Making an octagonal picnic table
My wife and I take a week vacation around July 4th each year to relax at our cottage in Michigan. Last year, I dipped my toes back into carpentry with mentorship from a kind neighbor and replaced our wood platform. This year I decided it was time to replace our old picnic table. I wanted an octagonal picnic table and settled on plans from Woodcraft Magazine Issue 58: April/May 2014 by Bill Sands (downloaded from Sawtooth Ideas). The deciding factor was Laney Shaughnessy‘s four part Build an Octagon Picnic Table YouTube series detailing each step of the plans. Menards had the cedar wood (16 8-foot 2x6s, 8 8-foot 2x4s, and one 8-foot 2×2), sawhorses, exterior screws, back saw, chisel, pocket hole jig, hand router + 1/4-inch roundover bit, sander, and wood glue. My neighbor had a mitre saw and a cozy garage that helped when it was raining. It took most of the week and I must’ve watched Laney’s videos a few dozen times in the process for guidance and encouragement, but – thanks to Bill Sands’ great plans and Laney Shaughnessy’s awesome videos – I was able to make a nice new cedar octagonal picnic table from scratch:
