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Welcome to episode 11 of the WoodWhisper video podcast. I am your host Marc Spagnuolo. Today we are going to do something just a little bit different. We are going to actually start in the office. I got a new project coming along that is table/desk for a costumer. It is relatively simple in design, sort of reminiscing the arts and crafts mission style period. But, I figured it would be a great project for you guys to take a look at.
I am really under a time crunch here, so part of this video may not be as good as it normally would be, but I thought it was more important for you guys to get an opportunity to get the cut list. See how some of these things are done, because at this point there is no reason why, if you followed through the previous videos, why you cannot do a project like this.
We did mealing in one of the earlier episodes, we showed them the cutting board episode, how to do some basic lamination and glue-ups, and we also even covered mortise and tenon, which is the primary joint of this entire project. So, sit back and relax and we will take a look at the process on how I get starter from the minute I get the request from the costumer.
Now, the costumer already sent us Jpeg image of the table that looks very similar to the one that they want. I will actually going to use that as our model. We do not know what the dimensions are in this particular desk but what we do now is that the costumer wants theirs to be about 36 inches deep and 72 inches long.
We essentially have to reverse engineer this project and a look at the dimension, the proportions, and the average size of things in this picture and then bring those into what we are actually doing. I think ours is going to be a little wider and a little longer from this particular unit here. We will adjust those numbers as we go but let us get started and see how this works out.
So, the first of our business is to make a list of the dimensions that we are absolutely sure of now. We know we want the table to be 36 inches deep and72 inches long. We also know that we wanted to be about 30 inches in height and that is an average desk height. Meaning with the three quarter inched top; our length should be about 29 and a quarter inches long. The legs themselves, I am going to go with the three inch by three inch square length. That will be nice and sturdy for a six foot long table. The next thing for us to look at are the Aprons, we got a nice long apron on the front and back and the shorter aprons on the side. We need to determine what the optimum length would be for those.
The easiest way that I know to do this is to draw it out. I like to envision flipping the table upside down and looking at an over head view where you can see the leg, the apron, the tables, dimensions. You can lay everything out that way and becomes very clear once you do it. So either get a ruler and a piece of paper and start drawing it out or you can use a program like I us called sketchup. It is a free program that is available from google. You can get it for PC or Mac and if you have a computer with an internet connection you should be able to run this program with no problem.
It is a very, very deep program. You could really get in to some really cool staff with it. For me personally, I use it as a tool to quickly organize, get my dimension all straighten up and make sure my proportions look good. I also use that as a sales tool sometimes to give that to my costumers when they want to see a 3D rendering what their project look like. In this case we are not going to get into any of that. We are going to keep it very simple. We are just going to draw out the basics so we can determine what are final numbers are so let us go on and take a look at that.
Let us start by drawing the table top. I used the rectangle tool to do this. Just click to a point where you want the rectangle to start. Type in the length and width separated by a comma and hit enter. The rectangle should be exactly 36 inches by 72 inches. Next, I select the push pool tool, select my rectangle. Start pulling it in the direction I wanted to go and then type in three quarters of an inch. The next thing I would like to do is add a leg. In order to do that, I want to make sure that the table over hangs the legs by one inch in each side, so I need to draw that square in one inch from one side and one inch from the other side. So, use the measuring tool to just put on lay out marks on a table top. One inch in each direction and then I use the rectangle to hold the same way we did with the table top and just type in three inches, comma 3 inches, enter. It should give me a nice three by three square.
Next, I used the push pull tool to extend the leg up to 29 and a quarter inches. I know there is a smarter way to do this and sketchup. You can create models and objects that can be reproduced and just copy and paste it in the drawing, but I am not too familiar with it so I am just going to quickly redrew another three by three square and use the push pull to bring it up to 29 and quarter inches.
Finally, I had a third leg just like the other two. We only need three legs to get the answers to our questions here, so I am no going to bother with the fourth.
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