Small Trestle Table

Legs that go for days

I made a table for my boys. I recently discovered that Megan Fitzpatrick wrote a book with a trestle table and I chose that design. It’s a simple and attractive option, compared with traditional trestle tables that have intricately shaped feet.

Here’s some of what I love about this table and some of what I learned. As usual, the takeaways here apply to more than just wood.

I love these tusk tenons. Solid as a rock.

My instinct is to over-invest. If I could I’d save 90% of my income. Professionally I’ve learned that this kind of over-investment can have a serious cost itself. If you have the fastest deploy cycle, but never use it to build products, you’ve wasted a ton of time.

Imagine spending 40 hours in the gym but zero time street fighting: what are you doing with your life?

Mama said knock you out

When I first started cutting wood I spent over two years investing. I built tools, both to have them and to learn skills. That paid off in all kinds of ways. Having a workbench is table stakes for hand-tool wood working. The router plane I had already made was time well spent for this project.

Router plane getting the mortise to the perfect depth

Perfectly mating

For each project I strive to take on new techniques. The more new techniques, the longer the project takes. The most notable for this project was creating and drawboring the breadboards. Due to the way wood expands and contracts, this is a good way to attach the breadboard ends to the table. It’s also remarkably attractive and punctuates the appearance.

Beautiful

Because it was my first time (no one gets it right on their first time…) it could have gone a lot better though:

Note that the pins broke the wood above them on the underside of the table.

After tidying up and finishing the top the drawbore pins look (and feel) stunning. I left them slightly proud so you can feel them protruding.

In the picture above you can see some random black walnut. When I built the breadboard ends I aggressively split off more than I intended to and made an unsightly gap (top left, will discuss the right side later.)

I addressed this by creating a slot and gluing in a black walnut replacement. This adds a pretty contrast but also highlights the imperfection.

There’s still a lot of room for improvement on this table.

I try to plan ahead. This could be what wood to cut next, what to do for my wife’s birthday, or what route to take on a jog. But deviating from my own plan is very difficult for me.

I am too consistent.

When I went to get the wood for this project my plan was to get softwood. This would reduce the weight of the table and make it cheaper. I went and found the Douglas Fir and told the man how much to cut. The purchasing department told me I had to make an account for an order this big. It cost more than triple what I planned to pay. Worse, I could have paid the hoped-for cost for hardwood that would have been easier to work. I should have changed my plan.

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Despite lots of effort and experience, when I glued the tabletop together things slipped and slid all over the place…

I was careful to make sure that everything lined up but one of the boards slid. The breadboard ends still fit, but this caused the other unsightly gap that I fixed with the little walnut strips. I think that this was all caused by rushing to get the glue up done.

Festina lente

I should have been more willing to glue the top in sections, which would have given me more time to get things lined up properly. I think the project would have taken a day less time had I been less rushed to glue up the table top.

Table in action

I’m still happy with the end result though.