It goes without saying that we love to see how our metal legs are used. One of the biggest movements of the day that we fully support is reclaimed building materials. Be it a repurposed pallet or refurbished tabletop, seeing our hairpin legs and angle iron legs give old materials new life is fantastic! Michael at Belle Creek Wood Working made this beautiful table with reclaimed barn boards. Michael says
Reclaimed wood is a bold product to work with for a table as it warps all over the place once cut, but I was up for the challenge.
Michael points out that making a table with metal legs can be for anyone from the home handyperson to a professional woodworker. Depending on your level of comfort and expertise you can take on different difficulty levels in your projects. Michael had some good ideas on how to work with reclaimed boards:
The difficult part of working with this wood is in the need to make the wood as flat as possible without sanding or planning top wood where all the patina is from the grey’d barn wood. Once you actual sand the back of the wood to flatten the bottom the wood looks down right ugly, so you’ve got to keep the grey in tact.
I ran a series of passes through my Dewalt planner to cut 1/8″ at a time off the bottom of the wood, then a trip through my table saw to make 4″ and 2″ wide planks. I laid the wood gray side up on the table, swapping each piece until I had the right look with the various width planks. Finally turned each piece upside down and glued those bad boys together.
The tabletop looks excellent! When looking for a tabletop that holds onto the original character of the wood these irregularities are perfect. Michael contacted us about getting some custom height angle iron legs and we were able to get him what he needed. That is the great thing about our hairpin legs and angle iron legs all being made to order – it is easier for us to meet custom requests whenever possible. Thank you for sharing Michael, great table!
