Reclaimed Beam Furniture – Phase One

A client supplied me with nine reclaimed beam pieces of various sizes with the goal of making some occasional furniture pieces for a house that he is building. The plan is to end up with two side tables with tops that are approximately 2 feet square and 2 feet tall and a coffee table about 2 feet by 4 feet and 18 inches high. I started last week and this is where I am on the first side table.

It has been a challenge to get the wood into useable and workable condition while maintaining as much character as possible. The process has involved a lot of work with wire wheels and sanding wheels as well as more traditional sanding with a random orbital sander and hand sanding. I have also used chisels extensively to carve out and remove areas that are particularly bad.

After milling the top pieces at the jointer and planer to a point where there was a reasonable surface on one side while maintaining as much thickness as possible, I glued them up using a double row of #20 biscuits.

The frame joinery is a combination of half-lap and cross-lap joints with mortise and tenon for the stretcher. The lap joints and tenons were cut on the table saw using a dado stack. The mortises were first drilled out on the drill press and then finished with chisels. The joints are all secured with wood glue and through dowels using ½-inch oak dowels.

I didn’t want there to be any visible hardware. The only screws I used are holding the top to the frame. They are countersunk into the frame from below so as not to be visible. I am a fan of the SPAX brand screws in structural applications. For holding the top to the frame, I used four #10-2½” Multi-Purpose Construction Screws with Wafer Heads. These provide a lot of holding power and lend themselves well to being countersunk.

The client is deciding on the stain color. In the meantime, I am moving on to another project. After staining, or leaving it unstained if that is the final decision, I will be using SystemThree epoxy to seal and coat the table. I will apply a seal-coat on the entire piece and then a pour-coat on top to provide a durable waterproof surface.