The next job was to reduce the chance of the boards leaking resin. I played it safe and alternated them which you can just about see in the end grain on this photo. Some people say that it’s important to alternate the direction of the grain from board to board to reduce the likelihood of cupping. They’re 38mm thick which, again, is spot on for a chunky looking table top. Scaffold boards are 225mm in width so 4 together = 900mm which just happens to be about the perfect dining table width. Basil kindly added some pawprints to make sure I didn’t forget. Once I’d got the boards home, I chose which sides I wanted to be on show and marked them. You can see that some strips of wood have been screwed into the bottom to keep the wood stable but if the wood’s not dry when you assemble, it will not stay flat. Sure, it looks like a friendly, smiley face, but not ideal when your drink is leaning over and plate is wobbling all over the place. Here’s a good example of what can happen to scaffold board tabletops that aren’t properly dried out. So the goal was to find boards that were under 10% moisture on both sides. I bought a moisture meter (£25 off Amazon) especially for this project as buying wood that is too wet would A) require drying out inside for weeks/months and B) likely lead to warping during the drying process. Having said this, I ended up using cupped boards for the dining bench which was a pain – more deets later on about how I dealt with these.Īlong with checking the boards are true, testing how dry they are is also really important. However, the photo below is of a board that is badly cupped and so no good for a dining table, unless you have fancy kit and don’t mind reducing the thickness of the wood. ![]() The photo above shows a length of scaffold board that’s straight along its edge which is key to achieving a good glue joint. To achieve a consistently flat table top with seamless joins the wood you use needs to be in excellent condition and so if you need to look through 30 boards to find the 4 best ones, that’s time well spent. Basically, if it’s wonky, it’s no good, so spend some time looking down the length of a few boards before you select the ones that are good enough to make the cut. ![]() I can’t stress enough how important it is that you pick the boards that aren’t twisted, cupped or bowed in any way. It was easier to just pop down to B&Q and buy some new boards and add some character, so that’s what we did. However, getting old boards into a fit state before they can be used as a dining table top would involve a ruthless amount of planing and sanding which just ends up removing most, or all, of the character. As we were after something that looked a bit worn in, it would seem to make sense to buy reclaimed. The first decision was whether we should use reclaimed scaffold boards or fresh ones. A similar table and bench can be achieved by using really simple techniques and gear which I’ve highlighted where poss. I should say from the outset that this method requires a few bits of kit that you may not have unless you’re a pretty keen DIYer. There’s no shortage of homemade scaffold board tables doing the rounds on Pinterest/Instagram so we thought we’d give it a go and are dead chuffed with the result. As much as we’d love to go out and splurge on loads of cool stuff, we’re not exactly swimming in cash at the moment. ![]() Our second-hand dining table that I picked up from a mate 6 years ago being a prime example. ![]() Now that our extension is finished, our old furniture is looking pretty past it. Deciding what your ‘dream home’ looks like.Lockdown: preparing to buy your first home.8 DIY products we couldn’t live without.Planning & ordering our ‘DIY Kitchens’ kitchen.Extension post #11 – how much did it cost?.Extension post # 2 – choosing an architect & builder.10 must-have tools to get into woodwork.DIY decking with integrated storage seats.
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