Small Pedestal Table

We noticed during our visits to Spain how popular the pedestal tables are in the cafes. These are relatively small, about 60 cm square, and the tops are mounted on  metal central pedestals and so allow the seating of four people. This type of small table would be useful outside our kitchen/diner door and also for when we are having a barbeque on the patio to sit the food when preparing. However, we don't have the space to store a table during the winter and would like one that dissembles easily so that the top separates from the pedestal and the base stand. Also, it seemed a good idea to use the heavy metal base of the sunshade to hold the pedestal so that the base could serve two purposes.

This is the finished product so that you can see the basic structure and the three separable parts, the metal base, the wooden pedestal and the top.

Finished table with base and top detachable.

The pedestal was made from a piece of crab apple from our garden that was cut off the tree last winter and stored in a cold workshop over the winter. It had numerous side branches that had to be cut off and trimmed with an axe. It wasn't the ideal piece of wood for the purpose but I thought it would be an interesting job (I have a piece of oak dowel that I could also used instead of the apple). The plan was to round the bottom into a dowel about 1 1/2in. diameter (about 27 cm long) to enable it to fit into the metal base and also put a screw thread on the top to attach it to a beech block to fit to the bottom of the table. The total length of the pedestal was about 70 cm. The beech block was attached to the top by two 50 cm ash slates housed into the block and screwed at right angles to the table top.

The beech block with pedestal screwed in. The block was mounted on two ash slates using housing joints to give the whole structure some strength.

After removing the bark and shaping the pedestal, I used the rounding plane to make the bottom and top a cylindrical shape. Meanwhile some quite large cracks developed along the length of the pedestal. I decided to leave the pedestal to dry in the workshop for about three weeks (summer temperatures over 20 C) and then adjust the shape using a spokeshave and rounding plane.  The screw was then cut on the top using a 1 1/2in. beech threading tool. A thread was also cut in the centre of a block of beech ( 80 x 140 x 70 mm deep) to mount the pedestal. The cracks were then filled with some coloured epoxy resin (teak polyester pigment, www.mbfg.co.uk) and sanded to produce a smooth finish before adding some designs by pyrography. This gave the same colour as the epoxy finish and so I was able to integrate the two. I think this produced a pleasing design and made use of the wood to effect.

The apple pedestal with the beech block screwed on top. The designs on the stem are a combination of the infilled coloured epoxy and pyrography graphics.

The table top was made from some waney edge elm boards from Tealy and Sons. They were 2 @ 590 x 170  cm and 2 @ 580 x 140 cm, all about 22 mm thick. I chose elm as it was available in the right size and I'd never worked with this wood before. The waney edges were kept for the outside boards and planed off for the joined edges. The boards were sawn to the same length and the joining edges planed with a joining plane (back to back, and level as judged with a straight edge). The waney edges were shaped with a large spokeshave plane to keep their natural shape.. The boards were joined in pairs with polyurethane glue and when dry (after leaving clamped overnight), each pair was planed flat to give a smooth surface. Finally, the two pairs were joined and planed. The edges of the table were then shaped using a small block plane and spokeshave. The two square edges were chamfered. The final size of the table top was 60 cm by 58 cm, that is about two foot square.

The finished elm top ready for oiling. The waney edges are at the front and the rear in the photo. The other two edges are chamfered.

All that remained was to attach the beech block and the ash supports underneath the table. The top was also screwed on through the centre of the beech block.