Thread: newbie help...

Hi Mulak,

Welcome to the world of wood. Picnic table with nails only is tough, as wood tends to move particularly when stored outside, so you will need something better. A drill will certainly come in handy, and you can buy one for next to nothing at bunnings, so a worthwhile purchase for the future. Assuming you need to buy the wood, it's going to cost more than $100 for even the cheapest wood, so if you are budget constrained and want to use woodworking skills go for a smaller indoor project (coffee table, bookshelves) and then work up to a outdoor table.

Good luck with the plans and the future projects.

Tom

Originally Posted by Mulak

Hey guys

I'm new to wood stuff because my mom and I moved to a house last year and we got alot of room than the apartment we lived in. anyway I got a BBQ next week on july 8 and i got no table. I was wondering if I can make a picnic table with nails only because I got no power drill and plus what wood would you recommend?

Thank

Mulak

As TomH says, using just nails is a tough ask. You're still going to have buy the timber, which isn't exactly cheap, and you wont get a very good job out of it. Why don't you pop into Bunnings (maybe even Kmart or BigW), and get one of the cheap trestle tables. It'll probably be better than what you can knock up with hammer and nails. If you throw a table cloth over it, or a sheet, it'll do the job for you. Store it inside ouit of the weather, and you should get a few uses out of it. As a bonus, it'll probably be cheaper than the timber you would need to buy.

Yeah, I'd go the cheap tresle table route.

You can also use the table as a temporary wood working bench to do your woodworking projects on till you build up to making a proper bench.

I guess i will buy one instead... i saw a regular picnic table for 70 bucks CAN ... a 6' pine table

Buy one. tut tut.

Dont be too proud go for a walk a find a skip full of offcuts or timber being dumped. (leave the park benches alone)

Tools will be another problem though.

If I was in your position I would probably go looking for a gutsy second hand table - plenty of second hand shops around.
Sometimes its just as much fun doing up something old and well made as it is starting from scratch - and you will learn a lot about construction too.