"Trudeau" sawhorse-style midcentury modern side table

thingiverse

The Trudeau Table is designed to sit between two chairs, its compact size making it an ideal addition to any room. To build one, you'll need approximately half a sheet of 3/4-inch plywood and two larger pieces of wood for the top, or substitute with plywood or another material of your choice. Cutting the joints requires precision, with a clearance of 0.02 inches on all sides. This results in snug fits that can be easily assembled by hand. Once assembled, the joints should be sanded flush and glued into place, while the legs are attached using finishing nails and glue. The design doesn't include a cutting profile for the top, leaving room for creativity; I used reclaimed 2x12-inch Douglas fir for mine, but you can choose any wood that holds sentimental value. The top is secured with long wood screws. Two toolpaths are included in the VCarve file: one creates circles at 0.1 inches deep to mark screw locations, and the other makes the profile cuts for the pieces. The weight of the plywood held everything in place during the screw-locating circle cutouts. I used a 1/4-inch upcut end mill (Onsrud 65-025) for this project, which worked well despite slight fuzziness on the top edges, easily remedied with sandpaper. Since the table will be outdoors, I applied Watco Teak Oil to provide a water-resistant finish. Although the plywood isn't exterior-grade, I'm not too concerned, given its past history of being used as a cardboard laser printer box with a blanket on it! An update in a year or two will note how everything performs in practice. The included files are organized logically: 1. For VCarve users, there's a .crv file containing the whole project layout; please adjust the cut depth according to your material, as my 3/4-inch plywood was actually 0.78 inches. 2. For users of other CAM programs, dwg and dxf files are included with cutting vectors, but hold-downs need to be worked out separately. 3. To alter the design, a Rhino file is provided, featuring a 3D model of the table along with cutting paths. Additionally, conversions to 3D modeling files allow for scale models or remixing this design for other uses (note: the tabletop isn't attached in the model).