June 26, 2015

Folding Wine Table for Picnics

If you would like to own this table, you can place a bid here. 100% of your winning bid goes to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
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Some of the materials I used in this project:

This folding wine table is fun project and would also make a great gift idea. I had never seen these until a viewer on Facebook asked me to make one. I examined a few version on Pinterest and was able to deconstruct it and make plans. It’s really easy to make!

I began by gluing up three boards to create the top. Unfortunately, I had a weird brain math glitch that told me three 3.5″ boards would equal 12″ wide and I didn’t catch my error until these were completely glued up and sanded smooth. It was also unfortunate that I didn’t have enough of the cherry wood to add a fourth board. Sigh.

My solution was to slice the panel up and add a couple of walnut filler strips. These actually gave it a nice decorative touch and made it look like I planned this all along!

The leg is made by first cutting two boards the same size. In one of them, I routed out a groove to hold the 1/4″ (6mm) steel rod.

I cut the rod to size using a hacksaw and glued it into the groove with epoxy.

I glued the two boards together with wood glue.

Using the cutting diagram in my plans, I transferred the measurements to the assembled block and cut them out on my bandsaw.

This hole is for the dowel hinge. Cutting an arc will allow the table top to swing.

Rounding over all the edges with my router gives it a softer appearance.

These two little blocks will hold the ends of the dowel hinge.

Back to the table top. After cutting it to a square, I attached my cutting template using spray adhesive.

And cut out the holes with a 3.25″ (8cm) hole saw and cut out notches for the wine glass stems.

For the handle, I cut two smaller holes and cut out the rectangular space between them using my jigsaw.

Finally, I cut out the circle shape.

Like the leg, I rounded over all the edges of the top.

Gluing the hinge blocks in place is the only tricky part of this project. I ran a dowel through them and the leg and made pencil marks on the underside of the table where I wanted them positioned. Then I removed the leg and glued them in place. Keep them connected to a dowel so they stay aligned.