Church Visitor Center

Our church is getting rid of the old folding tables and going modern—flat screen displays, new seating, and this visitor center that I’ve been building the last few months. The top is 1.2” white oak, the legs 1”, and the carcase is plywood (too late, I noticed it was from China—the thinnest face veneer I’ve ever seen). Each side table is angled back about 22 degrees. I’ve never done anything anywhere near this large—16.5 feet end to end. An architectural student designed it; the design reflects the ceiling above. The open toe kick serves both to qualify for ADA compliance, and to let the design “float,” I’m told. (A real estate agent friend told me that the more floor you can see, the larger the room seems, and this certainly seems to be the case.) It’s assembled with pocket screws—and on the front of the legs, bed frame brackets buried in the top of each leg so nothing shows. Just the doors to install on the back.

I can’t believe what I did to joint the edges of the boards in the two large table tops. They were simply too heavy and awkward to joint on my small Ridgid 6” jointer—and some of them kept bowing. I jointed some heavy strongbacks, put the straight board in the middle, attached them crosswise underneath, and jointed them with my circular saw. I epoxied wood between the motor housing and base of the saw to make the saw base truly rigid, and doubled the blades to take out enough wood (the motor spindle DID protrude all the way through the blade bodies). A straightedge completed the process.

-- Now, where did I put those bandaids?