[ Power tool whirring ] ♪♪ Furniture projects don't have to be confined to the house.

On today's episode of "The Woodsmith Shop," we're building a great looking picnic table with a couple of matching benches.

These picnic tables almost look good enough to be in your house, and you'll be able to enjoy gathering with friends and family for years to come.

It's time to start building.

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And by Kreg, from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

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♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You know, I think picnic tables usually fall into one of two categories.

There's the, like, cross-buck dimensional lumber kind of picnic table.

And then there's the -- it's essentially your dining room table out on the patio.

Exactly.

But this one is a good kind of mix of those two.

Yeah, 'cause we're starting with construction lumber, cedar in this case, for the base.

But it doesn't look like it's construction lumber 'cause of how we work with it.

Exactly, there's some nice joinery techniques that really elevate the style of it.

Now, when you're building an outdoor project, there's a couple things to consider -- one of which is the finish that you're going to apply to it.

Right.

And the other is material.

And like you said, we're using cedar for the base, but I'm using a little different wood for the top.

This is called iroko, and it's an African hardwood that is going to be extremely oily and extremely durable outside.

Yeah.

And the original plan that we're drawing this from had a cedar top that had a construction very similar to this, but used mitered corners.

And we went with a different approach here.

Exactly -- miters, to me, aren't going to be the best choice for outdoor projects.

That expansion, contraction and moisture is going to probably cause them to open up.

So for this top, we went ahead and used butt joints and dowels.

It's a strong joint and it looks good.

It gives the appearance of a breadboard end on this top and on the benches.

And I think the nice part about it is that both the table and the benches are built using the same construction technique.

So they're going to be relatively easy to put together.

And in fact, this whole table can be built in probably a good long weekend.

Exactly.

And when it's finished right, even though you built it in a weekend, it's going to last a long time.

You want to build a table like this, the plans are at our website, woodsmithshop.com.

And it's time to start tackling the base.

On the base of our picnic table, we're starting with the four legs.

Now, the legs are joined together with a series of stretchers, with mortise and tenon joinery.

Now, in order to get the thick legs with the construction lumber that we're using, we're going to end up gluing two pieces together to create a much thicker piece.

And then there'll be mortises for the upper stretcher and lower stretcher.

But rather than do that after it's assembled, we can cut the mortises right here at the table saw.

And the way we do that is I have a dado blade installed in the table saw, and I'm going to cut notches in each of the two leg pieces.

Once they get glued up, then it'll turn into a mortise.

For this upper mortise, I want it to match the width of the upper stretcher.

So I'm using the rip fence as an end stop.

And I can hold the stretcher piece against the rip fence and align it so that the tooth on the dado blade is flush with this outside face.

Then what I'm going to do is cut a series of overlapping passes with the dado blade until the leg touches the rip fence, and then I know that the notch is complete.

I'll take care of that on all of my leg pieces and then we'll get started on the lower mortise.

The process for cutting the lower mortise on my leg pieces is pretty much the same.

I'm going to make repeated passes across the dado blade from one end to the other.

However, there are a few differences that I want to point out.

The first is that this mortise is much wider for the wider lower stretcher.

And that's going to give a lot more stability to the base of our picnic table.

Now, the other thing that I want to point out is that we're working between two fixed endpoints.

So I can only use the rip fence for one end.

And rather than try and just eyeball the opposite end, what I've done is clamped a hand screw to the auxiliary fence on my miter gauge.

So when the top of the leg contacts the hand screw, you can see that the dado blade aligns with the layout mark on my leg.

I'm still going to use the rip fence for the other side.

That way, as I cut all eight of my leg pieces, the mortises are going to be exactly the same size and exactly the same position.

I've taken two of my leg pieces and clamped them together, and you can see how those notches that we cut now form both the lower and the upper mortise in our leg piece.

I don't want to glued together just yet, but I'm going to use this now to set up for the other half of the joint, which is creating the tenons.

So I have my two upper stretchers, the two lower ones.

And what I'm going to do is pretty similar to what we've already been doing, going to guide it with the miter gauge across a dado blade, using the rip fence for an end stop.

And what you want to do is make a few test cuts and see how it fits in the mortises that you've made.

What you're aiming for here is something that's a little on the tight side.

It should either just not go in or go in only with a couple of blows from a mallet.

That way once you go to the assembly process, you'll be sure to have really tight, strong joints.

So once I take care of these, it's time to tackle a few other details back at the workbench.

The two stretchers that joined the leg assemblies on the ends have a dado cut on the inside face.

That's going to hold longer stretchers that run from each end assembly -- helps stiffen the whole base.

Now, you could do the same way that we've done over at the table saw with the dado blade.

But when we're working with cedar like this, it's a great time to bust out the hand tools.

So that's what I'm going to show you here.

Now, what I've done first is to mark the inside shoulder of where that dado is going to occur.

Then since I want that dado to match the thickness of the piece that's going to fit inside, what I'll do is line up that piece on my layout line and just cover up the pencil line.

Then I can draw the opposite shoulder line on the other side.

Now, with a square, I've also extended the dado down the front and marked the depth of the dado, done the same thing on the back.

When you're working with hand tools, you need to see the lines where you're going to be going.

So I'll take care of both of those.

The next step is to cut the shoulders using a back saw.

I'm going to use my thumb to position the saw right on the inside edge of my layout line.

And go right to my bottom layout line, I'll do the same thing on the other side.

That defines the width of my dado.

Now to remove this material, I'm going to turn to a wide chisel and I'm going to start just on each side wedging out, either by hand, working in there to get those chips out, or I can use a mallet too.

Once you're close to the layout line, you could come in across the grain and pare with the chisel until you get it nice and flat.

But there's another tool that'll do the job a lot easier.

It's called a router plane.

So it has what's essentially like a bent chisel for a blade sticking out the bottom side.

And the nice flat reference surface.

So I can use that both from -- from both sides... ...to work down to my final layout line.

Gluing up the end assemblies is going to go pretty easily, it's going to build up just like a sandwich.

So I'm going to start with one of the leg halves on each side and spread a little bit of glue... ...on the interior face and on the inside of the notches.

The next step is to install the lower and upper stretcher into the mortises.

Now we'll just cap it off with the other leg half.

I want to make sure that I get a nice tight joint at the mortise and tenon locations and along here, but I want to keep the two leg halves aligned, so I can use a hand screw clamp to pull those pieces into alignment while I add clamps.

All right, the final thing that you want to do before letting the glue dry is just to make sure that all of the tenons are --- fit tight up against the leg assemblies; if necessary, you can pull those in with some clamps.

Then we'll be ready to join the two end assemblies together.

Assembling a big table like this can be a little bit tricky.

You have the two end assemblies and then these long stretchers that can connect them.

My arms just aren't long enough, so the easiest way to do it is to flip everything upside down and do it right on the bench.

So I have the end assemblies top side down and then I can put the two short rails in place and attach those with screws.

Now, for the screws, the original plan called for using lag screws, but I find that these construction style screws work a lot better and are a lot stronger.

So these are stainless steel -- this project's going to live outside.

So we want to give it the best chance to last as long as possible.

Again, our big thing here is that we're keeping the upper surf-- what will be the upper surfaces of the tabletop flush.

About the only piece that's going to give us a bit of a headache here is the lower stretcher, since it's kind of floating in space.

But you can see that I used a couple of bar clamps to hold it in position while I drive the screws.

The last thing that we need to do to wrap up the assembly on this table base is to add a couple of cross rails that are going to help support the top.

Now the rails fit into notches cut in the stretchers.

And I did that the same way that I did the dadoes -- just define the sides with a handsaw and then used the chisel to pop out the waste and then pare down to the depth line.

Now I can turn it over to Logan to make the top.

When we're building an outdoor project like this picnic table, we have to take into account that it's going to live outside.

And that means giving ourselves the best chance that the project is going to look good for years to come.

And to do that, we have to take into account that it's going to be exposed to weather -- there isn't any surface that's going to be more exposed than the top of this picnic table.

It's going to get a majority of the sun and water is going to sit on it, so we want to pick a good wood that's going to be resistant to those conditions.

Now, we have a few domestic species that would work well.

White oak is one, as is cedar.

But I thought this was a good opportunity to experiment with a little bit different wood.

So what I have here is iroko, and that is an African hardwood.

And it's extremely oily.

When you feel it, it almost feels waxy.

But those resins and oils that are in it make it water resistant and it's going to last a long time.

Now, I couldn't get eight-quarter iroko around here, so I ordered a bunch of four-quarter stock.

So, it was one inch thick.

And the perimeter of our table needs to be an 1 3/4 inches.

So I went ahead and spent a little time with the parts that are going to become the outside of our top.

I went ahead and flattened one face and then I planed them down to thickness.

Then I glued everything up and trimmed it to size.

What I'm left here is what's basically a frame.

It's going to become the perimeter of our top.

Now, in the plans, it has these joints on the ends being mitered.

But miters on an outdoor project are bound to open up over time.

So instead what I'm going to do is I think I'm going to dowel these, I think it's going to last really, really well outside.

But before we tackle any of the joinery, we need to route a groove in these end pieces, and that's going to be for slats that we'll add in a little bit.

So let's go ahead and head over to the router table and we'll get that routed.

Okay, I have my router table already set up.

Let me show you what the setup is.

I've installed a bit.

And this is a 3/8 inch straight bit.

And I've set it so it's about 1/4 inch high.

I want to make these grooves 1/2 inch deep.

But because this iroko is a hard, dense wood and it's oily, I want to make that groove in multiple passes.

And this groove shouldn't really go through the ends of these work pieces, because you would see it from the side of the table, because we're going to attach those long stretchers with dowels.

So to stop the groove, what I'm going to do is mark the bit location roughly on the router insert plate.

And then I'm going to mark a corresponding mark on my workpiece where I want that groove to start and stop.

And because our side pieces are about 5 inches, we'll go ahead and stop that somewhere in the -- let's call it 4 1/2 inch range.

Now, to make this groove, all I have to do is turn the router on, hold the workpiece tight up against the fence and plunge it over the running bit, lining up that mark I made with the mark I made on the router table.

Then I can route this groove and I'll stop where my second mark matches the other side of the bit.

Once they do that with both work pieces, I'll go ahead and raise the bit to the final depth, make another pass in the exact same manner, and then we'll head over to the bench and get these assembled.

With our end in place, you can see how that groove goes into the area where the side piece is, but not very far, which is about perfect.

So what we can do now is we can go ahead and tackle the joinery.

And like I mentioned before, I'm going to use dowels with a good waterproof glue.

It's a joint that's going to last, and more importantly, it's simple to do.

What I like about a dowel joint is all you have to do is line up your work pieces where you want them to be.

Like that, and then we're just going to make a mark where we want a dowel -- so in a joint like this, I'll go ahead and do three of them.

So we'll make a mark across the joint in three different areas.

Okay, now we're ready to drill the dowels.

And to do that we're going to use a doweling jig.

Now a doweling jig like this will have a little hash mark in these windows and it will align with one of these different sized holes.

In this instance, I'm going to use 3/8 inch dowels.

So I'm going to line up the hash mark that is aligned with the 3/8 inch engraving on those lines.

And then I'll use this little knob to tighten.

The sides of the jig in place.

There we go.

And now we can bring in a drill bit that has a stop collar on it, and we'll plunge down until the stop collar contacts the top of the jig, and then it's a rinse and repeat for those three marks on this workpiece and then on this end.

And we'll work our way all the way around and we'll get this dry assembled.

And once I have the dry assembly done, I can take a measurement for those inside slats and then we'll tackle those.

Okay, the dowels are all drilled, but before I assemble anything, like I said, we need to tackle these interior slats.

So going to take a measurement of the overall inside dimension, add 1/2 inch on each end for that groove that we cut.

I'm going to cut the parts of size and then we're going to head over to the table saw and a load a dado blade to cut the tongues that'll fit in that groove.

So the center of our table is made of a series of slats and those slats need to fit in that groove that we cut on those end pieces.

To do that, I've set up a dado blade here at the table saw.

And I've set it so it's going to remove about half the thickness of the material.

I've planed this stuff down to 3/4 inch.

And it's going to leave us a tongue that is a hair over 1/2 inch wide.

That way, nothing's going to bind when we put it all together.

And I've cut these slightly shorter than our long side pieces for the top.

So we're going to put our workpiece up against the fence.

That's going to set the depth of the tongue.

Then I'm going to guide it with the miter gauge with the auxiliary fence attached, going to create a tongue on both ends.

And it's important to note that as I do this, I'm going to pay attention to the grain.

I want the best face up when the table's assembled, which means I need to put the best face down as I cut these tongues.

So we're going to go ahead and get these cut, then we can get some assembly done.

All right, after the tongues are all cut on the center boards for our top, I went ahead and routed a chamfer along the edges of all these parts, and now we're ready to assemble them.

The assembly is pretty simple, especially with this dowel joinery.

Really, all I'm going to do is glue the end of a dowel and I'll pound it into its hole.

And then I'll spread some glue on top of the dowel -- and you have to move quickly here because these dowels will start swelling almost immediately.

So let's get that third one in.

Now we just get these two parts together.

Okay, now we're going to go ahead and glue in the other long rail, and that will give us the two sides, then we can go and place these center slats and we'll use a set of spacers to evenly spaced them out in the center.

Okay, so now that we have the outside rails on, we can go ahead and place these on the center.

Like I said, I'm going to space these out using a series of shims, and I was going to go and use one, and I'm going to kind of leapfrog it across as I do the rest of them.

And because we want these to be able to expand and contract with humidity, I'm just going to glue the very center of the tongue, and I'm going to spread just a little bit of glue into the groove.

Okay, so it's a little bit of a dance to get all the parts to come together as you're working at it, but by starting at one corner, after you get all the center slats in, you can kind of lift the slats into place and pound that end on a little bit further.

But once all the clamps are on there, I went ahead and took care of any squeeze-out -- I want to make sure I get that removed before it dries, because I have these chamfers in between the slats.

Any glue that's in there is going to be hard to remove.

So now, really all we have left to do is let this dry, sand it and put a good outdoor finish on it.

I'm thinking maybe some teak oil on this.

Then it's just a matter of screwing it to the base.

I think the real difference between building a project for inside and outside isn't necessarily in the design: it's in choosing the right materials.

You'll need something that's going to stand up to the elements.

You want to choose the right glue, having something waterproof; and when you're using hardware, something like stainless steel, that will last outside.

As you can see on today's episode of "The Woodsmith Shop," our picnic table really is built to last.

If you'd like plans to make your own, they're at our website, woodsmithshop.com.

You'll also find even more woodworking plans, tips and videos to help you become a better woodworker so that you can join us right back here for another great project in the Woodsmith Shop.

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