Table Making
I recently built a table for our food bus, and it works. This was an extra project added on to give more storage space and seating for friends and family when they come visit the bus. I have always enjoyed building and woodworking, and the wood used for this project has a story connected to it. Here are some of the pictures of the project and a little back story of how this wood became a table/bench/shelf.
So this wood was originally installed in the late 1800’s early 1900’s as a warehouse floor in the building of my parents former business. We had to rip up the floor when we remodeled the building and seeing that it was beautiful oak wood, I decided to keep a fair bit of it for projects down the road. I do not have any pictures currently of what the wood started out like, but if you look at this first picture you can see the tongue is a dark worn color. That was the state of the whole board. It was a dirty warehouse floor that had seen multiple floods and plenty of wear and tear. It took quite a few passes in the planer to get it looking good again.
The next step was ripping off all of the tongue and groove to join the boards smoothly for the table and bench. I am very thankful to Asa and the other fine people at Brew Gentlemen for allowing me to use their wood shop. I never would have thought that i would be building a table and bench set in the basement of my favorite brewery. It is weird how life goes sometimes.
Another big help in this project was my friend Sam who works with John Malecki The Builder. Their shop is right down the road from where i was building this table and they had a planer big enough to smooth out the table top. Sam and I have known each other for a long time and he is a very skilled woodworker and digital content creator. When I realized my glued table top was too big for the planer I had on hand, I was glad to have him working right down the road at John’s shop. John does some amazing build and I would encourage you to look at this youtube page that I posted above. Having these two people as a resource made me a lot less nervous about finishing up this project.
After I had everything planed and sanded down, I applied the butcher block conditioner, and the results are fantastic. This stuff protects the wood, makes it waterproof, and is food safe. The way it brings out the grain in the wood is by far the most appealing thing about this application. With the age and history of these planks of wood, I did not want to hide any of its natural beauty behind a stain or paint.
Well the table is finished and I am very pleased with the results of it. We have had multiple people stop in and use the table and it has not collapsed yet, so that is a good sign. The condiment shelf was also a great addition to the bus and a new convenience for our customers. we now have a nice organized place to put our hot sauces, utensils, and napkins.
Well again thank you again for taking time to see whats going on in my life. I have a few other projects coming up in the near future that I will be posting about.