboard.
Step 2. As for ordinary table, table legs from pallets can be made from timber or boards. The best thing fasten them with quite thick and strong pallet timber using nails, screws or furniture bolts.
To prevent the legs from becoming loose, connect them together with crossbars.
If you have your own land plot, then it can be furnished beautiful furniture so that it is convenient not only for gardening work, but also for relaxation with the whole family or a large company. High-quality garden accessories can be quite expensive. Thrifty owners would like to offer a scheme according to which it is quite possible to make a garden table with your own hands, in order to ultimately get strong and reliable furniture. Please read the information provided below carefully. She will help you understand how to make a table in your country house with your own hands.
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To design a country table with your own hands, you need to take minimal amount materials and tools; moreover, most of them are quite accessible and are found in almost every home. So, what should you prepare in advance:
- material to be used as a base. Many modern masters prefer wood. The main advantage of wooden benches is that they are completely safe from an environmental point of view. In addition, their appearance is very aesthetic. To make things easier for yourself, you can take new boards. When purchasing lumber, make sure that it is sufficiently dry; wet wood should not be used for work. You need to keep it for several months in a well-ventilated room, and only then start working. If you follow this advice, then a table made of timber with your own hands, made and installed, will serve for a long time. Of course, you can make a table from stone or metal, but this will require a lot of investment and effort, time and money. Stone, as the main material, is durable and reliable, however, it is much more difficult to process;
- fasteners (nails and screws);
- blueprints garden benches and a table for the dacha with the indicated proportions. Can be found ready-made options or create furniture diagrams yourself. Choose a project or make an original layout based on the options presented on our website. If you are planning to create a high-quality and aesthetically pleasing table in your country house with your own hands, then the drawings will definitely be useful to you;
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- sandpaper. If you have a grinding machine, this will significantly speed up the work process and help make the garden table perfectly smooth;
- varnishes and antiseptics for wood processing. They are needed so that a table made of boards can be used for a long time. If you use the products presented according to the instructions, you will receive a wooden outdoor furniture piece that will not lose its functionality due to moisture or insects.
How to make a table for a garden?
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If you are planning to design a wooden table for your dacha with your own hands, then you can suggest the following course of action:
- Cut the boards 140 cm long and make a frame out of them, fastening the individual elements with self-tapping screws. Make sure that the boards are positioned at right angles to each other. In order to check the correctness, measure the diagonals: if there was no error, then they should be completely identical. The finished frame is needed to ensure the strength and reliability of the entire structure.
- If you are planning to create a round table, then make legs. To do this, cut 4 boards 80 cm long, sand them with a sander to give them aesthetic appearance. Chamfer the ribs using a suitable tool. Attach the blanks to the frame from the inside. For each leg, select 4 fasteners to ensure the most secure connection.
- Attach the crossbars to the middle of the legs. They will act as a frame for a shelf, which can be used for its intended purpose for arranging some things or dishes. On the other hand, this detail will make the furniture more rigid. Fix the crossbars at an angle of 90º. To avoid making mistakes, check the accuracy with a square.
- Place the base on flat surface, check how stable it is. If the structure does not wobble and you have no doubt about its reliability, bring the surfaces into proper condition by grinding. For this type of work, it is recommended to use sandpaper or a special machine. Using the device will help simplify the task and complete the task faster.
- Assemble the tabletop. To create it, it is recommended to use boards of various types of wood. If you are planning to construct a round table, then you will need to cut the tabletop to the appropriate dimensions from a solid piece of wood. This will allow you to create a table with your own hands that will look stylish and unconventional. Treat the material with stain in advance. Secure the boards with nails, and secure the shelf with self-tapping screws. Level the surface with a special machine and apply paint to it (alternatively, you can use clear varnish). You can significantly simplify your work if you purchase or order ready-made wooden stands. You won't have to waste any time or effort on processing it.
- Place the prepared tabletop on the frame and fasten the individual elements. Metal corner for these purposes will suit best way. At this point the assembly process can be considered complete.
- As soon as country table was built, cover its surface with several layers of a substance with antiseptic properties, and after it is completely absorbed into the surface, with two layers of varnish. Thanks to these simple manipulations, you can make your garden table more resistant to the external environment. As a result, you will receive economical country accessories that will serve for many years without losing all their presentability. You can place them in the garden without worrying about the wooden table cracking after the first rainstorm.
If you have some material left, you can use it to construct wooden benches with your own hands.
When not in use, they can be placed under a table or under an awning to extend their service life. You can decorate finished furniture based on your wishes and skills. You can decorate a homemade garden table with carvings (photos on our website will help you catch inspiration).
How to make a table from logs?
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If you wish, you can make a table for your garden with your own hands using another type of material - logs. It is also environmentally friendly and easy to process. Using it, an outdoor table for a summer house will be created according to the following scheme:
- Prepare the log house for further work: plan the surface of the logs with a plane, cut into separate parts, and sand with sandpaper to remove all burrs. Make the joints perfectly even, make holes, making sure that their diameter matches the diameter of the reinforcement. It is important that the individual holes are spaced 30 cm apart from each other.
- Assemble the elements that form the log table. When connecting parts “into a bowl,” cutting should begin by filing in the center. Make sure that the cutting is exactly at the specified depth. To perform this work, it is more convenient to use a chisel or an ax.
- There is another option for fastening parts: in the places where one part is connected to another, holes are made, and reinforcement is inserted into it. To make your own garden table more durable and reliable, use epoxy glue. All parts are folded according to the drawing. If the reinforcement is too long, it is shortened. The result is to create a split table from logs with your own hands, which is very convenient to use.
Specialists make high-quality objects from wood with their own hands, connecting individual parts with self-tapping screws. This option is also acceptable; if you are going to make a wooden table for your garden, take note of it. Benches can also be constructed from logs when you have lumber left over.
To top it off, I would like to note: in order for garden tables not to lose their attractiveness over the years, they need to be properly cared for, in particular, protected from precipitation and hidden under a canopy.
By the way, setting up the canopy itself is quite simple; just use the most primitive means at hand, for example, shower curtains. They need to be fastened together so that they form a dense canopy, under which precipitation does not penetrate. If it is not possible to arrange a shed, it is better to move the furniture into the house.
One of the best ways do house plot truly cozy - make a table for the garden with your own hands. There are several types of country tables, but the most popular are designs made from natural wood. They are distinguished by aesthetics, environmental friendliness and reliability. Products made from combined materials (wood and metal) are also in demand. You can assemble an outdoor table yourself. To do this you will need boards, carpentry tools and drawings.
Choosing materials for an outdoor table
To make a garden table with your own hands, you need to select suitable materials. Special attention should be given to wood:
- Conifers(spruce, pine) are characterized by pliability and ease of processing, but are characterized by increased flammability.
- Deciduous species (aspen, birch, oak, larch, ash) are more difficult to process, but are quite strong, durable and attractive.
For country table It is recommended to take a board at least 3 cm thick, as it can withstand heavy loads. The optimal length of the table is 150-200 cm, this must be taken into account when choosing boards or furniture panels for the tabletop. To make legs from timber, you must select boards with a cross-section of at least 5x5 cm. The optimal table height is 75 cm.
Convenient picnic table
You can make a table for your garden with your own hands using the simplest drawings. However, such a product will be bulky and it will be quite difficult to move it. But the folding structure can not only be easily moved from place to place, but also taken with you on a picnic. At the same time, even a novice craftsman can make an outdoor table of this type according to ready-made drawings.
This table is not only compact and attractive appearance, but also strength (the product can withstand weight up to 100 kg). At the first stage of work, you need to cut out the structural elements in accordance with the drawing. The dimensions of the folding product can be changed, the main thing is to maintain the proportions.
The edges of the legs and footrests need to be rounded. If you are just learning the craft of a furniture maker, it is better to cut the corners of the elements at right angles, and then smooth them using a sanding machine. It's easier than rounding the edges with a jigsaw.
To connect the structural parts in accordance with the drawings, you need to use bolts of any diameter (preferably 6 mm), 35 mm long and with a thread for a screwdriver. If the bolts are longer than 35 mm, they will create obstacles in the operation of the future mechanism. When all the elements are prepared, you can pre-assemble the folding table. The legs should be connected to each other in the central part, and then screwed to the supports as shown in the drawing: the left leg to the front support, the right leg to the rear.
If everything is done correctly, you can attach the supports to the tabletop using self-tapping screws 50 mm long. But first you need to make markings on the tabletop and drill holes for the screws. Then you should check the functionality of the structure; it should fold and unfold without difficulty. When folded, the folding country table looks like this:
If you are convinced that everything was done without errors, then the structure can be disassembled, signing each part so as not to get confused when reassembling. After this, all elements must be thoroughly sanded, coated twice with an antiseptic, and then varnished. This is necessary in order to protect the folding table from impact environment when used outdoors. When everything is done, the structure needs to be assembled. Now it is ready to use!
Porridge made from an ax... or rather, a table made from a stump
Another great idea for the garden is a table made from a stump; you don’t even need a drawing to make it. But you will need to find a stump suitable size. You can search for a stump on your own personal plot, with neighbors or in the nearest forest. To make a tabletop, you can take boards or furniture panels with a thickness of 20 mm or more.
The stump for the future table should be dried, with intact, not rotten or damp wood. You can dry the fresh stump outdoors or in a warm, dry room. Drying time is at least 2 months. Determining whether a stump is dry is quite simple: if the bark is easily separated from the wood, then the stump is ready for use.
For assembly you will also need a building level, tape measure, wood varnish, sandpaper, sanding machine, chisel, hammer, nails, screwdriver, self-tapping screws.
Stages of work on assembling a table from a stump
First, the dried workpiece must be cleared of bark using a chisel or chisel. This must be done carefully so as not to damage the wood or cause cracks to appear. All soft and rotten areas are removed. Recesses and cracks in the barrel are cleaned of dirt using a chisel, and then treated from the inside with sandpaper folded in half (grainy layers outward).
Then the stump needs to be leveled from the bottom side so that its bottom becomes even. Protruding parts are removed using a plane. This is necessary so that the table can be installed on a horizontal surface. By means of a plane, other defects of the hemp are also removed, in particular, large rhizomes.
After this, all cuts are carefully sanded. The remaining surface of the workpiece must also be sanded. Hard-to-reach areas are sanded using coarse sandpaper. When the treatment is completed, the stump is covered with an antiseptic and then with varnish. To make the table easily move from place to place, metal or wooden legs, wheels or rubberized stands.
Then you need to make a tabletop. To do this, the boards are fastened to each other using glue, screws or strips nailed to the bottom. If you want to make the tabletop round or oval, then you should apply the corresponding drawing to the fastened boards, and then cut out the product.
To attach the tabletop to the stump, you need to make a frame. To do this, two parallel strips are placed on the sides of the hemp, and two more rows of holders are placed on top. The result is 6 planks connected to each other using nails. The tabletop is attached to them with screws or nails.
Then the finished structure is processed again with a grinding machine and coated with two layers of varnish. To prevent the varnish from peeling off, it is recommended to treat the intermediate layers with fine-grained sandpaper after complete drying. The table is ready!
