How to make this table?

[lesaurus]

I posted just earlier and introduced myself and talked about the workshop/machines I am setting up. I am getting a half-decent bandsaw and table saw and hopefully they will be enough to help me make one of my first projects.

I've included a picture of a table that me and the wife would like in our kitchen, we've seen it in a shop and online and Im trying to work out how they have done it as I fancy giving it a go.

It is called a 'sleeper table' so i'm assuming it's made from cut up sleepers. I've managed to find some untreated rustic oak sleepers online and If I could basically slice off the rough exterior into roughly 20-30mm deep strips I could make the top with that.

I intend to get a bandsaw - around about the £1000 mark, something like a record power sabre 350. Never owned or used a bandsaw before so unsure as to whether it could do this cut for me?

Looking at the pictures what kind of wood do you think it is and how would you go about making this? the other picture of the sideboard is from the same range and is just to help show the texture of the wood.

Many thanks Paul

 

[MikeG.]

I make lots of stuff with big lumps of green oak, and I can tell you now that you won't be slicing up oak sleepers on a bandsaw. With big pieces of timber you bring the tool to the timber, not the other way around. The sleeper won't even slide on the table. You could push your machine over trying, and that's before it fails to make the cut due to being underpowered and under-tensioned for the job. With this, you are going to have the choice of using a chainsaw to cut the slices off (something I would never contemplate doing with reclaimed timber due to the ugly results of hitting a nail or embedded stone), or cutting in from each side with a circular saw, then finishing off the cuts by hand. Either way leaves you with lots of cleaning up to do (hatchet, hand-held electric planer, scrub plane and so on) before you can take the plank to your planing machine.

Having finally managed the cut there is every chance that you'll then find the resulting plank un-usable. There are lots of stresses involved in timber drying out, and with sleepers and their history you'll have every chance of some of them turning into bananas. My suggestion is that you should allow for the possibility of only getting one usable plank from each sleeper, and that you don't feel too disappointed if this proves to be optimistic.

 

[Droogs]

A quick way to get the weathered effect is to char the top face of the wood and then have at it with a wire brush in a drill until you take off all the carbonized elements. then leave it outside for a few weeks and you will get the effect you are after. Give it a quick clean up, soapy water and scrubbing brush, let it dry and away you go. Oak and elm come up lovely like this, especially if you can get some that has been through some fast growth. Scots pine can give a good effect as well with the softer ring bands giving a good deep grain. Then just give it a bit of protection with your finish of choice.

The workability on the other hand takes some serious effort with sleepers as has been pointed out in above post. better to get the wood cut to size at a yard and then work on it

 

[thetyreman]

I'd use a rip saw on a pair of sawhorses to cut the sleepers, but as mike said you're going to get problems with movement.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I think it's a fair bet that the timbers in your photos have been artificially beaten-up to achieve the desired effect. I think that techniques for "distressing" timber are limited only by your imagination!

I have sliced up some quite big oak timbers ( 150X200 or so) on my bandsaw, which is smaller than the one you mention, but as Mike says, they're awkward to handle safely without infeed/outfeed tables. There can also be nasty internal stresses within just about any timber (I put in timber wedges as I go - a trick I've seen people use on saw mills - to keep the kerf open and avoid blade pinching). These kinds of stresses are worst when the pith of the tree is still in the timber, as well as near knots. Pith is most likely with cheap "sleepers" sold in garden centres and the like. With real railway sleepers, which probably aren't oak, there's the risk of stones as well as metal embedded in the timber (and a metal detector is thus not a guarantee of happiness).

The boards in the photo look about a inch thick, and look as if they have been jointed together to form the panels - one option would be to use a circular saw to break down a 150X150 into two lots of 70'ishX150 say (by cutting from opposite sides to meet in the middle) and then slice up the resulting boards, perhaps yielding 20'ishX150, with two additional cuts per board on the bandsaw.

Chainsaws are great - especially if you have an "alaskan mill" - although normal chains are not best suited to rip cuts, and of course they have a relatively fat kerf which wastes material.

Cheers, W2S

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Everyone is being very polite ....

Are you sure ? How on earth do you keep a table like that clean and hygienic ? I presume deliberately distressed and not made from real sleepers - I don't think you can get them anymore - as they are impregnated with creosote, and quite probably much worse.

 

[MikeG.]

Everyone is being very polite ....

Are you sure ? How on earth do you keep a table like that clean and hygienic ? I presume deliberately distressed and not made from real sleepers - I don't think you can get them anymore - as they are impregnated with creosote, and quite probably much worse.

I don't know how things are done in Sheffield, Tony, but down here we've got around the hygiene thing by eating off plates.

 

[lesaurus]

I have lived in Sheffield myself and I remember using plates up there haha. The actual table we were looking at actually had a glass top to it

I had a feeling it would be a bit tricky to make these cuts and that a Bandsaw might struggle. I suppose these bits of furniture are mass produced and so they probably utilise large machinery at a mill to process the timber or as someone suggested they have been distressed.

I like the idea of burning them and then cleaning them up, might try that as definitely interested in improving my finishing techniques, other than that the circular saw either side could work.

Thanks for the comments!

 

[E-wan]

Are you intending to use sleepers from reclaimed wood that has been somewhere else before such as under a railway line

Or new wood cut to the shape of a railway sleeper such as this

https://www.scawtonsawmill.co.uk/green- ... -627-p.asp

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[Turnr77]

I believe that still now the majority of train toilets empty directly onto the tracks, hence why there are signs not to use the toilets whilst in the station. So I wouldn't be using reclaimed sleepers anywhere inside.Let alone on a kitchen table.

 

[lesaurus]

Good point. What wood do you think they use then?

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I like the idea of burning them

Me too.

Regarding train toilet facilities, that was what I was hinting at when I said they were impregnated with creosote and possibly much worse ... but as creosote is a carcinogen, I think you can't buy real sleepers for landscaping purposes anymore, let alone making kitchen tables. Besides which, sleepers have been mostly concrete for decades.

 

[E-wan]

You can however buy decommissioned Telegraph poles which I presume are creosote impregnated

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[thick_mike]

What about burning and then power washing the charred bits off?

No experience, just an idea.

 

[F Flinstone]

Agree about ex railway sleepers, slightly off topic I was looking at some Japanese Kitchen knifes online, and how to store them, one of the firms had magnetic wall holders, they were made out of charred timber, obviously with the magnets embedded in the back, but they did look very nice. Ff

 

[Deadeye]

For me the question would not be "How"...

 

[Lazurus]

https://arbtalk.co.uk/forums/topic/9821 ... nt-1466130

On large timbers or trunks I use a cheap chainsaw mill see the link above for more details, if you have the space and inclination you can go at trunks and make your own useable boards - don't forget the usual chainsaw caveats of safety. However mine paid for itself the first day of usage and has allowed me to make projects which I would not have attempted before.

 

[MikeG.]

.........Having finally managed the cut there is every chance that you'll then find the resulting plank un-usable. There are lots of stresses involved in timber drying out, and with sleepers and their history you'll have every chance of some of them turning into bananas............

By coincidence. The OP must read that thread.

 

[Adam9453]

If you already had the sleepers then I’d suggest going to a local joiners and ask them to cut them into boards using their re-saw machine.
Alternatively how about old oak floorboards like the ones shown on this link;
http://www.traditionaltimber.co.uk/floo ... -flooring/
Distressing Wood is quite fun, beating it with a bag of nails or old keys is effective