I bought this barrel years ago and have under-utilised it since. We’ve got an outdoor entertaining area it was supposed to slot into but just never quite fit. So it mainly sat in a corner gathering dust. During some recent rec leave, the time rolled around to clean the place up and Dusty Corner & Co. entered the crosshairs.
Between the droppings and cobwebs I’d say this was an arena.
Geckos and spiders vying for a meal. Or to not be the meal.
It’s in a pretty sorry state. Years of grime and dust have built up and the original oil coating has long been depleted. That doesn’t mean it’s past its prime though. Not by any stretch. I had a different finish that I wanted to test out before using on a main project; this barrel was the perfect candidate.
The dust and grime need cleaning off. Sanding would work but would be fiddly and soak up a lot of time. Because the previous coating has been exhausted, a nice easy way to clean this up is to smack it with a pressure cleaner. Just get it out into the sunshine and blast away.
Don’t underestimate just how effective a pressure cleaner can be
I’d originally intended this barrel to be a dry bar table. It certainly worked well for that during functions, but for our general use, it was superfluous. After our first child, the ‘outdoor living’ we did was less afternoon/evening entertaining and more family meal & leisure time. Leading to the elephant in the room. A large portion of the deck’s real estate is taken up by a substantially sized bar I made years ago; which currently has about the same functionality as the barrel.
It's a nice piece with some rather detailed inlay work. I’m still mostly happy with it, though my skills have surpassed what’s present in that build. It also needs attention. More than the barrel even. The finish is fading and native wasps are gumming up the shadow gaps between the parquetry tiles. The top is an absolutely stunning piece of Sydney Bluegum (Eucalyptus saligna) that is presently a dull brown. I used an oil based finish that I just wasn’t ever happy with. Needless to say, it needs some love. I have some good ideas for fixing it, after which I’d probably gift or sell it; but that’s a ways off. Also, this thing is honking heavy; I’d guess around 200kg+ (~440lbs). It takes five stout blokes to move the thing. So it’s basically stranded in place if we want to make some room temporarily.
Naturally it doesn’t quite suit family living
To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to add a top to the barrel. It can function as a high-table and a bar, utilising the stools we have, while taking the place of the existing and being reasonably movable when required. So firstly, to make the barrel a bit more mobile, it needs handles. For neatness, these will look better if they sit snuggly against the outer surface of the barrel. This means two facets require consideration; the diameter of the barrel and the bow of the wooden staves.
The straight edge and ruler should be reasonably self-explanatory. The contour gauge merits an honourable mention. The gauge consists of many narrow ‘fingers’ captive within a central band. A slight friction resists the form as it is pushed onto the surface; allowing this shape to be maintained after removal. The gauge creates a positive and negative impression; ready for scribing onto other parts. Let’s go ahead and give it a whirl.
A rummage through the offcut pile turned up a short length of Spotted Gum long enough to make the handles. Dressed and docked to length, some layout decisions need to be made. The positive & negative transfers are marked on the piece to create the plan (overhead) shape. However, to accommodate the bow of the staves, the negative side needs to be cut at an angle. Allowing it to sit flush against and plumb with the barrel in elevation (profile or side on). Going with the easy first, the outer edge gets trimmed on the bandsaw and dressed at the disk sander. Then we can look at the inner cut.
A little bit of trig never hurt anybody
From the earlier measure up, there was about 10mm (3/8”) bow over 100mm (4”) measured. Over such a short distance, the radius of the bow can be ignored and a straight cut used instead. The rise/run of the figures create a ratio of 1:10; which could be calculated and scribed onto the piece.
Or, we can just Soak a Toe with the figures and come to an angle of about 5.71°. Now what?
Using this angle, the inner, negative, cut for the handle can get setup. It’s a little trickier than the outside. It incorporates a radius, rip and bevel cut in one. I don’t know that this meets the definition of a compound cut (mitred-bevel cut); but there’s still a couple of dimensions to it.
There are only two ways that come to mind for achieving this. By hand with a coping saw; which requires the previous scribed markout anyway. Or, far easier, just use the bandsaw. The worktable of the bandsaw has articulation in one plane; perpendicular to the saw blade. It sits on trunnions that allow tilt both inboard and outboard. For this setup, we need an inboard cut at the calculated angle; let’s go ahead and check that out.
My eyes just aren’t what they used to be so let’s call that close enough to 5.71°
Everything up to this point has been a little floaty. Before just tearing through all of them, the first one gets cut and tried on the barrel. Easier now to make a correction and have one marginally smaller, than all four in the firewood bin and a few more coins in the swear jar. Placing it against the barrel is the real litmus test; so let’s check it out.
Just magic. The handle’s fit and the fact that the barrel has already had the finish applied
I was happy with the size and fit onto the barrel but thought the handles still didn’t have the right ‘look’ about them. I decided that to better suit the piece, they needed a bit more curvature and opted for a bigger radius on at the corners.
A vegemite lid; the standard mid circle gauge in the shop
Re-shaped and dressed, they look pretty good but would still be rather uncomfortable to hold in the hand. They need the sharp outer edges removed. A round-over at the router table is the easy solution, but there’s just one issue; they’re a little small and one approach on the cut is dangerous. I quite value my digits and feel they look pretty good without any extra rounding over; so a great deal of care and some hand work is required.
The problem here is the cut that incorporates the endgrain and transition to along the grain. Making this crosscut along the endgrains is a little tricky; but the dangerous aspect is when the piece is manoeuvred around the first radius. During this progression, the cutter will attack the endgrain, end on, against or up the slope. This will result in tearout and kickback. Damaging the piece and creating an opportunity to get part of a hand thrust unwittingly into the cutter. Not today thanks.
Using a holddown and the mitre slide, the first crosscut is carefully made by pushing the piece through with the slide and pressure down and into the fence. Once through, the piece rotated and moved reset for the second pass. This pass is run as usual, by hand without the slide, along the length, around the second radius and back off the other side. Because of this two-pass approach, a sharp point at the junction of the two passes is created.
I could have made a holding jig to allow a full run around and very carefully and incrementally made the cuts, but it was just too much work compared to a little hand finishing. Plus it’s always more of a pleasure to use hand tools.
The reason the first radius couldn’t be, and second radius could be formed is the cutting approach. In the second instance, the cutter is running down the endgrain with or down the slope. The wood fibres are neatly tapered in the direction of the cut as opposed to against it.
Try to picture it like stroking a shaggy animal’s rump. Running your hand from their back down to their leg, in the direction of the fur is easy, with little resistance and the fur will sit flat. Running the opposite way, up from the leg to the back, against the hair direction, has significantly more resistance and the fur will rise up. Only in our case, instead of ruffling some fur, we’ll be spitting chips after the handle is in the bin and possibly nursing a mangled hand.
Of course the doggo doesn’t mind either way
In any case, we’re left with something that needs more attention. A sharp spokeshave makes short work of bulking the material away, leaving just some tooling facets to be sanded off. To make the handle a little more practical, the underside is recessed. Creating a tactile bead at the outer edge that is easier to grip. This doesn’t need to be particularly neat as it’s basically invisible, only comfortable to hold. Using a coving bit in a hand router creates an internal radius at the edge, that is both comfy and less likely to cause breakage issues with the bead later. The resulting tool marks get cleaned up with a sharp chisel and we’re ready to move on.
Looks like we’ve got a handle on this part of the build
Last bit of fabrication is some feet. The barrel has until this point, been sitting on the raw ends of the staves. The metal hoop at the bottom has been installed very close the edge; to limit the amount of breakoff to the staves. They are however, getting a bit flogged. Currently the easiest way to move the barrel is tilting it onto a small section of the bottom edge and either walking or rolling it around. Neither are very kind to the timber or below surface. Some feet to elevate the barrel just off the surface without sticking out are the go.
Nothing fancy; just is enough here. They serve no aesthetic function so they’re really a couple of nicely sized and dressed sticks. Drill and countersink some holes in all the goodies and it’s time to get some finish on there.
I have used the Cetol finish system before, HLSe primer with Deck natural topcoats, and thought it was alright. Seems a pity that all the primers are tinted, but it does have a reasonable longevity and satisfies my sometimes-irrational preference for oil-based finishes. For my other project, I wanted to experiment with using the Supernatural product; which is water based. I guess I just held my nose and slapped it on. Overall seemed to work well. The closeup shot above shows the timber with the primer & topcoats. The hoops have the two coats of Supernatural aswell, adding a little bit of an aged look from afar.
While those finish coats go on, the table-top can get a move on. We’ve had this sheet of polycarb sitting in storage at the workshop for years. It’s a hefty sheet, 12mm (1/2”), and I can’t remember exactly what it was originally bought for. Less than ¼ has been used and after a while the film masks tend to bake on. There’s not going to be a sellable opportunity for it until it’s gone, so may as well rip the band-aid off now. To suit the look of the piece, the top is going to be circular. There’s a few ways to make this happen by hand, and I mulled over the benefits of each.
I’d long ago made a circle cutting jig for one of my routers. It requires a centre-point to pivot around necessitating a hole in the top. This I wanted to avoid. I considered making a circular timber pattern and pattern bit in the router. This would be very neat, but I’d end up with another big circle of material that has nothing to do. Marking and cutting it out with a jigsaw would be fast, but need a fair bit of clean-up. It does have the benefit of not needing a centre hole in the top though.
In the end I opted for a bit of a novel approach using the router and circle cutting jig with some risers and double-sided tape.
Got problems, add tape. More problems, more tape
The little block for the pivot point was taped onto the surface of the top at a marked centre of the circle. The pivot is created by driving a small nail in and clipping the head off; providing a point for the jig to move around. The router and remainder of jig sat atop a piece of material the same thickness; to provide stability and an even cut. This ended up working really-well.
This material is tough; really tough. To keep the load on the machine and tool chattering down, the full depth of the cut was made in three passes. This kept everything reasonably neat and chatter to a minimum but no matter what process is chosen and how carefully it’s applied; there’s always tooling marks left behind. In this case, the edge isn’t awful, but it’s not finished. My tiny disk sander proved up to task to touch it up.
A roller took the weight and allowed the top to be manhandled around the small table the sander has. To finish, a round-over top and bottom removes the sharp edges and fits with the general theme of the piece. I ended up liking the frosted look at the edge so didn’t try to polish any further.
Nearly ready for a few frostys outside
Before the top leaves the workshop, the fixing method needs to be sorted. After some consideration, I opted to screw the table top directly into the endgrain of the timber staves using six fasteners. It’s inevitable that leverage will be applied to these, as people lean on the outer edges of the table. Hopefully six proves a reasonable balance between sufficient strength and not affecting the overall look. The circle already had a centre-point marked and divided into quadrants. Measuring and scribing the diameter of the barrel onto the top then using a protractor, marks out six equidistant fixing points.
Moving back to the handles and feet, the finish has now been magiced onto them, so they can get fitted. The feet get screwed to the underside and some self-adhesive felt fitted over the fixing holes. The felt will help prevent scratching on the decking boards and a chamfer taken off the square edges of the felt, should make them more resistant to catching and peeling. The four handles are fitted to the sides of the barrel at quarters. Reasonably straightforward, just pre-drill the holes and screw them in. The joins in the boards on top of the barrel made a nice reference for the handles to be spaced at quarters.
Ready for the final fitoff
Now a barrel is not a perfect thing. Someone has made this by hand at some point and the top is not perfectly circular. To get all of the fixers to land appropriately, the masking gets fully removed on the underside, then upto the marked circle on top; peeling enough back to see the barrel rim.
Proceed with great care now
While this material is very tough it is not very hard. Polycarbonate has very low scratch resistance. This means the top will scratch over time from usage. That’s something I was prepared to live with. Alternative materials like glass or acrylic are harder and more scratch resistant but are more brittle. The polycarb also had the benefit of being pha-ree. 😅
Rotated around until each fixing point landed nicely, the holes are drilled in-situ. A small pilot hole through the plastic and into the timber creates a dead reckon for the top with one of them labelled to avoid confusion when positioning and re-orienting later for fixing.
The holes through the plastic top are drilled marginally over-size; to allow for thermal expansion and some slop for error tolerance. They are then countersunk to allow the fixing screws to finish flush with the surface. Markers on the barrel indicate the timber is American Oak; a timber I’ve had no experience working with previously. For caution, I made a reasonable allowance in the tapping drill size and oiled the holes prior to fixing. I chose oil through a needle dripper over grease as I didn’t want to end up with grease smears on the visible underside after the table was fixed down.
End result was split free
I was a bit reticent to add my maker’s mark onto the barrel, as I’ve really only tarted this thing up. In the end, I decided there had been enough value adding to justify it, and think it adds a nice dimension under the top.
I guess that makes it happy hour
Cheers,
Kind Regards
Walker
February 2022
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