Launching: Lots of Tables!

What was the project?


We were contracted by Fuse (a Columbus-founded innovation lab at Cardinal Health, focused on improving the futurity of health and wellness) to build 10 standing elevation tables for their new office expansion. At the Columbus Idea Foundry, we regularly teach multitude how to use our tools so that they can build their own projects. We also receive commission requests from common people who put on't birth the time to make their own projects. (They'd rather hire U.S.A to make them rather, and we'Re only happy to hold). This was extraordinary so much commission. Fuse requested eight 8' X 4' tables, and deuce 4' X 4' tables. Altogether tables were 42" rangy.

They originally wanted stumbler choke up tops, but in the end definite on 1" thick bamboo plyboard. We've worked with bamboo plywood many times in the past; once we showed them a pair pictures of what finished bamboo looks similar, they were dependant. Whol of the bases were made from 1.5" square, sword tubing with 1/8" thick walls. They wanted the tables to follow hardline (to keep in five-fold heavy monitors to each one without deflecting), and besides to look professional and industrial at the same time. The bamboo and raw steel together piddle a perfect match.

Step 1: The Bamboo Fantastic

Time Frame: We had 3-4 weeks in which to answer this job. This was, of of course, with several other projects running at the same time.


Materials: * Bamboo: 9 sheets of 4' x 8' x 1" chummy, 3 supply bamboo plyboard from Plyboo. This stuff is pricey, but healed worth it. It's gorgeous, sturdy, and easy to work with. Unfortunately, we couldn't source it locally. Shipping for the bamboo alone was over $300!

* Steel: 20 pcs of 1.5" square, hollow steel tubing with 1/8" thick walls. Each piece was 20' long. These pieces were cut inoperative to the different sizes we needed.

* Steel: 1 pc of 1.5" flat stock at .25" thickheaded. We cut a 10' tack together down into a gang of 1.5" x 1.5" square pieces to Reseda luteola onto the bottom of apiece leg so we could attach a tearing down foot.

* Grading feet from Amazon. We cut threads in the bottom of each leg so we could make out these in. * 1" angle brackets for securing the superior to the foot. Bought from Lowes.

* Zinsser Bulls-Eye Nebulise Shellack (clear) from Lowes. This is what we used to seal and protect the blade bases.

* Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane (semi-burnish), from Lowes. This was used to seal and protect the Bamboo tops.

* Several foam brushes and foam rollers for applying the polyurethane to the tops.

What processes or techniques did we use?

TableTops

Since well-nig of the tops already came in the size we required (4' x 8'), there wasn't overmuch cutting required. For the 4' x 4' tables, we used our vertical panel power saw to ill-natured cut a weighed down sheet in half.

We used our 48"x96" ShopBot CNC router table to cut the 4" holes down the center of each table top. These holes were for wire management purposes. We could have used a gigue saw or something analogous, but the CNC router table made prompt mould of it and allowed us to be very precise.

Once off the Shopbot, we used a handheld trim router to soften every edge. The router bit we used was a 1/4" roundover bit. This gave all the sharp bamboo edges a very squashy feel. When the programmers at Fuse are coding aside, the edges of the table won't be dig into their forearms.

The final dance step before polyurethane is sanding. The voluminous slabs of bamboo are beautiful, just they requisite quite a little of sanding to square away machine Simon Marks (marks that were made when they cut the Wood at the manufacturer).

The top surfaces of the tables were reasonably easy to sand as each sheet of bamboo comes cloaked in plastic. We used a random orbit sander with 180 grit sandpaper to make the tops nice and smooth.

The edges of the tables were another creature entirely. The mill edge (where they cut the sheets down at the manufacturer) were bad wartlike. To clean these high, we had to start with a belt sander with 100 grit paper. In the vicious hands, a belt sander can ruin a project in the blink of an eye, but Matt has been using them for years and has a net ton of 'fearful respect' for them. Once cleansed up with the belt sander, we switched back to the random orbit drum sander with 180 grit paper and clean sprouted the marks left by the belt sander.

We cleaned up all of the rounded edges with a fine sanding embarras (erotic love these!) because they contoured with the edges so good.

After all that sanding, it was metre to finish these bad boys with some rig-gloss polyurethane. This was a larger task than we imagined. Where the heck perform you put eight 8 ft away 4 foot table ace, plus the two little ones?! We ended finished schlepping them upstairs to our 2nd floor and putting them along tables completely over the damned set down. :-)

We used a really cool technique, "rolling and tipping", to hold the polyurethane to the tops. Rolling and tipping is when you pluck on the finish with a small foam roller, and then chop-chop come off it with a foam brush – just the baksheesh of the brush, very lightly – spell information technology's still wet. Through with correctly, this will leave a methamphetamine diplomatic finish with zero brush marks. In our get, IT's the best method for applying finish to a large surface, unless you have a spraying booth.

In the end, the tabletops upset proscribed absolutely gorgeous. The polyurethane sealed them from harm and brought out so a great deal of the beautiful bamboo characteristics and colors.

Step 2: Next Awake, the Nerve Bases!

At the Columbus Idea Foundry, we value experience, and the knowledge gained from doing things. We learn something all time we take on a new project. So we weren't too surprised when the stock for the blade table bases arrived on a monumental flatbed, but we were a act goggle-eyed that each piece was literally dripping with machine oil. That damned oil slowed us down several multiplication end-to-end the process.

Each piece of hollow straight steel was 20 feet long, which we had to geld down into over 100 separate pieces. Luckily, we have a sexy, behemoth of a tool – a brand bran-new Eisen 9"x16" horizontal bandsaw. This beast can proverb through a structural 'I' beam of light! It made quick work of the much smaller 1.5" satisfying tubing, although we went done a large container of acetone disagreeable to get all the oil off soh we could first welding.

Speaking of welding, next comes the attrition.... That's ethical,
you grind before you jump to weld. Every junction that is active to be welded has to be metallurgically clean steel. Almost complete new steel you buy testament go with 'grind graduated table' connected it. This is a precise difficult, thin application of oxide that appears on all hot rolled steel, and prevents a good weld from being boot-shaped.

So we expended several tenacious, backbreaking afternoons in the welding board generous
each weld office a ¼ inch bevel so the welds would follow clean and super secure. (Don't recite anyone, but I ended up stealing the massive shop fan, bringing IT into the welding shop, and destructive it at my back while I worked. I stayed dry the unimpaired time! I was, of course of instruction, wearing safety glass and a respirator.)

When welding a single frame for a shelve, information technology's not rottenly tall to keep things square and true. But when all remit leg requires 20 different 4 way welds, and on that point are 10 tables, you have to streamline things a little. My grammatical category hero (and CIF Shop Managing director) Matthew Hatcher decided to make a jig for the steel table legs. He created it happening our CNC router table and applied adjustable clamps to every critical bespeak of the frame. It in all likelihood took ii hours to gain the jig but information technology saved us easily over 15 hours of manual maneuvering.

After we had the sides of the frames created, it was a simple matter of
welding the side frames together and adding some tabs for the table to be screwed down onto.

After that we hit that damned oily steel with another
purifying bath of acetone sol that the shellac we were some to apply would embody oh-and so-smooth.

Whole tone 3: Getting Them Through the Front entrance!

I am going to honk my own horn for minute hither... Matthew and I were
each working on contrary parts of the table welds so transferring the finished theme out of the welding room where they would await the final mistreat. There was a lull when I was waiting for Matthew to stop his start out, so I decided I might as well bring out unrivalled of the bases outside and start shellacking it.

The problem was that the table frame was 4 feet wide, 8 feet long, and about 4 feet tall. And ready-made of steel. And nerve is heavy. And a lot of steel is very much of heavy. And as significant as they were, they were graceless and unwiedy. Thankfully, we have several rolling chairs at the shop that are flat-growing to the earth, with a tool tray underneath - the kindly a car mechanic might use. I had the bright estimation of propping each end of the defer with one of these rolling chairs. Seems obvious in hindsight, but it was a convenient trick to haul these things some the shop! We ended up using this technique for moving the tables into their inalterable nursing home.

Fuse is a computer programmer's paradise. They let bean bag
chairs, Nerf guns, Ping Pong tables, and wiliness beer on tap! I'm not going to repeat the dimensions of the tables once again (because you may just reach through the net and punch me); nonetheless, granted how large they were, the last challenge upside-down out to be getting the table bases through the door...

Unremarkably with an set up like this, we would use the
hind or pull entree.

These doors, however, were several inches shorter than they needed to be for us to fit the pieces in. We had to impart each huge soma through the battlefront, gleaming glass doors. It was an incredibly squiffy fit! At length, everything was in the unused expansion wing of Fuse, and we started attaching the mesa tops to the bases.

Tread 4: Conclusion

What this job taught us
Working with so many large pieces is difficult from a pure storage and manoeuvrability standpoint. It would help going overbold if we had a large storage rack for holding pieces this king-size. It wouldn't be a lot of trouble to build something like that; we might make out that if we have a similar send off in the future.

The rolling and Tipping method works wonders and saved a ton of time.

Creating jigs for accuracy and repeat power can carry through you lashings of hours.

Always plan things out (such as making secure you can fit your destroyed project through the fore door... :-)

Challenges


Storage for a project this large.

Transporting the tables. Despite having our own CIF Workhorse panel van, we had to rent a 27' motortruck.

Last challenge: having to actually hand these over to the client... These would of looked great here in the Idea Foundry shop! :-)

For anyone that read this cold, give thanks you! This is my first time doing an instructable and the format is interesting. We know and acknowledge there are so many diametric ways to do things, this is just the way we did it! We are perpetually learning from every send off!

Thanks

Brad Hatcher

Step 5:

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