I’m working on replacing my porch furniture, and the side table was the worst of the lot so it got replaced first.
I’ve built a few little tables by now and I’ve got a lot of the process down. I used this one as an excuse to practice making actual mortise and tenon joints instead of the loose tenons I’ve used in the past. The mortises that the center brace sits in were chiseled by hand, the others are routed.
I’m thinking of making a couple outdoor-friendly morris chairs to replace those old iron ones. That’ll be a minute though.
Looks good! What finish did you use for keeping it outside? I’ve been thinking about doing something similar, but never made anything intended to be kept outside.
Coaster is cool too. It reminds me of a fancy laminated guitar neck.
Thanks! The finish I’ve used on all of my outdoor projects so far is Minwax Helmsman spar urethane. I thin it to about 60/40 with paint thinner and wipe it on with rags cut from old T-shirts, 4 coats ~8 hours apart, rubbing out between coats with a paper grocery bag. Takes on a very nice feel and water beads right off. We’ll see how it holds up long-term but so far I like it.
Yeah that guitar neck looks a lot like how I make those scrap coasters. You end up with thin cutoffs from ripping rough stock to width, so joint them, glue them up into a narrow little panel, plane it to a uniform thickness of about 3/8" or so, cross-cut it into squares, put a roundover or a chamfer on them to dress them up, sand and apply your preferred finish. I’ve used Minwax’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not” Tung Oil Finish (basically it’s danish oil) on the one in the photo, just today I made a set specifically for outdoor use that I put spar urethane on.