TIM1301 - Principles of Manliness

When I was seven years old, my grandfather called me to his deathbed, to say his last words to me. I will never forger how he took my hand in his - that rough, manly hand, made hard by many years of woodworking, drafting, and welding - and stared into my very soul with his deep grey eyes. And he said,

"My grandson, I have only one wish for you. Continue the family legacy. Become a theatrical scenic constructor and or light designer, just like me, and my father, and his father before him. Don't ever be an actor. That's for little girls. Only the day when you build something for the stage will you be able to call yourself a man."

He then used a random orbit sander to defeat skin cancer and went on to live to a hundred. And then he died fighting a bear who broke into his house to steal his power-tools.

My grandfather, circa 1928. He didn't actually use the axe.

When I decided that acting was the only thing I was good for, I thought I would never be able to honor my grandfather's last wish. That all changed this semester.

When I signed up for Intro to Prod Tech, little did I know what I was signing up for. I thought I was taking a theatrical production class, merely concerning the process of creation for the stage, and attempting to fill the un-manly hole created by prancing around on a stage I myself did not build, This class much more. It offered a personal - nay - spiritual experience, which would transform my character, test my mettle, and the forever increase number of splinters in my hands, to an amount my grandfather would hopefully be proud of.

A few days ago I finished my table, and I thus finished the class. If my grandfather was alive, he would have known that is the day I became a man. Because I didn't just finish Prod Tech. In reality, I successfully completed TIM1301 - Principles of Manliness.

Part 1: Sketchup

This was the easy part. Sketchup doesn't require muscle, it doesn't require tools or materials. It doesn't even require wood. It's the design equivalent to standing around and thinking about what you're going to do for hours on end, without necessarily doing any of what you're thinking to do. Actors call that the rehearsal process. However, I knew that this process was going to be legitimized once I made what the screen presented a reality.

The bench which we previously designed as a part of the drafting and sketchup mastery series was an extremely useful learning experience. By the time I was done with the bench, I was reacquainted with the hotkeys, interface and the functions of each one of the tools, so the process of making the table was streamlined and uncomplicated. Because my table used no complicated angles, it was easy to create components, then draw the next parts upon them and pull them into existence.

My project underwent several changes, and this was all due to the ease of visualization that sketchup allowed for. The main change I made was the legs. I initially planned to use 4x4s to build them, but upon designing the model, I realized that it made the table look like a pair of elephants with two legs each standing together, butts touching.

Forgive the specificity.

After deciding to use 1x4s, which would both provide a cohesive and proportional look and make the order simpler by reducing lumber types, I thought I had arrived at a design which pleased me. I later discovered the Iba Joint™, which consists of two 1x4s with 45 deg. angles on one end of each, joined together perpendicularly, to create an extremely elegant joint which revealed not the fact that the leg was made of two separate boards.

I also made my own addition to the sketchup project: the visualized cut list. By separating each one of the components from the model, I created a visual guide to each one of the cuts I needed to make. This proved to be an extremely useful tool, as it allowed me to never go back to the model during the construction process - I needed but to look at the cut visualization screenshot I saved on my phone to know what I needed to cut.

The final result.

Part 2: Building

Building the table was a long and extremely enjoyable process. I began by making all the cuts. This already posed a problem. My lumber was bad. Really bad. It was twisty, bendy and even had sap in some places. Freaking sap, man. That's what I get for buying sweet, sweet $2.32 per 6ft common boards. I paid the price in sweat. Luckily, I have more sweat than dollars to spare.

Once I decided which pieces of lumber were passable, and I selected the best lengths to use for the longer and shorter pieces, I went on to cutting. Once I had the necessary lengths, I cut the two plywood tops to length, in order to be able to visualize the positioning of the wood and to be able to build the table on the top surface, as opposed to on the air. I made the 45 deg. cuts to the legs pieces and rejoiced.

Accurate.     

 I proceeded to attach the top part of the leg support structure using pocket screws. This wasn't too complicated. Then, I used the biscuit joiner to glue the pairs of leg-pieces together. This was extremely complicated. Because of the jankiness of the boards,

I used a lot of clamps for each leg to get them to match up evenly, and left them overnight to dry. It looked a lot like this.

Claaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamps.

That was certainly the hardest part about dealing with the terrible grade lumber I purchased. From then on, it was mostly pocket screws on pocket screws, attaching the legs to the top structure, and that to the plywood top sheet. It took some adjustments to get the table not to be offset by the twists and bends that the slight warps in the wood created, but with some adjustments, that was achieved without much of a hassle. Credit to my assistant, pictured below.

Part 3: The Finished Product

After sanding the crap out of the top in order to flatten the screw-tops which were poking out through the top of the plywood, and using a short steel bar to make the leg miter cuts fit perfectly, the table was finished. The only part that I was not completely happy with was the lower plywood top, meant for storage. Because of the slight, even imperceptible angle on the legs, one of the sides of the table poked slightly out, while the other was a little bit too far in.

But I can tell people now that I built a table and that's all that matters.