Introduction: Trapezoid Wooden Table

About: I studied electronics at school and in the last years I have become passionate about: mechanical design, Arduino IDE, Raspberry Pi, Stepper motors, LED lights, cybersecurity, web development, Adroid App develo…

Hello makers,

Today I bring you a simple wooden table but with a peculiar and functional shape.

Having the surface of a table in the shape of a trapezoid can be useful as you take advantage of more support surface at the back, where you are more likely to pile up stuff, but at the same time you don't risk to bounce into protruding corners while moving around the room at the front of the table or if you bend down to scoop something up.

Let's dive into this cool woodcraft project.

Supplies

1x Birch wood panel of 190 x 80 cm with a thickness of 2.5 cm (glue laminated timber type)

2x Plywood beams of 9.5 x 7.5 cm with a length of 150 cm

2x Plywood beams of 9.5 x 7.5 cm with a length of 70cm

4x Plywood beams (legs of the table) 9.5 x 7.5 cm with a length of 77 cm

some fluted dowel pins

glue for wood (e.g. PVA glue)

some screws for wood

Step 1: 3D Design

The design was simply made with SketchUp.

The initial concept is in the first drawing; the second one was made to deconstruct the elements. Initially, the table was thought to have triangular removable sides, which would also save material, but eventually the top trapezoid-shape surface was cut from a single wood panel to make the structure stronger.

The table is very solid as there are two beams to support it lengthwise (150 cm long) and other two widthwise (70 cm long). The joint where the two different beams meet is where the table legs are anchored with fluted dowel pins and PVA glue.To make the connections clean only fluted dowel pins have been used to join together the pieces so that the user doesn't see any screw head.

The real table has been made slightly differently from how it is represented in the sketch, the change was applied during work. In the sketch the legs were supposed to be milled with a difficult recess into them, on the other hand in the reality the side supports beams where cut instead to avoid making this difficult recess.

Step 2: Cutting the Wood

For cutting the wood table in a trapezoid shape you can use a jigsaw and cut away the two triangles.

To cut the proper length of the beams you can do that with a miter saw.

To cut the lengthwise beans and widthwise beans that attach to the wooden legs you should use a band saw. There is no need to do any work on the table leg, those are simple pieces of wood beams 9.5 x 7.5 cm and 77cm long.

ATTENTION: cutting wood with the above mentioned tools is dangerous. If you are unsure on how to do it, I highly recommend you ask your local wood merchant to cut the wood for you when you buy it, they'll have the proper industrial machinery.

Step 3: Assemble

To recap:

You have the long supports 150cm long which should be worked with a band saw to attach to the legs.

You have the side supports 70cm long which should be worked with band saw to attach to the legs.

You have 4 legs which are simple beams 77 cm long.

There are 4 little wooden rectangles used to fix the board to the structure in order to make the top panel removable.

The rest of the structure, the side beans, the long beams and the legs are all fixed together using fluted dowel pins and glue. In this way the structure is very stiff and no screw head is visible.

Step 4: The Desk Is Complete!

Here we go, the trapezoid wooden table is complete. It looks very nice and tidy.

The birch wood used for the top panel was especially chosen for its light color but you can chose the wood you prefer.

Whatever wood you choose it is important that it is glue laminated timber type and I also suggest to apply some wood finishing at the end, just a light hand to make it very smooth and nice at the touch.

Any laser mouse will work perfectly on it!

Hope you enjoyed this project.

Pietro

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