marc: every table saw should have a good solid outfeed table. that's what we're gonna do today. it's not just any table. it's a very simple table that can be built with abasic complement of tools. it's what i like to call a can-do project. (lively music) welcome to episode 30of the wood whisperer.
i'm your host marc spagnuolo and on today's show we're gonna build a new outfeed table for the table saw. now i know you're probably thinking hey,you already have one why do you need a new one? i actually had a chance toupgrade the fence system and since the outfeed table was made specifically for thefence system that i had
it's not gonna work on this new one. just to show you real quick it is the new incra ts. i believe it's the ts-iiitable saw fence system. this thing is just a dream to use. i've wanted one for a long time and finally had the chance to get one so i took advantage of it. here it is but unfortunately,
no outfeed table as you could see. have a few things toconsider with this one. first of all dust collection. i've got to make sure my dust collection gets where it needs to go. i also want to make thisone a little bit wider so i have more working space. i almost want to duplicate the surface area ofthe table saw once more
behind the saw. we got a few specific things that we need to look atin terms of measurements that if you're building your outfeed table what you might want to consider when you actually putthose numbers to paper. let's go ahead and takea look at those details. the first thing we're gonnaconsider is the height. obviously if the height is off
this whole thing is shot. we need the pieces to flowsmoothly off of our table and then onto the outfeed table. what i like to do is take a measurement from the floor to the top of the table. that is exactly 34 inches. now if your table is not real level you may want to check all sides to make sure everything's okay.
you're reading should be 34 and if your table isn't level it could cause some problems so try to get your table level before you do this process. we got 34 inches here that means that our outfeed table with our top length of our legs, everything when it's all said and done
can be no higher than 34 inches, and in fact i'm gonna aim for it to be at least an 1/8 inch under 34 because i plan on usingsome adjustable feet and i want a little bitof extra wiggle room there so that i could bring itup to the perfect height that will make sense for this table. also keep in mind, depending on what typeof leveling feet you use
there may be a certain amount of distance that this automatically add. this one looks like it's only gonna add about a 16th, maybe 3/32of an inch to the height. i'm gonna make sure that iallow for the leveling feet when i calculate the length of my pieces. now we need to look atthe dimensions of the top. width is really up to you. some people like a really narrow table.
if you've got enough room. to me bigger is better because it's more work surface. the thing i'm really concerned about is how far from the back ofthe saw out we should go? we have to have enoughroom to support the pieces that we're gonna put on this thing. let's think about it logically. usually the longest piece
that we're gonna run across here would be let's say a fourby eight sheet of plywood and the key is that onceyou go through the cut you want to make sure that that piece doesn't have a tendency to tip forward. if you're under four feet that's exactly what's gonna happen because the majority of the sheet's gonna be hanging offof your outfeed table.
for me the key is where just at the point wheremy splitter starts. where you're pass the blade. i want to make sure that i've got at least four feet from that point right there, and if i do that basically, the easiest way for me to do this is to measure from hereto the end of the rail which is about 10 inches
and i know i need at least four feet. i'm gonna say 48 inchesminus this 10 inches. i know that i need my table to be at least right about here, 38inches from front to back. there are few other things to consider when you design your table. the biggest thing is obstacles. what do you have to maneuver around, what has to get around it?
especially if it's gonnabe a permanent fixture like mine is. if you're gonna put it on wheels that's another thing youhave to be concerned about and how it's gonna get around. for me i have this big tube here for my dust collection system and i need to make sure that that's not a problem for the setup.
secondly, i really want tohave a shelf on this thing. i hate the fact that there's empty space under these outfeed tables and it's just wasted. you could really dosomething with that space. i want to have a shelf that sits about maybe 12 to 16 inches off the ground. obviously if you look at this design of the dust collection system
my shelf needs to comeabove this pipe here. the flex tubing. it shouldn't be a problem but at least now you know why i made some of the decisions i did and what you might need tochange about your design to make it fit your table saw and your dust collection system. now i don't know about you guys
but more often than not i seem to be rushing my projects. there's always some scheduling issue or i don't know, maybeit's just psychological but either way i wasn't anticipating this outfeed table project. in an effort to make things go fast yet not sacrifice quality, i'm trying to find adesign that's very simple
but very sturdy and has all of the designelements that i need so that six months from now i'm not thinking about building a new one. that's usually the goal. if it lasts a couple years in my shop then that's pretty good. the design it's imperativethat it be very easy to build but sturdy, okay?
i actually was watching an episode of new yankee workshop recently and norm was building his assembly table. the curve version of his assembly table. his design was all outof 3/4 inch plywood. the legs, the stretchers. everything was 3/4 inch plywood and it was all assembledwith glue and screws. i'm thinking this is aperfect can-do project
for the wood whisperer. this is a project that anybody can do if you have a drill and a circular saw and a couple sheets of plywood, this is definitely a good project. the other thing is this table doesn't have to be an outfeed table. put some wheels on it and this is a roll around assembly table
that it's gonna be great. if you consider the amount of work that went into my other assembly table, the torsion box top, geez, this thing is ... this can be done in a weekend. the other one is a weeklong project obviously and it takes a little bitmore in the way of tooling. again, can do project
and i want to hear some storiesfrom you guys about this and see what modifications you make and where you can usethis table in your shop. now you're gonna think i'm crazy but i'm actually gonna use some walnut veneered plywood for this project. i happen to have a decentamount of this stuff leftover. lots of weird off cutsfrom a previous project and honestly it's more of a hassle for me
to keep it around and waitfor that perfect project than it is just to use itfor something like this and clear out the shop and get ready for the new stuff. it's really a matter of efficiency. shop projects are just a great time to use up all the scraps that really you just don't have ause for anywhere else. most of my material's gonna be this walnut
and i believe i've also got some birch that might wind up in the project. each one of our legs is composed of two pieces of 3/4 plywood and they'll be buttedup against each other with glue and screws. in this sort of an l shape like this. if you cut these two pieces the same width you're actually gonna have one side
longer than the other because as you could see one side adds in thisextra piece of plywood 3/4 of an inch or close to it. what we're gonna do is cut four leg pieces at four inches and the other four leg piecesare gonna be 3/4 inches. each leg will be composed of those two different size pieces
so that when it's all said and done it's gonna look like fourinches by four inches. i'm gonna cut all of myplywood on the table saw today so if you have a table saw it's a great way to go. if you don't have a table saw there are a number of other options that you can use. you could use a standard circular saw.
i've got the festool circular saw here. you could even go as far as using a jigsaw if you have a nice bladethat's really sharp and has a lot of teeth per inch so you don't get thetear out on the plywood. the real key is not so muchthe cutting tool in this case it's having a good reliable straightedge to run that cutting tool along with so that you have a good reference.
you can go as low tech as one of these aluminum straightedges. these are really cheapfrom home depot and lowe's. even lower tech than that is a two by four that'sbeen jointed on one side. you could even have a, if you have a nice four feetlevel you could use that as something to rideyour tools up against. you have got these fancier ones,
this clamp-n-tool guide. has a built in clamping system. you just drop it across your workpiece, tighten it down and have a nice reliable straightedge. then of course one of my favorite ones is festool's straightedge which is obviously best usedwith the festool system but this also will give you a nice,
accurate straight line cuts. again, today i'm using the table saw. (buzzing) all right, now this is a veryeasy project to assemble. in fact, the most complicated part of it is the assembly of the legs. i'm gonna show you how i plan to do that. there's a number of ways that you could do a standard plywood butt joint like this.
again, we're keeping it simple. you could have put arabbit or a dado along here and join the legs in that way but that's just too much work for what i'm trying to accomplish here. the butt joint, okay? you can use something like biscuits. you could use dominoes if you have the domino on hand.
you can go as simpleas bread nails and glue and call it a day. for me personally i want alittle bit more help than that. i like the fact that i canuse a biscuit or a domino and these boards will be nice and aligned so that when i drive some screws through i don't have the chance of them sort of being knocked out of registration. that's how i'm gonna do it.
i'm gonna throw about threebiscuits along the length and then three screws countersunk along the length. with the narrow lengthpiece clamped to the table i cut three biscuit slotsinto the side of the board. for the adjoining wider leg pieces i stand the boards on end with a second board behindthem for extra support. this ensures a saferand more accurate cut. next i predrill for the screws.
as with any project i apply glue to the mating surfaces, the biscuits slots and the biscuits. assembling these piecesgets a whole lot easier if you use a piece of scrap to support the overhanging end. these square drive screws will not only add strength to the joint but they also act as clamps
while the glue dries. that my friends is what i call a quick and dirty leg. okay, so now that all fourof our legs are constructed we could start to create sub assemblies. it's much easier to assemblesomething of this size in portions as opposed to trying to get the wholething done in one shot. i've got two of my legslaying on the assembly table
and i've got side stretcher pieces cut. they're cut at about 38 inches. okay and i've got one for the top and one for the bottom. now the bottom one isthe support for our shelf and of course that has toclear the dust collection so that's how i got the height for that. then the top one is actuallypretty straightforward. i cut a little piece of the top material
3/4 ply that i'm gonna use for the top and we want this stretcher to be exactly that distance, thethickness of this material. we want it to be exactly that distance from the top of the leg. this little block here serves as a guide to let me know wheni'm perfectly lined up. i'm gonna actually use that instead of doing measurements.
just use the actual material. glue, couple brads to hold it in place and then some screwsto really lock it down. the lower stretcher is attached the same way as the top. make sure your shelf height is high enough for anything that mightneed to go under it. same deal as before. glue, brads
and screws. now we have to attach our long stretchers top and bottom. i like to actually laymy sub assembly down on the assembly table and with glue, brads and screws just like every other piecethat we're gonna do on this outfeed table. we're gonna attach thisto the leg like so.
it's a good idea though to have a square on hand. put that on the inside of the leg and make sure everythingis lined up properly. now i've moved theentire unit on the floor resting on its side so that i could accessthe other side easily. of course i would wantto apply all my glue to all four sides before ido this for the final step
but this is sort of just a dry fit. okay now you're gonna notice things are pretty wobbly at this point. that's to be expected given the structure. as soon as this thing is put together and we put the top piece and the bottom shelf on it that will stiffen everything right up and this will be very, very sturdy.
all right, the basic structureis looking pretty good. my only concern at this point is over this span we mightget a little bit of a sag in the middle here over time so it's probably not a bad idea for us to add some dividers in here and just basically suspendthose in the middle. the easiest way to measure is not to take a measurementhere at the center
or mark our boards from what we see here because as you could tell there is quite a bit of flex in there. the easiest thing and themost accurate way to do this is take our measurement here at the ends because we know thatthat's not gonna move. that's a restricted measurement. once we get this thing tofit perfectly on the ends we could put it on the center
and if the sides need tobe pushed in a little bit or bowed out a little bit that's fine because we know what actually is happening is they're being straightened out. we'll take that measurement from the sides and install a center support on the top and also one on the bottom. now attaching these center dividers may seem like a minor detail at first
but then if you're working by yourself you start to realize thatthis isn't a perfect fit. we do need to applypressure on both sides. how are we gonna get thisboard locked into place? for me the easiest thingto do is get a clamp. run it pretty close to center. pretty close to wherewe're gonna apply our board and just start to apply justa little bit of pressure. enough so that in order toget this board to slide in
we're gonna need to kind of push it apart just a hair and in fact that was too much. so that i can applysome glue to the board. here we go and pop it into place that way. that will kind of hold it. once i have it in line with my hands then i'll tighten the clamp down and come back with some brad nails,
some screws again. whatever your joinerychoice is for this project. okay, so i got the top cut and now it's the moment of truth. see if i got it cut right the first time because that will be nice. i think i got lucky! all right. that's the top.
now the bottom obviouslygiven the structure the bottom is going to be pretty much impossibleto get a full sheet on which is no big deal. it's just really for storage so i'm gonna do the bottomin two separate sheets. now i'm gonna secure the top just using a little bit of glue in a few different places.
i want it to be secure so it doesn't move but at the same time i wantto be able to take it apart if i ever need to replace this top without doing a significantamount of damage. i really don't want any screw heads on the top of this either that could eventuallycatch on pieces of material that are moving across the saw. a little bit of strategically placed glue
and we should be good to go. now i have two differenttypes of leveling feet here. one sort of goes in the corner. it's a corner bracket style and the other hooks underneathone of the four legs. i've got two of each. i'm just gonna use them up because that's what ihave in stock right now. basically they just hook onto the bottom of the leg.
screw into place and that's really it. setting the final height is pretty easy. i place a long straightedgeacross both the saw and the outfeed table. i then sight down the straightedge and check to see how muchadjustment is needed. next i make the necessaryadjustments to all four legs so that the outfeed table is about 1/16th of an inch
below the surface of the table saw. now here's a detail icompletely forgot about the first time i built an outfeed table. had everything done, it looked beautiful and i went to use it for the first time with my miter gauge and i was in for a surprise toward the end of my cut. obviously as things ridethrough the miter slot
they need to actually have a place to go even after they're hangingoff of the table saw. typically what people do is they make a slightly wider space for this bar to go into and it's very easy to make. you want to do on both sides. the easiest thing to do i find is to just get a straightedge,
a router and straight bit and do it in two or three passes whatever it takes depending on the size router bit you have. there's no reason for it to be perfect because this table couldmove one way or the other. you want to make it slightly over sized to give you that extra bit of room. now from what i have ...
from what i can see here my table is a little bit further out than it might be for most people. i'm looking at theclearance that i have here and i think i might beokay with that for now. if i don't have to put strips in my top i'd rather not. if i can get away with notdoing it i'm gonna try that. i'm not gonna do it
but definitely something to think about. depending on how yours is setup you may need to do that. i know it's just shop furniture but there are a few things that you can do to make this piece looka little bit nicer. sometimes it's just coolto have really cool looking shop furniture. what i like to do first of all is
all of my holes that i created where i have screw holes i like to plug those with a dowel. i usually take some dowel material. i cut it into small littleplugs on the bandsaw and with a little bit ofglue tap them into place and then once dry i usuallyflush trim them smooth with a flush trim saw and then sand flush.
now we can also improvethe look of the table by actually adding one more strip of ply across all of theserecessed portions here. by attaching that there it gives the top a niceborder all the way around. fills in this gap and gives the front a much more finished look. again, it's not necessary but if you want topretty it up a little bit
that's a good way to do it. although i designed thistable to be an outfeed table as you can see you can apply this to about a hundred differentthings in the shop. whether it's a roll around work station or possibly even an assembly table. whatever you want to do with it. the basic idea that i wanted to show you is that with a very simpleand basic complement of tools
you can make a really ruggedand sturdy table like this just using a couple sheets of plywood. all right, how do wefinish our outfeed table? now for me personally i've got a policy with shop furniture and that's pretty much anything goes. if you have a new finish thatyou want to experiment with you don't really want to do it on a fine piece of furniture
this is a great place to do it. just slap it on there. get to feel the properties of the finish, learn a little bit more about it and you'll be that much more prepared for your next project. here's a look at ourfinished outfeed table. it's sturdy and beautiful. the catalyzed lacquerfinish will allow the boards
to slide across the surface with ease. it's almost like it's saying, "somebody feed me." (lively jazz music) now if you have any questions or comments please feel free to e-mail me at marc@thewoodwhisperer.com. i'd like to take a minute to thank incra for helping us out withthe table saw fence system.
if you haven't seen incra stuff go to incra.com and check it out. i should probably also thank good old norm for his help on this project. his assembly table was really the inspiration for the design and i think it's a great design. i think it's something that can be applied all over the workshop.
it gives you a good idea of how a simple designcan still be very rugged and have simple materials and be made with simple tools. we'll see you next timeon the wood whisperer. thanks for watching.