♪♪ It's time for another episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

On today's show, we're building a patio table perfect for your next outdoor gathering.

What I like best about this project is that we're taking some common materials -- in this case, cedar -- that you'd normally find in garden boxes and planters, but we're transforming it into something that looks a little bit more up-class and stylish.

And you'll learn all the techniques for building a project to stand the test of time while enduring and looking great outdoors.

Of course, if you want to build one for yourself, you'll need some plans.

They're available at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

We're gonna get things started with Logan building a strong and sturdy base, then I'll tackle the techniques needed to build a round top.

It's time to build.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

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

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So our patio table starts off with the base.

To form the base, we're gonna use a couple of pieces of dimensional cedar, and we're gonna make two cross members, basically like this.

So we're gonna have to half-lap these guys together.

Like I mentioned, there's gonna be two of these.

There will be a lower one that's gonna have a couple of feet on it, then there will be an upper one to support the top that Phil's gonna make in a little bit.

Those are gonna be connected together... by these cedar posts.

So to connect these, we need to form some mortise and tenons.

I've started routing these mortises already.

What I've done is I've laid out the mortise locations, and then I made this plywood template.

This template simply has the cleat that registers along one edge of these cedar pieces, and then there's a hole in the center where my mortise goes.

To form the mortise, I'm using a plunge router with a dado cleanout bit, and that dado cleanout bit has a bearing along the shank.

That bearing registers along this template and allows me to start my mortise.

However, because of the length of this bit, I can't really get deep enough, so what I'll do is I'll make a couple of passes first to form a shallow mortise.

And then I'll simply remove this plywood template and rout deeper.

At this point, that bearing is just going to guide along the inside of that mortise we started.

I'm gonna do that on all these cross members, then we'll go ahead and talk about creating the half laps.

So now that all the mortises are done, we can concentrate on getting these pieces to fit together with half laps.

To do that, I flipped two of these over because we want to rout the half lap on the bottom side and the top side of the mating pieces.

So opposite sides.

So, I flipped two of them, and I've drawn a line where one edge of my half lap is gonna go.

Then what I'm gonna do is use a plywood fence that I've put double-sided tape on, and we're gonna stick this down on that line, really as close as we can get it.

Not terribly concerned because we're gonna set the width in a second.

There we go.

Okay, now we have to set this other plywood fence.

To do that, I'm just gonna use one of these parts... so I can register that up against that fence.

And then this plywood fence simply gets stuck down right there, and it's gonna be a perfect-fitting joint.

So let me go ahead and get some tape on here, and then we'll rout these half laps.

♪♪ So when it comes to getting in the middle of these half laps, if you have an auxiliary router base for your router, you can probably get in that pretty easily and clean that out.

However, with a smaller palm router like this, that small base gets a little tippy, so instead, what I like to do, especially with something soft like the cedar, is simply to use a chisel.

When you come through, bash out a lot of that waste very easily, and then it's just a matter of coming back in with some paring strokes to clean it up.

We're not really concerned about how the surface looks as long as it's flat and the joints go together.

So I'm gonna go ahead and rout this other half flap, then we'll talk about getting the tenons cut on those uprights.

Forming the tenons on the ends of the post is pretty straightforward.

Now, you could do it with the router, kind of using the same setup that we used to create the mortises, but just with a straight edge.

However, since I have the table saw, I'm gonna go ahead and use that.

So what I've done here is I've set up a dado blade, and I've set my rip fence to act as a stop.

So when we go to cut the tenons, simply register the end of the post up against that rib fence, and then guide it with the miter gauge.

Now, it's important to note that these tenons are different dimensions across their width and their thickness, so we're gonna require two setups here.

So I'm gonna make these passes along both the bottom face and this top face on both ends, and then we'll reset up the dado blade.

And then we'll roll those posts onto their sides to make the next pass.

And while we're here at the table saw with the dado blade set up, I'm gonna go ahead and bring in the top cross members.

Ends of those get notched to cradle the top that Phil will make in a little bit, so we might as well do that while we're here.

Okay, so that now we have the tenons cut, we need to do a little bit of fine-tuning before they'll fit into the mortises.

The tenons are left with squared corners of the table saw.

However, our mortises we cut have rounded corners from the radius of the router bit.

Now, we could square up those mortises with a chisel, but with cedar, it's fairly squishy.

So I found it just as easy to come in with a chisel, cut along the shoulder, and then just take a big, old 45-degree nibble off the corner.

That knocked-off corner is gonna be more than enough to get this tenon to go into the mortise.

So, let me go and finish this in, and then we'll glue this base together.

So we're gonna start with the base cross members.

As you can see, I went ahead and screwed on some pads that are gonna act like feet.

That's gonna lift this entire thing up off the bench, so as we're gluing this together, we get some clamps in there.

So, we're gonna take some good, weatherproof, waterproof glue, because this is gonna live outside, and we're gonna apply that to that half lap.

And then we'll clamp this together.

Okay.

There we go.

Now it's gonna sit nice and sturdy while we're going ahead and installing these posts.

So now it's just a matter of applying glue to the mortise, to the tenon, and putting them in place, and then capping the entire thing with this top cross member.

♪♪ ♪♪ Now let's wait a couple of hours for this glue to cure.

After that's done, the only thing I really have left to do on this base is to soften some of these edges.

I'll also do that with a router and maybe a chamfer bit.

Then we're gonna go and bounce off to Phil to make the top.

The defining feature of our patio-table project is the round top.

It definitely takes it away from your standard plank-top-looking pieces.

Now, we're gonna start in the same place, though, using some quality materials.

Here, we're starting with 2x6 cedar construction lumber, and you want to spend some time at the home center picking out the right boards.

I'm looking for pieces that are flat and straight, primarily.

Next, I want something with a uniform color across its width, which I have here, and while there are some knots, they're pretty small and they're pretty tight, so they're not gonna be as visually distracting.

Now, what I will say is that sometimes, you have to pick your battles.

The bottom side of this board, for example, has some pretty visible sap wood in it that's a lighter color.

However, if we keep it to the bottom, and some of that's gonna get cut away as we start making our parts, so I do have a nice-looking show face.

Now, I want to kind of take the curse off of these boards so they don't look like construction lumber, so I'm gonna go to the jointer and the planer and then cut my pieces to size.

So here we have something that looks a lot more like furniture lumber rather than construction lumber.

Our first step is to turn eight individual blanks like this into an eight-sided assembly, and from there, we'll cut it round.

So what I want to do now is head over to the miter saw and bevel the ends of the boards.

There are two main goals I have when I'm working at the miter saw.

First, I want all of my parts to be a consistent length.

Second, we'll focus on getting an accurate, consistent angle on both ends.

To tackle the first one, I've clamped a stop block to the fence on the side wing of my miter-saw station here.

That way, as I cut the pieces, all I have to do is make sure that the end of the piece is contacting that stop block to know they're all gonna be an identical length.

As for the angle, we need to cut these for a 22 1/2-degree miter on each end.

Now, most miter saws will have that as one of the detents on there.

However, it may not be accurate, so you want to do some test cuts and dial in the setting to make sure that it's gonna be just right.

Once you're ready, it's time to start cutting, but this isn't like just lopping boards off to length.

We want to get a good-quality cut, so I have a good blade here.

And I'm gonna take my time making each of the cuts.

After I've cut through the piece, I'm gonna turn off the saw, let the blade come to a stop before I raise it back up again to flip the piece around.

Now, while you think you might be able to just glue up the eight sections that we have into an octagonal shape, what we would end up with is relatively weak glue joints here because of all the end grain that's exposed, so what we're gonna do is reinforce the joints with a spline.

To do that, we need to cut a slot across each end of all of our pieces.

So I'm gonna do that with a dado blade that I've installed in the table saw.

It's raised to an inch high, and then I've set it with the fence so that it's gonna cut the dado or that slot centered on my work piece.

Now, for consistency's sake, what I want to do is keep the same face of the workpiece against the fence, so I'm just gonna mark all of my pieces with an "X."

And that way, I'll make one pass holding the workpiece like this, and then I'll flip it around and come at it from the other direction in order to keep that same consistency.

Well, it didn't take long, and we're ready for a little bit of assembly here.

Now, with the eight sides that make up the outer ring of the top, that can be a recipe for disaster if you want to try and do that all at once.

What I'm gonna do is tackle it one joint at a time, so I have two of the pieces here.

And I have my orienting "X" marks facing up so that I'm gonna get flush surfaces once this is all glued up.

Now, to connect them, we were talking about those splines, and here's what they look like.

They're relatively short pieces about 3 inches wide.

What's really important here is taking the time to size them to be a snug, kind of a press fit into those slots.

That way, you're gonna get a really strong, long grain to long grain glue joint.

Now, the big challenge in gluing up these two sections here is that once they're connected, I really don't have any square edges to apply good clamping pressure, so what I'm gonna do instead is to use a pair of large wood hand-screw clamps.

I'll attach the clamps to these two side pieces pretty close to the joint line but parallel to it.

Once they're clamped in place, then I can apply glue to the spline and to the slots and the mitered faces, and I can use smaller bar clamps and clamp onto the hand-screw clamps.

And that will draw the joint together tightly.

We'll let that sit for about 45 minutes to an hour, then you can pop the clamps off, and then we'll connect two sections together to make a half-round section of our tabletop.

The most complicated of the glue-up steps is when you have your two halves and you're ready to join them together.

That's because you have two joints to take care of at the same time.

Now, before you grab the glue bottle, you want to test-fit to see how those two halves come together.

One of three scenarios can happen.

First is that the joints meet tight.

If that's the case, the wind is at your back.

You can grab the glue bottle and keep going.

The other possibilities are that you could have a tight fit at the heel of the miters and have a gap at the toe or the reverse, tight at the toe and a gap at the heel.

If that's the case, and that's what happened here, is I had it tight at the heel and a gap at the toe, so I scribed a line describing that gap and then used a block plane to trim down the mating edges until I had a nice, tight joint line.

When you do that, though, keep in mind that you're probably gonna have to change the size of your splines for these last two joints because you're shortening the piece there and you don't want those splines to bottom out and give you a gap there when you have glue all over the place.

But otherwise, the process is the same.

I'm going to apply hand screws, glue to the joint faces, and then clamp each part together.

Alright, with both halves glued together now, I'm gonna let this whole assembly dry overnight so that I know that the glue is good and cured.

And one other thing -- while there might be some discrepancies in the overall size of this because of the adjustments you made, once the outside is cut round, the only people who are gonna know are you and anybody else that you let in on the secret.

So once this is dry, we'll talk about making it round and adding the slats in the middle.

Once the clamps come off the completed top ring, what I did is spent a little bit of time planing and sanding the joints flush and smooth.

I'm not really looking for perfection right now.

We'll get to that after we have it routed round.

Then what we needed to do is to add these cleats around the inside perimeter of the ring, and that's gonna support our top slats that will make up the eating surface of our patio table.

Now, trying to get all these aligned and put together, what I did is I drew a line on the inside edge of the ring so I knew where to locate them, ran a bead of glue on each of the cleats, held it in place, and then used a pin nailer just to tack it down so that I didn't have to worry about them sliding out of place while I drilled the pilot holes and then drove the screws that are really gonna do the work here on all of this.

The last step is to buzz a quick round over on the inside edge, and what that does is eases the edges so that you don't have a real sharp edge there.

But also, since we're working with an outdoor project, the wood is gonna move throughout the seasons, and this subtle round over both on the ring and also on all of our slats is gonna help disguise that a little bit.

So what I want to do now is I have the center slat fit, and after rounding it over, I'm gonna drill a hole in the middle, and then we can talk about creating this round and making it look right.

At the center of our middle style here, I drilled a small hole that's gonna be the pivot point while we turn this tabletop into a round outer profile.

Now, I drilled the hole in the top side because we're gonna end up drilling a much larger hole here for a patio umbrella.

If you're not gonna go with that route, there are ways to do the same job here but without creating a hole.

Now, to make the tabletop round, I have a router or trammel jig here.

On one end is a plunge router that's gonna do the actual cutting, and it's anchored on this aluminum rule that has an adjustable stop on it.

On the bottom side, you can see that pin, and that pin fits into our hole... and will register the jig as I move around.

Now, we're cutting through some pretty thick material here, so I'm gonna do this in several passes.

It's cedar, so I can be a little heavier on those passes, but for the final one, I don't really want to cut into the bench top again.

So I'm gonna put a sacrificial piece of foam insulation underneath it just for that final pass as we complete the shape.

I'm gonna spend a little bit of time sweeping up all that dust and chips from the router and the jig, and then I went along the edge with a block plane and a sanding block just to clean things up.

There might be a little irregularity there.

What we can do now, then, is to work on filling out the field of the slats that go in the tabletop, and I'm starting with the full- length slats in the middle.

Now, on each side of that wide center slat, we can get two more, and I'm gonna start by installing this outer one first.

And the reason is I want the corner of that slat to meet right at the miter joint on each end, so you kind of want to tap it around to be able to get it into that spot.

And I'm gonna drive a pair of screws into the end, and then the inner slat will go in between, obviously, if it's the inner slat.

And then I'll space it by eye so that I have a nice, even gap all along the length of it.

Now, the remaining slats are gonna be angled on the ends, so I have a bevel gauge that I can set against one of the slats and then one of the side pieces here.

And that's gonna describe the angle.

I can mark that on the end of the other slats and cut that at the miter saw, and then use a sanding block or a block plane to sneak up on a nice fit and start working my way out towards the ends.

In a perfect world, fitting these outer pieces is a piece of cake.

These should be 45 degrees.

I don't live in that world, so the miters were a little bit off of 45.

I did some fine-tuning at the miter saw to try and get them close, but inevitably, I went over to the edge sander and just tweaked either the heel or the toe of each of those pieces in order to get the fit that I was looking for.

Then, before you attach them, don't forget to head over to the router table and buzz a quick round over on the top edges of all the pieces.

Now, the last thing that I have to do here on the top before handing it off to Logan is to put a 3/8-inch round over on both the bottom edge and the top edge.

When building an outdoor project, we want to make sure that that outdoor project looks as good a couple of years down the road as it does today.

Let's take our patio table here, for example.

We've built it out of red cedar.

That cedar is gonna give us a great foundation because it's a weather-resistant wood.

There are other species that are as weather resistant, but cedar is a great choice and it's available readily.

Now, the next step is gonna be putting a good-quality outdoor finish on that project.

That could be one of a couple of things.

The first, like you see down on the base, is paint.

Paint's a good weather-resistant finish.

It's gonna act as a moisture barrier so the wood can't soak up water, and it's gonna block UV rays that can weather and damage that wood.

Now, another option is to add a clear oil-based finish, but the oil-based finish does need to be exterior rated.

That means it needs to have some UV inhibitors and some mildewcides in there to keep mildew and any growth off of the surface of the wood.

So what I'm gonna do is we're gonna do kind of a two-toned finish here.

I have the base painted already, but we're gonna apply a good, clear oil-based outdoor finish on this top.

I think the two-tone is gonna be a really nice look on here.

Now, it's important to note that no matter what outdoor finish you choose, there is gonna be some maintenance to it.

Paint -- you're probably gonna need to sand it down and repaint it after a couple of years, and with an oil-based finish, you're gonna need to reapply that oil every couple of years to keep the project looking its best.

So with this outdoor oil, I'm gonna brush it on and I'm gonna let it soak into the wood.

We really want to saturate those fibers.

Then, depending on your manufacturer's recommendations, you're gonna come back and probably wipe off that oil.

We don't want to let any of it pool on the surface.

If you do, it's gonna get a little tacky, and it's never really gonna set up nicely.

So after we let this soak in, I'll wipe it down, make sure all that excess oil is absorbed, and we'll let it cure.

You know, there's often times when you're applying a finish that you're done with the application, but you need to wait 10 or 15 minutes for the finish to dry before you come back and wipe off any excess.

On the pass, I've always stripped my gloves off and just thrown them away, but that's a terrible waste.

So a good tip I picked up when I was down at David Marks' shop was when he's working on a project like this, he's gonna use his gloves in another 10 or 15 minutes is he grabs a Sharpie and writes his initials on the palm of his glove.

That way, he can take his gloves off, turn them inside out so finish doesn't get all over the shop, and then when you come back in 10 or 15 minutes, you know what side was out so you're not sticking your hand into a glove that's full of finish.

It's a great little tip, and it saves a pair of gloves.

There's a certain magic once that first coat of finish goes on.

Once it's dry, this table is ready to become the centerpiece of your next outdoor gathering.

Of course, all you need are the chairs.

You can provide those yourself, or if you're up for it, build a matching set of stools.

It's all included with the plans available on our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

You'll also find some great inspiration for other outdoor projects that you can build for your deck or patio.

Then, after spending some quality time in your shop, we can meet back here in the Woodsmith Shop and build another project.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

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

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪