– Hey, I'm Caleb with
"You Can Make This, Too". Bruce and I came up to a
meetup here in Kentucky that Jeremy Meadows put on. We met Nick from Lakeside Woodshop and he invited us over to come do a build and did a table in a
day, so this is all about how to speed up woodworking and
make something cool quickly. Bruce is going to have another video out. He did a different table
from the same slab. Anyways, stick with me and I'll show you how you can make this, too. – [Caleb] – Nick showed
Bruce and I a few places in his home that needed some furniture and I was drawn to this
nook in his theater room. It seemed a perfect place for
a simple triangular table, which is the first, albeit
an obvious, tip for speed. If you want to build
a quick project, well, pick one that can be be built quickly.
A small slab, topped with a metal base; this could only be faster
if I used hairpin legs, but at that point could I
even really call it a build? Anyway, the first step was
picking out some material. Fortunately, Nick has a lot
of hardwood slabs on hand. He gave me some serious wood envy. But Bruce an I settled
on this olive wood slab that Nick recommmended because
we thought we could both get our tabletops out of it. The shape of my top is a little tricky, so I figured it best to
make a template first. That way I could easily mark out exactly the piece of the slab that would look best for the tabletop.
A piece of scrap lauan was
perfect for the template and it only took a few minutes
to clear off a work table, mark it out, and then cut
it down with a track saw and miter saw. The time to make the template paid off and it was easy to mark
out the shape of the top. The trouble with trying to
sketch right on the slab is there wasn't a square
corner to reference from. After I plugged in the saw cutting down the slab was
really straightforward. Here's where Nick showed
us the first trick for working faster. Thicker slabs and some
species are notorious for burning when cut, which
can be a real pain to sand, epecially trying to sand the edge without rounding over a corner. Anyway, a trick his shop uses is to cut just outside of the line with the tracksaw and then slide it over
and take a light pass, similar to what a machinist
would call a spring pass, to just remove the burning. Of course, that technique would work fine with whatever saw you're
using, be it a table saw or a circular saw with a guide, or probably even a bandsaw,
but definitely not a seesaw.
The next tip is an obvious one, but don't do by hand what can
be done faster by machine. That's why we buy machines. The slab had been previously surfaced, but it got a bit scuffed up
from storage and being cut down. But, instead of spending an
extra ten minutes sanding, we took light passes on each
side through the planer. I know this planer is a
beast, but when possible, size your assemblies or glue up so they can fit through your machines. If you have a two foot
tabletop and a 12-inch planer, make a one foot section
and plane both of those, then join them into two feet.
Of course, that doesn't
negate all sanding. Next will be some crack filling. But, because of the planing,
I was able to start at 120 and then jump higher
and sand a little quicker. Here's a speed technique
that Nick told us about. To fill voids and cracks quickly they use Bondo darkened
with System Three dye. Normally on voids this
size I would use epoxy, but that's a one to three day
process with the cure time. But the Bondo sets up
and is ready to be sanded only 20 minutes after it's mixed, which makes it great for working quickly, but you do have to do just that. Don't mix until you're ready
to apply and then work quickly. As soon as the Bondo started to set up I did my best to scrape some
of the excess off the top to minimize the amount of
sanding I'd have to do later, which will also speed things up.
Almost got two tips in there. And, no joke, it was only
about 20 minutes later and I was sanding the table. If I'm sanding again now, though, why did I sand before the Bondo? Well, I sanded a high grit earlier to burnish the grains some
before applying the Bondo. Burnishing the grain
like that helps prevent the Bondo from creeping into the grain and makes it really only settle
into the cracks and voids where I want it. And with that, the top is
basically ready for finish. So, I jumped to working on the base. First is getting some
measurements right off the table. I want the base to be a
little shorter than the sides, so I mark that and then I mark and start cutting down the steel tube. To minimize math and
errors and, well, math. Okay, only math because
I still screwed up. I just take each piece of
steel tube back to the tabletop to measure and place. With this second piece cut, I come back to the table
to mark everything in place for the long leg of the triangle.
Free internet points
to anyone that catches what stupid mistake I made while marking. And that's another great
tip for working faster. Just don't make mistakes. But before I get into that, as I mentioned in the intro, Bruce built a complimentary
table with a few extra features like some bowties and a shelf. Be sure to hit the link
below or in the card to head over and see his video
and subscribe to his channel. He's a great guy that
does some amazing work and puts out some really
high quality videos.
Fortunately, my mistake was
one that was easily correctable and the pieces were only
off about half a bob. Though annoying, all I had to do was mark on the proper side
and cut the pieces again. Fortunately, I cut the pieces too long, which is a lot easier to deal with than cutting them too short. Off-camera I cut down the
steel tube to the right length and then was ready to weld. I started by just tack
welding the triangle together. Once it was together and I checked that the corner was still square, I laid down full welds on the joints. Then, like any barely adequate welder, I paused to grind my welds while they're still easily accessible.
Then I tacked on the corner
upright, a piece of angle iron. Metal has this habit
of moving as you weld. Something to do with turning metal into a molten puddle and then rapidly
cooling causes contraction. Anyway. After the tack weld I
wiggled my angle iron back into square before adding more tacks to lock it into a square
position before doing full welds. Then I repeated that process
for the other two uprights, except those uprights are
just flat bar, not angle iron.
In an ideal world, I would
have welded some stringers across the top to lock
everything together, but I had to leave some
metal for Bruce to use for his table and Nick didn't
have a whole lot on hand. Once the top goes on top,
that's going to lock everything together plenty strong for a side table or stepstool or a jack stand for a truck. I mean, this is 1/8 inch
steel and 1 1/2 thick slab. It's strong, people. The last thing to weld
are these handytabs, which is another time-saving trick. Keep often-used hardware on-hand. I ordered a pack of these
as soon as they got home so I'll have them. And I always order sandpaper, glue, common screw sizes, and finish in bulk and just keep it available. And, of course, a little more grinding before the base is done. With the base complete I
had to take a little pause, just to see how this was
going to come together. Wood and metal clank) – [] Nice! – It's pretty cool! – [Nick] Thing looks good! – And now, time to finish.
I wanted to keep the bark, so I used a brush to knock
off any loose pieces or dirt before applying a
fast-drying natural finish. If I'd been thinking ahead
more I could have saved even more time by starting
the finishing process on the wood before I started welding. Anyway, while you enjoy this
delicious wood-oiling footage, leave a comment below about
your favorite tip so far or something you like to do to speed up projects in your shop so we can learn from your experience, too. – An obvious tip for
quicker projects is to take advantage of downtime.
The finish needs to soak a few minutes before it can be wiped off, so I switched over to the metal base and used a technique Nick
showed us they use in his shop. First, they wipe down the
base with denatured alcohol. Then heat up the metal until
the scale changes color. Then wipe on paste wax, which melts in. It's a super-fast finish that seals the metal and prevents rusting and leaves a nice raw look to the steel. Then back to the wood top. I wipe off the excess finish, flip it over, and finish the other side. Again, it gets a few minutes to soak before being wiped off and
then I attach the base. Ideally, it would have been given overnight to completely cure and I normally time my finishing that way, but it was already after dinner and I still had a 7
hour drive to get home. And the top was dry
enough that it was safe to set it on a blanket and screw the base into the underside, so we did that so I could get some sweet glamor rolls for you.
– [Caleb] So there you go. To wrap it up, if you
want to speed up a build start with something
that you can build quick and if you're cutting
thick materials or woods that burn easy use a spring
pass after your first cut to remove the burning
instead of trying to sand it. Size components so they can
fit through your machines and size them and smaller
assemblies if you need it and assembly that's larger than your largest machine can handle. If you need to do any repair work, try Bondo or CA glue instead of epoxy for super-fast cure time. Use fast-drying finishes. On this we used a natural Danish oil, which is a quick wipe-on, wipe-off finish and Nick actually has a
giant UV light in their shop they use to quick-cure the finish when they're really in a hurry.
But, if you've been
around, you know I normally use TotalBoat Halcyon, which
has a one hour dry time. One tip I use a lot that
didn't come into play here is avoid clamps if you can. If you have to do a glue-up, try to use brad nails or hidden
screws as clamps instead. They're quicker to apply and often are strong enough
that you can keep working without having to wait
for the glue to cure and just let it cure in place. Be sure to check out Bruce's
video for his tips and project. I hope you learned
something, were inspired, or at least entertained. If you feel I deserved it, please hit that Subscribe button and bell and, most importantly, until next time make time to make something.
So they say, kind of like… that amount. It's about three inches. Here's what they actually say. – [] Perfect! – See, you can run it full speed. – Yeah. – [] Right through your… – About to put in the
screw for the first time.