Save your scraps! Creating an end grain entry table.

Burning. Cutting boards. Hoarding. 

The most common ways woodworkers deal with the inevitable waste that pile up after every project. Cutting boards are quick turnaround projects (that generally sell very quickly), but, I enjoy furniture more. 

I had seen several videos and articles on making end table sized versions of this concept. I wanted to 1.) make something that would use most of my scraps, and 2.) was a bit more restrained (or deliberate) in how the pieces varied in length.

I also wasn't in love with using elongated pieces of scrap wood for the legs. The mass of color draws too much of my attention, instead of drawing my eyes around the piece. I chose steel. And they're easily the most polarizing component of this piece. 

The Process

I started by organizing my scraps by width. This is done to minimize planer waste and maximize thickness. I then went to the miter saw and started cutting my scraps, randomly, between 5-9" in length. Then, it was onto organizing the pieces into 12" panels (capacity of my planer). 

I made sure to save some of my thickest pieces for creating the leg mortises. To create these I cut 4 pieces between 7-9" in length, followed by an array (enough for 12") of pieces all cut to exactly 5". The longer pieces were placed on the outside of the panel (to hide the leg mortise). 

Then. Glue ups. So. Many. Glue Ups. 

 

After the panels were glued up. I hand planed one side flat (the side sitting on a flat surface during glue up) and then ran them through the planer, hot glued to some MDF, until they were flush. 

I wanted to add a bit of support to help reduce/prevent any bowing that may occur overt time, so I used my Festool DF 500 and placed floating 2 floating tenons the top of each panel, and 1 on each side. Another, and potentially better, way of accomplishing this would be to mark and drill each section for threading a steel rod through and simply capping them on the ends (to hide). 

I then moved to arranging the pieces in a pattern that I liked and glued the panels together in three separate glue ups. I think I would actually recommend doing it in four. 

I then added floating tenons to each section and glued two panels together. Clamped. Dried. And came back to add the third. 

Then came sanding. The floating tenons minimized a lot of my sanding, but this is end grain. Several 36 grit sanding belts were used moving in a hatch pattern, repetitively. I belt sanded up to 120Grit. Then stepped back to 80 grit with my random orbit sander and sanded the sides up to 220, and the top up to 400 grit. This is done to help the sides and top have a similar color once the finish is applied. If I had stopped both at 220, the top would have ended up much darker. 

At that point, the table was ready to be finished. I sprayed 3 coats of Sherwin Williams Pre-Cat Lacquer (Semi Gloss). I followed by buffing it with wax, which brings the sheen down a bit. 

The Legs. 

I used 1.5", 1/8 Steel tube, welding the legs first. I did this to fit the steel legs inside the mortises and get a direct dimension for the stretcher. 

The legs were finished with Sculpt Nouveau's Black Magic. 

Tools Used: 

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