Thread: Project finish - outdoor dining table in brushbox

I did not really keep progress photos but thought I would share a recent project that I finished yesterday.

My objective was an outdoor table to comfortably fit 4 people (the usual family size or so), 6 at a pinch for occasional. But the brief was to be comfortable and inviting for daily use. Not a fussy occasional dining table.

I decided to get quite a tough wood to resist dents and scratching - which are inevitable, but as a matter of degree. I had always fancied an offcut of brushbox I acquired once, read up on its properties and decided why not. I had it delivered milled and got to work. For larger projects I like to glue up the panel as soon as milled before it has much of a chance to move and did so using dominos for alignment as usual. My supplier passed on the advice to lightly sand and wipe with spirits/acetone before gluing up the panel which I did.

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One thing that was really important to me was have knot-free, full length pieces. If you're going to make up your own panel of select wood - don't let it look like something from Bunnings.

In terms of flattening - obviously too big for a jointer/thicknesser (about ~1750mm long, 860mm wide) - I had a really tough time. It is tough on plane blades but the biggest problem that I had was that when you experienced tear-out it tore out big chunks. The size of the panel also made work holding very difficult. I sadly just ended up getting it close and hitting the areas with bad tear-out with a belt sander. While I used I did briefly wonder why belt sanders are not used more. They are beasts and much less comfortable than ROS (even a Festool rotek) but get the job done.

I did not take many pictures of rest but in terms of design:

- My main objective was having a table light enough to easily move with two people (to move around deck and to sweep etc), but very stable and with minimum wobble. To me this required about 35mm thickness in the legs in the solid hardwood, with cross bracing in both dimensions at multiple points

- I wanted a little joinery showing - something slightly out of the usual without being garish

- I have realised through experience that clamping long lengths (> 1.5m) can be very problematic unless you have massive sized clamps. I did not want to acquire just for this project.

- I decided to go with a bridle joint that used drawboring pegs to effectively clamp the glue-up, and provide a little variation and interest. For the stretchers I decided to have one lengthways stretcher arched to allow leg room, two at the side with subtle curves, and a cross stretcher in with a sliding dovetail to let you rest your bare feet and fight wobble.

I acquired over Christmas a jointer/thicknesser machine and bandsaw and rapidly decided I had held out on machines like that a bit too long. Jobs that I could do by hand but which just sucked out all my shop time and wore me out became a cinch. It was all fairly basic operations and this is the result.

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I have not really seen the dovetail for the center stretcher before and had no idea how to cut - it is of course not really the appropriate joint as any pulling action would be parallel to the grain - but in this design it just locates the stretcher and all the major force in use is downwards. I scratched my head on how to cut the joint but just chiselled away to a line and figured something out and am pleased with outcome for outdoor furniture.

The finish is Whittles hardwax oil (satin) which is really my go-to for a quality finish these days on larger pieces.

I was pleased that the piece is rock solid in terms of stability. I had built enough poor and wobbly tables to realise going in that you need either massive weight or good design that is going to avoid levering force from wobblying your desk or table. In fact the top is heavy enough that is it not attached with anything yet - I will do little biscuits and slots or z-clips - but just does not move at all even with a fairly hard shove. I may decide just to never bother attaching if I can't see any point.

Some thoughts to share are:

- If you're a hand tool woodworker - don't delay getting a bandsaw eventually! Cleaning up rough-outs on a bandsaw is so very, very efficient! It made the long stretchers an hour long job (mostly cleaning up end grain on the inside of the curves).

- The brushbox was not super dense, but tough and hard on tools. It is similar to black wattle for me in that regard. I curved all of the small stretchers with a combo of a drawknife for majority of waste, then finishing up with spokeshaves. I find that a very effective combo. You can take very big but controlled bits with the draw knife (taking diagonal slices especially to get big bites without too much force - you're roughing out!) and come home with a few swipes of your very sharp spokeshave, which will stay sharp if you're not scrubbing away at waste.

Hope all had a decent run at their holiday projects too!

Chris