Live Oak, Salvage Lumber Dining Table For $140 Part 2

This is part two of our kitchen table build 
we'll be showing the rest of the process and   the completed table in this video. Our total 
cost for this table is under $150 and we're   using all reclaimed Lumber in the build. 
when we left off last time I was drilling   the holes in the metal straps that I'll 
be using to attach the diagonal braces.

The diagonal braces themselves will be made 
of the same three and a quarter by three and a   quarter Oak pieces that I use for the rest of 
the base and so I need to attach those metal   braces to them so I'm clamping them on and 
transferring the holes this table will be a   custom fit to our kitchen design it's going 
to be tall a counter height table and it'll   be long and narrow eight feet by 32 inches wide 
the table top is solid Live Oak an inch and a   half thick extremely heavy and so I want this 
base to be very heavy duty very sturdy that's   why I'm installing these diagonal braces 
here I'm cutting bevels on the end of the   diagonal braces they're already cut to length 
and I think these bevels will add a nice look   here is a drawing that I made of the project when 
I was conceptualizing it I wanted to add some   metal to the wood structure and so I'm using metal 
pieces to attach the diagonal braces to the base   I'm having to fabricate all of my own brackets of 
course and there are a couple of pieces that are   definitely unusual that I'm going to have to 
weld up I dug through the shop and found some   old scrap metal that'll work perfectly for 
this I'm going to be using a piece of pipe   combined with a piece of rectangular Channel 
and some other little pieces of scrap metal to   make that bottom connection here I am welding 
them together I'm not the best welder but I can   definitely stick it together I'm going to be 
grinding it all down before I finish it anyway   with everything fabbed I'm ready to submerse 
everything in a couple baths of vinegar this   will remove the scale from the strap metal that 
I used and the piece that I fabricated and it'll   remove the nickel from the bolts washers and nuts 
this will need to soak for about 24 hours maybe 36   but it should completely remove everything and 
by the time I'm done I'll have a nice uniform   color and look on all the metal pieces instead 
of having shiny bolts and dark scaly metal   I've removed the pieces from the vinegar 
bath it's important to immediately rinse   them dry them off and coat them in oil 
they rust incredibly fast if you don't here I'm doing a little routing on the pendulum 
brace the way these metal straps attached the   ones from one side will overlap the ones from 
the other side and I don't want them to stick   way out so I'm recessing the straps that 
go on one side of the brace and that where   those attached to the pendulum I just traced 
the location of the brace and then use the   router to remove the material to the correct 
depth and finish up the edges with the Chisel in the last video we showed how I made the 
mortise and tenons and here I am working   on the shoulder of one of these it didn't fit 
quite right and just needed a little trimming   next I'm ready to perform the final 
sand before finishing on all of the   base pieces we just got a little 
video but this took several hours now moving back to the top in our last video I 
put in 18 bow ties to stabilize the table top   and now those have been drying for a few days 
and I'm ready to start flattening the table   here's a few of the tools that I'll be using 
a couple different types of planers power and   manual some winding sticks Sanders and Etc 
the table top had warped a little bit after   glue up due to those cracks in the wood I've 
stabilized those now with the bow ties and I'm   ready to use a hand plane to take the warp out 
of this top I'm using a slightly rounded blade   on my plane and I'm going across the grain of 
the wood this helps me to quickly hog off the   material to get it close and here you can 
see what that looks like the the look that   that slightly rounded blade leaves on the 
wood it really removes the material quickly once I had it close with the hand plane 
I was ready to move on to the belt sander   I'm using 80 grit sandpaper here to take off the 
highs and lows left from that blade that I used on   my hand plane this will allow me to get the entire 
table pretty close once I'm done here I'll use a   smaller sander to move through the finer grits 
after the top was pretty well finished up I was   ready to go ahead and remove the extra material 
off the ends and take the piece to finish length   I made it an additional three or four inches 
long so that I'd have extra material to cut off   at the end it really makes it easier when you 
do your glue up and stuff to have some extra   material that you know you'll be removing here 
I've clamped on a piece of Oak that has a nice   straight edge that I'll be using as a guide or 
a fence so that when I make this cut it'll be   nice and straight and here I'm just double 
checking myself I want to make sure that it   is absolutely square with the rest of the table 
and my measurements are right because I can't   do this twice and then I'm using my little 
cordless handsaw here to remove the material now I just need to move on to the other side 
and repeat the process over there I'm cutting   this table to exactly eight feet long and 
it really feels huge it's a very long table The Next Step was to put a chamfer on the edge 
of the table I like a nice simple elegant design   and so a 45 degree chamfer was the perfect 
solution this part was a little stressful   for me just because I'm always worried about 
the wood splitting out especially along these   long edges sometimes you can catch the seam 
in the wood or a natural crack in the wood and   it'll just chip out a big long chunk and I was 
really worried about that happening fortunately   that wasn't a concern at all this wood is 
very hard very tough and gnarly and stuck   together well didn't want to chip out the wood 
species I'm using for this table is all live   oak which is incredibly hard gnarly and tough 
it's about twice as hard as normal Oak which   is already very hard so it's been interesting 
it's very hard on tools I've dulled two sets   of chisels so far on this project and had 
to resharpen my plane blades many times I   was worried that this router bit wouldn't 
make it through this edging process [Music]   that pretty much finishes up the top of the table 
it'll just need to be sanded later but before I   do that I want to flip the table over and work on 
the underneath side it is also a little warped and   needs some work so I just need to get this flatter 
than it is I have an eight foot level that I'll be   using as a straight edge on the back side here to 
make sure that I have any warps or bows out of it   and so I'm laying that up and I'm just looking for 
gaps underneath then I do a little marking so that   I can come back later and remove that material 
on the high spots with a electric planer to   begin with first I look down the length of the 
table and make some markings as I go for later   then I go across makes those same kind of markings 
just looking for little gaps with a straight edge   just making some notes for myself and I'll 
be using those as reference points as I'm   going over with the hand plane like here 
of course I'll have to do this several   times as I planed it off I lose my marks and 
I have to re measure and you know take a new   look at it with the straight edge and so I 
repeat this process several times [Music]   this electric hand planer is wonderful for 
hogging off material and I used it for that   quite a bit but once I get close I have to move to 
the hand plane which I don't think I got any video   of on the back side here but I use that quite 
a bit and then finished up with the belt sander   I also did put a bevel on the back side 
a much smaller bevel than on the top   The Next Step was to fill in the cracks and some 
of the bigger holes in this wood this wood has a   lot of character lots of cracks that need to be 
filled there was some wood boring insects that   had left tunnels through part of this wood and 
all of that needs to be filled in even though   this is the underneath of the table I want to get 
it filled in so that it further stabilizes the   table top here I'm using some five minute epoxy 
to fill up one of the larger cracks the epoxy is   great for filling in large gaps but it's fairly 
thick and doesn't flow real good it also sets   up really fast so I only used it for the really 
big cracks the really big voids for these smaller   cracks I used either super glue for the really 
small ones or a custom putty that I make myself   the super glue works really great to get into 
those tight fine cracks I have a thick super   glue you can get it in different viscosities I get 
the thick kind and it has just the right viscosity   to soak into fine cracks and really seal them up 
after everything had dried I did a rough sanding   and I was ready to flip the table back over to the 
front side first thing I wanted to do on the front   was to check everything out to make sure it wasn't 
warped or twisted and fortunately it looked like   it was stable that nothing had moved so I moved 
on to filling cracks I had originally intended   to use epoxy and kind of the same combination 
of stuff on the top that I did on the bottom   but I got a good look at the epoxy that I used 
on the bottom and didn't like the way it turned   out it had some bubbles in it it looked kind of 
semi-transparent and wasn't real appealing and   I thought what looked the nicest was the putty 
so I decided to use that exclusively on the top   I'm using a mix of wood glue dust that I pulled 
out of the sander from when I was sanding this   table top and some pre-made Putty from the 
store that had a nice coloration I used that   to darken it this process took way longer than 
I expected there are so many cracks when you   get to looking I probably made 15 batches of 
putty up to fill all these cracks in the table   back in the shop I'm putting a layer of plastic 
over my workbench so that I can move on to the   next step I'll be assembling the base for 
the final time and applying the finish this   is a really fun part of the process everything is 
built test fitted and sanded and ready to go and   so this is this is really fun I'm just bolting 
everything together here I'll be assembling it   right on my table top where it's easy to get 
to everything for the finishing process I'm not   gluing any of these joints I'm just bolting it 
together with some self-tapping lag bolts that   I made one of the reasons I decided not to glue 
it is so that in the future if someone wanted   to lower this table it is counter top height so 
it's pretty high and in the future if you know   one of my progeny owned this table and wanted to 
lower it to normal table height they could just   easily take it apart and shorten the legs and 
it wouldn't be too big of a deal to shorten it the legs are standalone pieces that are connected 
by a Cross Beam that I'm putting on right now   one thing I might mention is that I did put a 
little toe piece onto the side of each leg to   raise the leg off of the floor by about an inch 
so that it just rests on those end toe pieces this cross piece is connected with a couple 
of dovetail bits that I did those worked out   really well and are nice and sturdy and this 
pendulum is another mortise and Tenon fit   and it's finally time to apply the finish I'm 
applying a nice wet coat of boiled linseed oil and   enjoying the color and figure that it brings out 
in this wood we'll be using a little bit different   finishes for the top of the table and the base 
of the table for the base I'm just using boiled   linseed oil I'll be doing several applications at 
least four and and perhaps more with a little bit   of time for each one of those to dry it'll leave 
a nice matte finish that's still beautiful and   durable but for the top of the table I'll be using 
a heavy duty polyurethane finish the first coat is   always the most fun to apply it's so fun to watch 
as it's transformed from this Dusty pale color to   this Rich vibrant colorful wood that you see here 
this oil that I'm using is some that we had left   over from when we did the Earthen floors in our 
home we bought it in bulk and had some left over   so I'm able to use some of that extra here and I 
have it cut with Citrus solvent the Citrus solvent   allows it to absorb deeper into the wood and dry 
faster it also smells ridiculously good it smells   just like fresh squeezed orange juice I will go 
over this several times until the wood won't take   anymore and then I'll allow it to set for maybe 
15 or 30 minutes before I wipe off the excess [Music]   now back to the table top I'm ready to sand 
down all of that wood filler and begin the   final sanding process I'm expecting this to 
take a good while possibly a couple of days   I'm using a coarse 80 grit sandpaper on this 
belt sander to quickly remove the excess Putty   from those cracks that I filled I did have to 
go back in and touch up or refill some of the   cracks that I didn't get enough putty in the 
first time once the coarse sanding was done   I was ready to move on to the finer grits and 
for those I move on to a small orbital sander   the small sander I started out with the 120 
and then worked up to 180 and finally 220.

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I   buy sandpaper in bulk in 50 packs and it's a good 
thing I do because I use a ton of it probably at   least 15 or so of each grit I use the hand sander 
to sand the sides and the chamfer as well it's   really starting to look nice now it's getting very 
smooth to the touch and almost shiny even without   a finish and that finishes up the sanding on this 
table top it is finally ready for finish we're   going to flip it over so the back side is facing 
up and do the finish on the back first we've been   trying to decide what kind of a finish to do on 
this tabletop we could either go natural with   like an oil finish covered with polyurethane or 
use the graying compound to accelerate the aging   and have a neat grayed look and we couldn't decide 
which way to go so we did a test piece to see what   they both look like we found that the oil brought 
out a lot of interesting color variation in the   wood and that the aging accelerator just washed 
everything out it turned everything different   Shades of Gray and so in the end we decided to 
go with the natural color of the wood and use   the oil we're now applying the oil to the back of 
the table top the oil is just the first step in   the finish for the table top we'll be putting on 
a polyurethane after this oil dries so for now I   just need to apply one heavy coat of this oil to 
both sides of the surface and allow that to dry one coat will be sufficient to bring out the 
natural color of the wood which is what we're   really going for and by only using one coat 
it'll also dry faster so that's why we're   doing one coat of oil and after that we'll move 
on to the polyurethane step this oil is such a   fun process it gives us our first Glimpse 
at how the table will look and what we're   seeing is just a lot of beautiful color come out 
this wood has so much character each piece looks   completely different than the others but they 
all go together it's really beautiful there's   so much interest in this piece we love it and 
these bow ties really look nice in here too   it's really been a challenge working with 
this old warped and cracked wood there's   been a few times during the project where I 
wondered if it was going to turn out it was   behaving really strangely kind of warping 
and moving and it was a real challenge to   stabilize the piece and to fill all the 
cracks but the end result is absolutely   gorgeous and I'm really glad we used this 
wood it's full of character and beauty I allowed the oil a couple of days 
to cure and then we brought the   piece into the workshop we'll be applying 
polyurethane in this next step and we need   a fairly dust free environment 
that's why we brought it inside   I wipe the top down with mineral spirits just to 
remove all of the dust from sitting outside for   a couple of days make sure it's perfectly clean 
and then I allow that a little bit of time for the   mineral spirits to evaporate and now I'm getting 
ready to apply the polyurethane polyurethane   has a lot of advantages it's incredibly tough and 
durable and therefore perfect for a kitchen table   top but it's also difficult to apply so it's not a 
beginner product beginners can use it but it's it   is more difficult than other types of finishes it 
goes on rather thick and is fairly unforgiving it   does show some brush Strokes although a few 
of those will even out as it starts to dry   it also has a strong tendency to drip and so it's 
best used on a horizontal surface like this where   you don't have to fight gravity too much the edges 
is something that you have to be really careful   of as you can see I'm wiping the edges down I'll 
do the edges last once I do the top of the table   polyurethane also dries relatively slowly it takes 
three to four hours for it to dry and so in that   time if a bug lands on it that bug is going 
to get stuck there and it's going to ruin your   finish and you'll have to remove it before you can 
apply another layer also little nibs of dust get   stuck in the Finish if there's any activity 
going on and so it's just a little bit more   difficult to apply I dread applying it I I don't 
like using it but I like the result that it gives   well it's about nine o'clock in the morning and 
I'm getting ready to flip this tabletop over   and put on the final finishing coat on the top 
surface of the table unfortunately we had a very   cold night last night it was the coldest night of 
the year so far got down to 14 degrees and even   at nine o'clock it's still about 35 degrees in 
this shipping container and that's way too cold   to apply a finish to this table I just took a 
temperature reading on the surface of the table   and it's about 35 degrees so I need to get it up 
to at least 45 or 50 degrees before I put some   finish on it and so we decided to bring in some 
heaters so I have an electric heater going on   the other side of the table and I just now brought 
in a little propane powered heater I do have good   ventilation going in here so that's not a concern 
but I've just got to get some heat into the   shipping container to get my table top temperature 
up so I can apply the finish and then it'll be in   a race to get on all the coats that I need before 
it gets down way below freezing again tonight for the top coat I'm using a gloss polyurethane 
cut with a little bit of citrus solvent I'll use   gloss for all of the coats except for the final 
coat in order to preserve as much of the color   and character of the wood as I possibly can and 
then for the final coat I'll use a satin so that   I get the right Sheen once everything was ready 
we flipped the table top over to have the top side   up and then I cleaned off the surface with some 
mineral spirits before I applied the polyurethane and I'm getting ready to apply the first 
coat here I'm hoping to get five coats on   today uh it'll be a race I'm not sure if I 
can make it or not I will settle with four   four is definitely plenty five is kind of over 
the top but I'd like to get five on if I can   the reason this is going to be such a race is 
I need to wait three to four hours between each   coat and I need to put the final coat on 
before I go to bed at night because if I   wait until in the morning it will have 
cured too much and the next layer may   not Bond so it all has to be done before I go 
to bed tonight since I got a late start this   morning the amount of coats that I'm able to 
apply today will be determined by the dry time it's 9 30 red is putting the final 
coat on the table he's been trying   to get all the coats on today chilly night 
34 degrees already, we'll go check it out well it's late and cold and I'm putting on 
the final coat I'm using a satin for this   so this will be our finished Sheen so not too 
shiny but I think all the color and character   is still coming through so I'm really happy 
with it I was able to get four coats total   we're ready to assemble the base so we're bringing 
over the pieces and getting ready to assemble it   in the kitchen we're moving this folding table out 
of the way it's served as our kitchen table in the   meantime and we're getting things cleaned up and 
ready here I'm putting together those diagonal   cross braces I tried my best to drill all of these 
holes through the brackets in these diagonal cross   pieces uniformly so that maybe they would be 
interchangeable but I just wasn't able to get   it right they still all only fit on the one end 
so I have to keep track of which end they go on   and that's definitely been a challenge since I've 
had to put all of these metal pieces through some   processing you know with the vinegar bath 
and everything so I've been trying to keep   them all separate and identified in some 
way so I know which ones go to which piece   and so far as I'm assembling these it looks 
like I've kept them sorted properly they all   seem to be going on okay one additional step 
that I've done to all these metal pieces the   bolts and the brackets is to apply a coat of 
wax to them I had applied some oil to them I   didn't feel like that was quite enough protection 
against rust and corrosion so in addition to that   I went on with the wax so I wiped everything down 
to remove any excess oil and then applied a micro   crystalline wax the brand is Renaissance 
wax to all the pieces and that should give   them the best protection that I can give them 
without changing the appearance of the metal and now for the final assembly I just stand up 
these end pieces here kind of getting everything   laid out now got these end pieces standing up 
trying to be careful not to bump them and make   them fall over and then put on that cross piece 
those dovetails just slide down into place and   I bolt them in and now to assemble the diagonal 
cross pieces here I'm assembling the hinge piece   that I had fabricated I've had this mocked up and 
pretty much in place but I've never had all of the   bolts in everything and so I'm hoping it all lines 
up this will be the test for sure so I'm bolting   it to the pendulum brace up top and then I'll 
be putting in the lag bolts to attach the hinge   brace down at the bottom of the leg those lag 
bolts went in fine and I'm ready to move on to   the other brace unfortunately I needed a little 
bit more clearance in one of the bolt holes for   the attachment to the pendulum so I did a quick 
walk back to the shop and drilled out that hole   about a sixteenth of an inch larger to give me a 
little extra room these brace pieces fit into the   recess that I created with the router and 
chisels and so once these braces are attached   they sit flush with the outside of the wood 
that'll allow the braces for the other diagonal   piece to fit over the outside and be sitting on 
the surface of the wood so they won't stick out   and now I'm getting ready to attach the 
other diagonal brace I'm just slipping   the top set of braces up over the other 
set of braces on the pendulum makes a   nice crisscross pattern up there then I'll 
be attaching that hinge joint at the bottom   in general this base follows a fairly standard 
design for this type of table but this pendulum   brace here with this crisscross diagonal braces 
was my own invention I haven't seen another table   like this and so I felt good about this I love 
the design I also love the metal addition I think   that's something different as well I love the look 
of it it just adds a lot of character and interest and now I'm just tightening everything up 
making sure everything is good in snug and   this thing turned out really solid it doesn't 
wiggle at all it is it is Rock Solid foreign but it's over in the shop and it's an extremely 
heavy tabletop it's really more than April and I   can carry for very far and so we backed up the 
car and set one end of it in the trunk of the   car and now April's driving the car forward and 
I'm walking along behind it carrying the back   we have had our son or son-in-law help 
a few times but it was late at night and   we didn't want to bother them and 
here's April and I muscling it in   to place that last little bit from the 
car to the house and it looks beautiful   now we just need to attach it to the base I've 
already pre-drilled four holes through the base   that I'll bring a screw up through there and 
attach the top to the base with four screws I've carefully positioned the top on the 
base and now I'm transferring those holes   into the top I need to pre-drill those holes 
into the top surface of the table so that   I can get those screws in there without the 
screws breaking this wood is extremely hard   so we just got it in place we transferred the 
holes then we moved the table top over a little   bit so I could access the holes better and here 
I am drilling those holes out pre-drilling for   those screws and then we'll move the table 
back into place and I'll insert the screws   I will mention that I left plenty of clearance 
around the hole in the base that the screw   grows through so that as the table top expands 
there'll be clearance and room for that screw   to move over from side to side and lengthwise 
a little bit it's really important to allow for   tabletop expansion when you attach it to the 
base so that as it moves with the different   temperatures and humidity levels it doesn't 
get in a bind now I'm just doing one last   check to make sure the top is in exactly 
the right place before I put in the screws   and now I'm just putting the screws in I'm 
just getting them snug I don't want them to   be tight I want them to be able to move the 
screws have a broad washer type head and then   there's another washer on that so that it has 
lots of room to move this slick waxed concrete   floor made it easy to just slide along to make 
these attachments it was easier than crawling and the table is finally complete this has been 
a really fun project it's been really satisfying   we love the look of the table we find it to be 
very attractive the wood is just gorgeous and   it goes really well in the home it's fun to make 
this table custom fit to our house it's just the   right size and design to fit our kitchen and 
dining area and it was amazing to use all this   reclaimed Lumber that we had also used on the barn 
and on the well house and in other parts of the   house and so it really feels like it's bringing 
the whole place together in the home so it has a   lot of special meaning to us we really love the 
table working with this reclaimed wood has been   extremely satisfying so glad we did it has so 
much Beauty and character but it did take a lot   more time and was much more difficult than using 
you know store-bought nice clean fresh wood but   this was satisfying in a way that store-bought 
wood just would not have been this was also of   course extremely inexpensive our total cost on the 
wood is only 12.50 and then by the time you add   all the hardware and finishings we're still less 
than 150 dollars for this table and here we're   putting together some bar stools that we ordered 
these are a little smaller than we were expecting   so they won't be the main chairs for the table 
these will be some kind of backup and extra chairs   we'll be looking for something that's larger 
and more comfortable for our primary chairs and we found some after considerable looking 
we've found some larger chairs that we think   will be really nice they've come in and 
now I'm starting to put those together these new larger chairs were about 
eighty dollars each and the smaller   bar stools that we had earlier were about 50 each these chairs were easy to assemble they 
went together real quick and what's nice   about them is that they have a broad range of 
adjustments so they'll fit these taller tables so our kitchen is officially done we have 
the table in place we just got our chairs   in yesterday red got them put together 
this morning so those are looking great   we have six of these and then we have four 
bar stools we originally thought that these   bar stools would be great but they're a 
little on the small side and not the most   comfortable so we did some more searching 
and we found these which are looking nice   kitchen is officially finished I 
really like how everything turned out so it's eight feet long we'll easily 
be able to fit 10 chairs around it   lots of extra space here we did it narrow so 
that we can just use the countertops to put   the food on and then it won't take up so much 
space here in the kitchen so kind of kind of   a buffet style so it all really came together I 
love this table love the character of the wood   so in the next video we'll do an update on 
our passive design and how it's performing   this winter it's a very comfortable house 
so we'll tell you more about that in next   week's video and soon we'll be doing the 
shower finishing up the master bathroom   so thanks for watching and 
join us again next week! [Music]

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