How to finish this requested hipster piece??


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On 7/3/2018 at 4:12 PM, bushwacked said:

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so a friend sent me this and and asked if I could make it cheaper than the $300 price tag they saw this going for. I said sure.

However my question is ... how do I attach each level? 

With 2x4s I’m not sure. Should I build each level and then glue together and then finish only what’s left on the outside? 

Im worries about cheap HD 2x4 wood and it warping like crazy after a few days or week or month. I was thinking of finishing each level and then somehow joining them together. Maybe screws and dominoes or something??

 

Thoughts?  

Sure. Do it for $250.

Construction adhesive + polycoat and you're all set.

Just seal it up so it doesn't move. 2x4s ... meh, as they say.

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On 7/4/2018 at 11:35 AM, drzaius said:

I tried to hold my tongue, but I can't. That table is absolutely the fugliest piece of rustic furniture I've ever seen. I have no other words.

It's not as bad as pallet pieces. Almost, but not quite.

On 7/3/2018 at 10:28 PM, RichardA said:

Oh, and don't forget to borrow some of Collin's twine.

Hey!

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On 7/3/2018 at 11:11 PM, K Cooper said:

Steve, I disagree. I think planing would be a couple of steps beyond the expectations of the client. In all honesty, is someone wanted to pay me anything to build this and I could make a slight profit, I’d darn sure do it and even share it with you guys, 

It hasn't been that long since refrigerators were avacado. Today we snicker. But people *wanted* them.

Capitalism.

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38 minutes ago, collinb said:

It hasn't been that long since refrigerators were avacado. Today we snicker. But people *wanted* them.

Capitalism.

So I inherited my mother's dresser.   Bought sometime in the early 1960s.   It's pretty well built, dovetailed drawers made of beech, exterior is hard maple.  It's very heavy and  I've always been impressed with it's construction. 

But my wife thinks it's ugly, and you know maybe it is.   It's that classic brown stain that everything was done in back in the day.  So she hunted the internet and found one on ebay for $200... said we should sell it. :(

 

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I like this better than a lot of the pallet wood stuff that is done as of recent. 

I don't think I'd do it for much less than $200 if you want to make any profit at all, not sure how much the legs are going to cost and you'll have maybe another $40 or so in lumber, plus spending some time picking through the stack at the home store. 

I've had pretty good luck with kiln dried doug fir staying pretty straight.  Depending on how long the table is going to be you are likely going to burn 1 stick for each piece.  I can't get anything longer than 8' in kiln dried locally. 

I think I would either biscuit or pocket screw the top and bottom slabs together then just glue the slabs together.  I too would make the middle hollow to save lumber.  Maybe 1' pieces on each end.

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I don't like construction lumber for making furniture either, but if you built it hollow using  long 2 X 4's for only the top, front, and back, then short pieces to fill in the ends so the look  would be the same, it would be a lot more stable. The suggestion to use 2 X 12s and rip them is a good idea, but discard the piece with the pith and the tight curved grain. Using narrower pieces rotated so that the grain is oriented vertical will improve stability too by simulating "quarter sawn" wood. Do you have an older family run style Lumber Yard in the area? Their construction lumber has likely been sitting bundled for longer, so it should be dryer and won't turn into a pretzel before you can get the table together.  It will still be Fugly, but should hold together better. I would use biscuits, glue, and clamps and get the assembly completely together in one day. Then sand the rough places and add the legs the following day then have him pick it up that afternoon before it begins cracking and twisting Do not sign it, Collect your $275 and then and use a nebulizer (from the Men In Black movie) on him, so he doesn't remember where he got it,

Charley

 

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On 7/3/2018 at 8:27 PM, Steve B Anderson said:
On 7/3/2018 at 8:11 PM, K Cooper said:

 

I agree with everyone here that this is not what “We” do and it is an ugly looking table...but, I feel we should help anyone that has a question or needs help with a project no matter how bad it is

I know you are getting a lot of non serious responses, but if it were me, I would probably buy the wood, let it sit in the shop a couple of weeks, the match pieces that warped opposing directions. I would glue the thickness of the table together first (not the width). So you would have a 3 stack of 2x4s. Once those are set and dry, joint them so you can glue each stack together to make the table width. Id use mortises, dowels, dominoes, etc.. you keep things in line or you are going to have a bad time. Expect further warping after delivery, but i think this method should help stabilize it somewhat. 

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I was working on a miter sled for my table saw this weekend and decided that one of my KD doug fir 2x4's was the straightest and thickest piece of wood I had in the shop so that became my fence.  It's been sitting at my house for over a month without being used and stayed extremely straight for what it was.  I ran it through the planer to get smooth faces and the cut to length and ripped to clean up the faces that didn't get planed.  I think it's going to work quite well really, it's rift sawn so I think it will be fairly stable.  I guess my point is that not all construction lumber is garbage if you dig through the stack and pick your boards carefully.

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If all construction lumber were junk, we wouldn’t build houses. This argument gets tired. The benefit I have as a builder is that the material comes out in a massive bunk. We discard and return crap to a lumber store, not a BORG. You can find good stuff as often as some hardwood stays perfectly straight. The problem with my statement here is that the interweb hipsters are often not sorting at all or being particular. 

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