Clamping Down

There have been so may long and thoughtful comments about my post about Facebook that I feel the need to write another long post in order to respond to them. But, this week, I’m pushing the limits of my homesteading competence by attempting to glue together a new maple breakfast nook tabletop in my tiny garage workshop (the photo above is just a rehearsal). I’m doing this while I should be dealing with far more important tasks. Thankfully, while it will take thousands of words to deal with Facebook, I can distill my tabletop experience down to three bullet points:

  • Working with wood is insanely complex and I’m an incompetent fool.
  • It’s a lot easier just to go to Ikea but to do so is to give up on life’s pleasures and pains.
  • One can never have enough clamps.

Now if only we could put Facebook in a tight set of clamps and cauls . . . wait, maybe we can!

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9 Comments

  1. Japanese joinery next!

    (I shot those guys an email by the way, and…

    I searched for other info , and waddaya know they have no facebook)

    • Their website is delightfully web 1.0–usually a good sign when it comes to stuff like this. Let me know if you find anything down here–I might join you in a class.

  2. The glue up is second in pain to the much less appealing sanding. Unless you are going for that entirely uneven shabby chic look you are in a long day with the random orbital sander.

    Trust me, the last two end tables I made with a glued solid wood top were a pain in the proverbial rear to get smooth. At least the end product is something that you can keep for years without worrying about scratching through a thin veneer of actual wood to the particle board underneath.

    • Especially if you are working with a hard maple. I was working with beetle kill pine from Colorado. It machines down fairly quickly, but it does get “fuzzy” if you are not careful with your finishing.

      One option is to borrow/beg/use a powered three blade planer. You glue up that maximum width the boards will allow–say 13″ to 16″–and plane them down to equal thickness. That way you may only be fighting with a couple of joints on a table top size project.

      A friend of mine did this with 2x4s to create a butcher block top on the cheap and the results were very nice.

  3. Sometimes I think similar bullet points while (I struggle with) sewing a new dress. “I could go get one at Goodwill for like $5, but…that’s not the point.” 😉

    Best of luck! May your patience be plentiful!

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