Gabriel Sargeant

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Building a picnic table.

I built a picnic table.

After examining the price of outdoor furniture, and also observing it’s generally poor quality. I decided I’d build the type of table they put in pubs to withstand the rigors of drunken louts. Hopefully it should be enough to withstand me.

All up, cost about $450 AUD because inflation sucks and timber is oddly expensive in Tasmania.
I made tons of mistakes along the way but you won't see them unless you go looking. But here they are:
  • 1. Staining and painting after assembly. It was a massive pain to crawl around painting under the benches. I eventually flipped it over and got it all done, But In my rush of building it, I think I could have just instead painted it in big parts and then put it together.
  • 2. If you know a person with a chop saw, borrow it. I did all my cuts with a speed square and an hand held circular saw. Some of those 60 degree cuts have other amounts of degrees in them.
  • 3.When you start to get tired, stop and take a break. I had my drill driver slip off a screw and stab my thumbnail. 10/10 pain and I give it 0 stars.

General shopping list.

  • 6 X 140mm * 45mm * 3600mm Construction timber boards - Seats and table top
  • 2 X 140mm * 45mm * 3600mm H3 treated boards - These are the legs and bearers.
  • 2 * 90mm * 35mm * 2400mm Construction timber - Braces for under the seats and tables.\
  • 16 M12 100mm Carriage bolts.
  • About 100 75mm treated pine deck screws, I went with square drive heads.
  • A tube of liquid nails and a way to dispense it. - Every time you join a component just throw some construction adhesive on there. Why not!
  • Some water based deck stain for the benches and top, and flat ColorBond Monument paint for the legs. You could probably get away with two test pots worth

General construction.

  1. The legs are cut at 60 degrees. (ish) They are 80cm long. Find a triangle calculator online to work out how high you want your table. Mine is about 75cm and that works for me.
  2. The table top is 5 boards with a 10MM gap between each board. 740mm wide in total.
  3. The seats are 2 boards with a same 10mm gap.
  4. The stretchers are 1500mm long with 60 degree cuts. The tops of these sit 40cm from the base, so when the seats are added you’re sitting 45cm off the ground.
  5. Make sure all the braces on the seats and the table line up. I set them in 180mm from the sides and then screwed the top braces sideways to them.
  6. I built my bench so all the screws came in from the underside and when you’re sitting eating theres no visible screws or bolts. Just a style thing. YMMV
  7. There’s lots of plans on the internet out there. Just look to build a 6 foot table and turn all the measurements into metric.
  8. Cutting took a while and that’s because at the end pf all the cutting I remembered that I hadn’t replaced my circular saw blade since building a treated pine retaining wall. So I wasted a bit of my time with blunt tools.
A picnic table.

A fun way to spend a weekend. When I get a big umbrella I’ll drill a hold in the middle. Until then this is it.