In the never ending task that is the re-vamp of my living room (see lots of previous posts for endlesss referencees to this Herculean endevour!) I’ve been making some small tables for such essential items as cups of tea, tea pots, mobile phones and a variety of remotes for the television I never get a chance to watch!
I thought I could get away with just one such table, but as always the project has become a self-propelled monster and I’m currently up to a total of three (and counting!).
So here’s the first one – it’s based on an AVSATS tray from IKEA, but which I found brand new in a charity shop for £1! It’s just the right shape and size for bringing a pot of tea, milk jug and two cups into the sitting room, and I thought it would be really nice to then put it down on to it’s own set of detachable legs to form an instant table.
Occasional Table Number 1
For ease I’ve put a few photos on my newly created Flickr steam which show the basic stages in construcion – it’s little more than a framework of metal legs (made from worn out drill bits – very long ones, the kind one uses to drill holes straight through the walls of buildings and out the other side), welded together and painted black. I made some feet from sections of copper tube filled with lead, and added four copper tube ’sockets’ onto the base of the tray into which the legs simply slot. Job done!!
It’s proved really useful already and well worth the £1 investment!
A reader of a previous blog post of mine (thanks Andy, of the excellent Workshop Shed site!) told me about the IKEA Hacker site and I think this new project maybe fits the bill of the kind of things they feature – I’ll write in to them and see what happens!?
Hi Clive, thanks for the nice comment. I just love the drill bit legs on that table. Were there any issues cutting and/or welding them?
Yo, thanks as always! Strangely they were really easy to weld together, I’m guessing as they are identical, made of the same metal etc? For the rectangular section I tried cutting them half way through with an angle grinder and bending them at 90 degress. Unfortunately they simply snapped clean off – I guess it’s hardened steel and hence not inclined to bend! I get them from the rubbish bins of a nearby shop that installs TV aeriels – they throw away a handful every few weeks or so…wonderful! C
[...] June 19, 2009 by clivebatkin So here’s Number 2 in the Occasional Table series! (see here for Part 1 and a general explanation). [...]