It should be possible to build a picnic table completely out of 1x or 5/4 lumber — strengthening the table top and bench tops with one or several pices on edge.
Have any of you seen plans following this idea? Or, do any of you have experience trying to do this?
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Many years ago I built kids picnic table out of the shipping cleats taken off of refrigerators. They were poplar or oak 1x6 boards about 32 inch long. They were perfect for small tables. Always built adult size table out of 2x material. Spans and the possiblity of adults sitting on them were the biggest factors in selecting material size.
Dave
I'd be leary of doing this on a full size outdoor table.
But, were I to do this, I'd consider building the top pieces and the benches as torsion boxes. Say two 1x6's with a 1x2 strip screwed and epoxied to each side, then the ends boxed with 1x material.
Be very strong, but'd eat up a ton of material to build that way.
2x material cups and warps in exterior applications, 1x would do so to a much greater extent. I've even seen the forest service build many of their tables out of 3 or 4" thick planks to help avoid warping.
Of course, I'm just taking your idea of placing pieces on edge, which would help a good deal and expanding it for added strength and rigidity. Either way, a very solid reliable joint would be critical or the reinforcing strips will pull loose over time.
I agree that it is possible. But I've seen picnic tables that were built entirely from 1X4's, and I thought they looked chincy.
Along the same vein, it's possible to build a deck that sits on 1X4 stilts, and is 15 feet up. That also looks chincy, and requires a lot of extra bracing.
For picnic tables, I use 2X material. For posts, I usually use 6X6 or larger. Both for the same reason -- it just looks better.
Since this kind of relates. I drew up a plan of a picnic table my brother bought at a garage sale once. It's made from one sheet of 3/4" plywood. The top is only 2'x4', and the entire table pulled apart so you could store it flat. It worked well, and was plenty strong enough for adults.
The dark brown in the picture is 1/4" solid wood trim. You can see how they used braces under the top and benches. It's entirely possible to build a table out of 1x that is strong enough, even without my crazy torsion box idea, I just wouldn't do so for an outdoor table.
Oh, the file that shows up 3 times. I didn't think it was working and hit post more then once, it's the same picture each time. Sorry.
Edited 7/17/2003 5:11:50 PM ET by BILLYG83440
Just curious what tool you used to do those drawings?
It was done with Vellum 3D on a mac. Several years ago, we'd just gotten surfacing capability and it made a good test project to figure out how to use it, so I took the sketch I'm made of the parts and adjusted it to fit on a sheet of plywood, drew the parts, then assembled it.
Boy, That'd take a lot of sheet rock screws, don'tcha think?
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