Pedestal

1821
7

It’s been a long time since I’ve made any chips. With a 2 year old running around it’s either no time or no noise. I’ve been fishing a lot and using my table saw as a place to put my salty, sandy surf bag to work on tackle, etc. And my wife has had me gutting another room for the baby to move into. But this weekend I needed the table saw to make some trim work for that room and I caught the bug again. I spent a few hours this past weekend cleaning up my shop and polishing the rust off my table saw.

This is a stupid small project for work – a pedestal for a 20 gallon electric water heater. All from scraps and there wasn’t much to use so I ripped some tubafors into 1-1/4" strips for the framing and used trimmed molding cutoffs for the straps on the sides. 1/2" ply on top. It weighs less than 10 lbs but it will support well over 300 lbs. I sat on it and rocked it as hard as I could to test the strength and believe me, it’s stiff! So I’m happy with that. And I’m happy to get back to making sawdust with my garage door open, even if it’s just a little utility project. Felt good and I can’t wait to get back into the swing of things after I’m done with the last of my painting and trim work upstairs.

Losing fingers since 1969

Well engineered Brian, great to see you back in the shop.

Jack

Looks like it will do the job.

woodworking classes, custom furniture maker

OK. I’m really stumped as to how this made editors choice. LOL

Losing fingers since 1969

It looks very sturdy Brian.

I have not been in the shop for months.

Abbas, Castro Valley, CA

It is very sturdy. Funny thing – I sat through a project meeting for a restaurant I’m building and we were going over some structural elements on the roof and the engineer made a comment about framing. The designer wanted to offset some columns to make room for something but the engineer said all these elements (posts, beams and infill beams) have to be tied together or else it will wobble. I was thinking about that when building this pedestal. And the other thing was the lack of material (scraps! I’m not spending a penny on this!) made me have to think about how to make it efficiently. Not shown are 2 more pieces of infill framing under the plywood top. Oh yeah, it’s butt ugly but it will do the trick. LOL

Getting back in the shop feels good. Right now, it’s clean and organized and ready to take on a new project but unfortunately I am not ready yet. Dang honeydo list has too many non-woodworking items on it. You deserve a break after the last few of your projects, which were really, really impressive and big work. Too much focus on one thing makes you burn out. But it does feel good to get back after a break.

Losing fingers since 1969

Looks sturdy, great job! I know what you mean. I have 4 kids and getting time in for woodworking seems impossible some days or you have to cut out when your right in the middle is something but I still fit it in it I find it takes my mind off all stress.