Bar Height Wine Barrel Tables

fritter63

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I'm waiting for the lacquer to cure on my latest guitar so it's time to catch up on the back log of "regular" woodworking projects.

I've been wanting to build some copies of this table (from wine barrel staves) that I found on the internet (retail price $600):

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The problem is that they are using some sort of metal hub to hold the staves in place. I didn't want to have something fabricated, so I spent the last year (or two!) thinking it over and finally came up with this solution: an 8 spoked wooden hub. Here's the prototype hub and mock up:

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The mockup: I made the angles 15 degrees for top and bottom, but the stance was a little too narrow, so I increased the bottom legs to 20 degrees.
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Final hubs:

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The building jig: Clamped to the side of my workbench "beams" with a block to keep it stable, then I pocket screwed it to the bottom of the hub. This gave me a way to keep the legs even and hold them in place while putting in the screws. At first I thought I'd need a cross dowel for good grip, then realized that at the angles, I was already getting good cross-grain for the screws.

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With different sized tops. The largest is 28" and it still worked well.

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Making the tops: Wine barrel tops are difficult, they're tounge and grooved and often warped, so not easy to pull them apart the glue them back together. I just make a plywood circle to attach all the pieces to so they stay together.

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Almost done:

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Making the skirt: Had to use 1" long self tapping metal screws, was a serious amount of springback on the barrel hoops after cutting and making them a smaller diameter. Painted black of course.

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And done. I think the "waiste" came out a little too tight. In retrospect, I think I'd make the hub wider (these were 8") and bring the tapers of the bottoms out further to match the one I found on the web. Then change the angles to 25 degrees maybe.

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Neat idea! And clever re-use of materials, which I always like to see.

Be careful tho - if WonderWino finds out where you live they might disappear!!! Brings a whole new meaning to 'wine thief*'.

[eek] [scared]

(*Inside joke for the oenophiles among us)

 
Love the tables!  And also the Adirondack chairs you make.  What's your source for wine barrels?
 
Jim Kirkpatrick said:
Love the tables!  And also the Adirondack chairs you make.  What's your source for wine barrels?

Craigslist. Found a local guy (turned out to the be contractor who put our roof trusses on the house) who had bought a TON of them from a local winery that went under during the 2008 financial crisis (unfortunately, it was an uber cool place with a tuscan style bed and breakfast built in - was purchased by someone in China who only exports the wine to China now).

Anyway, I bought 12 of them for about $30/ea. 30 stave/barrel on average, so it took only 1 barrel (plus a couple extra tops) to make these tables.

The trick is to wait for harvest season when they have to replace all the old barrels, and make friends with the manager.
 
This was a seriously interesting project, well done ! The waist brace sections are a real minder bender to study...
 
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