Reclaimed Barn Wood Trestle Table

I used reclaimed barn planks from a 100-year-old Michigan barn to make this table. As you can see from the photos, the barn was completely dilapidated and falling down. The owner was a relative of my nephew and I got permission to salvage any wood I wanted, before it was bulldozed, burned, and buried.

A lot of the wood was weathered and rotten, especially the siding. However, the thicker floor joists and roof framing was in pretty good shape. This was the wood I concentrated on saving. It turns out most of the floor joists were maple and most of the roof rafters were red oak. This was the wood I would use for the dining room table.

• Barnwood
• Various size wood screws (#8 - 1 5/8" to 4")
• DAP Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue
• #10 Biscuits
• Various size lag bolts
• 3/4" thick x 4 ft x 8 ft plywood
• Elmer's Wood Filler
• J-B Weld ClearWeld Quick-Setting Epoxy

I have built a lot of dining room tables from barn joists, and I have run into a couple of problems. First, the weight of a 2-inch-thick planked table is a problem. Gluing up planks to make a 42” wide x 96” long tabletop results in a very heavy tabletop. Second, it is hard to keep everything perfectly flat and prevent wrappage of these old timbers. Third, using straight brackets for a classic “X-Style” look on the pedestals or trestles, is not very distinctive and boring. Using more decorative and esthetically pleasing brackets adds some character and beauty to the table.

In this Instructable, I will try a different technique to produce a lighter tabletop that will resist wrappage. I will also construct table trestles that are more decorative and distinctive.

First, all nails had to be found and removed from the joists. This can be very time-consuming but must be done before the planks can be run through the planer. I used various nail pullers and locking pliers to grab the nails or remnant of nails using any leverage I could gain to remove them. See photos of the various nail pullers I used.

Once the planks were de-nailed, I planed the planks to a uniform thickness. The wood was very hard and had to be planed slowly with minimal thickness removed with each pass through the planer. It is important to have very sharp blades on your planer to dress these planks. The resulting thickness of the planks were between 1 7/8” and 2”.

Next, a straight edge had to be placed on both sides of the planks. I did not have a large joiner for this step, so I had to improvise. I would temporarily screw a firm metal straight edge to one side of the plank. I then ran the plank through my table saw with the metal straight end being held firmly against the saw fence. This gave me a straight edge on the opposite side of the plank. I would then remove the metal straight edge, flip the plank so the newly cut edge was up against the saw fence, and cut the opposite edge. The fence was adjusted to maintain the maximum width of the plank on all my cuts.

The trestles are made up of several components. The height (or thickness) of each component must be considered to end up with a trestle height of approximately 28 ½” to 29”. With the tabletop having a thickness of approximately 2”, this would give me an overall table height of 31”, which is quite comfortable for sitting at a dining room table.

Here are the calculations:

·       Top horizontal base - 3 ¾”

·       Top transition board - ¾”

·       Vertical post - 19”

·       Bottom transition board - ¾”

·       Bottom horizontal base - 3 ¾”

·       Bottom feet - ¾”

Total height of trestle = 28 ¾”

The main trestle post and the horizontal base components require a double thickness of the planks (almost 4 inches). Powdered epoxy resin glue was used to adhere the planks to each other. Multiple clamps are used to hold the planks in place until the glue sets up. You can never have too many clamps for this step.

Once the glue dries, the clamps are removed, and the glued-up boards are cleaned up again by running them through the planer. They are now ready to be used for the trestles.

The resulting weight bearing vertical post is approximately 3 ¾” x 3 ¾” wide. Per the total height calculations, the vertical post should be cut to 19” height.

To begin building the trestles, the vertical post is glued and screwed to the top and bottom ¾” thick transition boards. These transition boards aid in securing the brackets and as a platform to attach the top and bottom thicker horizontal bases. The transition boards are 3 ¾” wide to match the posts width and must be at a right angle to the vertical posts. See photo.

Next, the decorative braces or brackets had to be cut out. I made ¼” thick plywood templates for each style of bracket. I needed four of each bracket style. The patterns were traced on shorter planks that were not long enough to be used in the final tabletop. These planks were first cut to size so the edges that had to be glued to the vertical post and transition boards would be at right angles. I then finished cutting out the curved part of the brackets on my band saw. The brackets were sanded, and the edges were softened with a roundover router bit on my router table.

Brackets were then glued and clamped on opposite sides of each trestle assembly. The scrap pieces from each bracket were used to help hold the brackets secure while the glue dried. Once the clamps were removed, the brackets were reinforced with wood screws. This would ensure their bracing function.

Next, the 3 ¾” thick top and bottom horizontal bases were secured and glued in place to the transition boards. Please note that, before this was done, a slot had to be routed on the inside of the horizontal bases to accept the upper and lower 2" x 4" "stretcher" that spans the two trestles. Also note that all base pieces had a rounded edge cut on their ends to give a more decorative look. Again, it was important to maintain parallelism between the top and bottom horizontal bases and their right angle to the vertical post.

Lastly, the ¾” thick small feet are added to the bottom horizontal base of the trestle. These are also glued and screwed in place. The outside edge is also slightly rounded to soften the look.

The trestles could now be set aside while I concentrated on making the tabletop.

One of my main goals was to reduce the weight of the tabletop but still have the appearance of a 2” thick farmhouse tabletop. To accomplish this, I had to saw the 2” thick planks in half to a thickness slightly less than 1” thick. These would make up all the inside planks of the tabletop. Only the two outside planks and the two edge breadboards would be 2” thick. This would give the appearance of a 2” thick tabletop but hopefully weighing a lot less. Flat ¾’ plywood would be used as a sub-base to help prevent wrappage of these thinner planks.

To start gluing up the tabletop, each plank being used had to have 7 to 8 biscuit holes placed on each edge. I used #10 thick biscuits. I have a 6 ft. x 3 ft. wide workbench that will aid in gluing up the top. The plywood sub-bases were laid out on my bench before I started gluing up the 1” thick planks. I did not glue up all planks at once, but clamped and glued each individual plank as I went. This gave me much more control and allowed me to ensure each biscuit had been seated probably as I clamped the planks. It also allowed me to clamp long pieces of angle-iron across the glued planks to maintain their flatness and make sure they adhered to the plywood beneath as the glue dried.  

After all the 1” thick planks were glued and screwed into the plywood sub-base, the 2” thick outside planks were added. The inside edge of these outside planks had to be notched on their bottom edge so the top of the outside planks would be flush with the 1” planks. These outside planks were then glued and clamped in place. Once the glue was dry, the tabletop was flipped over so this overlap between the thick outside planks and the thinner inside planks could be screwed in place to reinforce these joints.

The 2” thick breadboard ends were added for esthetics and as an additional insurance against wrappage of the tabletop. First, the ends of the glued-up tabletop had to be squared. A large T-Square was used to mark the cut lines for the ends. A metal straight edge was clamped parallel to each cut line and a circular saw was used to cut and square the ends of the tabletop.

Next, I used a thick profile surface routing bit to cut a ½” slot at a depth of ½” to the ends of the tabletop. This slot was centered on the edge between the top and bottom. The same bit was used to cut a corresponding slot in each breadboard. A ½” x 1” wide oak spline was cut to fit in this slot. Each breadboard was then glued to the ends of the tabletop, with the spline in the slots, and clamped in place. Again, steel angle iron was clamped in place to keep the breadboards flush with the tabletop.

Once the glue had dried, the clamps were removed, and the breadboard ends were cut flush with the outside edges of the tabletop. Now the tabletop is complete.

The two trestles had to be attached to the tabletop. I will use lag bolts and screws to attach the trestles and crossmembers, but no glue. This way the table can be quickly disassembled for ease in moving the table.

To begin, the finished tabletop was flipped over so the underside (plywood side) was up. Something I didn’t anticipate was that the thick outside planks had to be flattened a little bit in the areas where the trestles would attach. The surface router bit was used again in my portable router to smooth the bottom of the planks flush with the plywood.

Next, the trestles were turned upside down with the upper horizontal bases resting on the tabletop. They were positioned in place 12 inches from the ends of the tabletop. They were centered between the long sides of the tabletop. Lag bolts were used to secure them to the tabletop. These lag bolts were 5/16” diameter x 4 ½” inches long. They were countersunk so the bolt heads would not show. Please note that before the lag bolts were fully tightened, the upper and lower horizontal stretchers were positioned in place, engaging the midline slots cut in the horizontal bases.

Once the top and bottom stretchers were positioned in place, the lag bolts through the upper horizontal bases were fully tightened securing the trestles to the tabletop. The stretchers were also secured with lag bolts using a modified pocket-hole technique and the top stretcher was bolted directly to the underside of the tabletop. See the photos. The lag bolts will not show when the table is flipped back over.

Finally, the angled crossmembers were measured, cut to length, and screwed in place. These crossmembers were cut at a 45-degree angle. Glue was used on these crossmembers because the whole stabilizing structure (stretchers and crossmembers) can be attached and removed as one unit.

After transport the reassembly sequence would be as follows: One trestle is attached and bolted secure and then the middle stabilizing structure is slid into the slots of the secured trestle. Then the second trestle is slid over the other end of the stabilizing structure and then bolted securely in place. Finally, the stretchers are bolted to each trestle.

The completed table was turned right-side up and placed on small furniture dollies so I could easily move it in and out of the garage.

I did not leave the tabletop completely natural. Since it was going to be a dining room table, with food being served on it, I filled a lot of the imperfections (nail holes, knots, larva holes). All other wood on the trestles and crossmembers was left natural. I used epoxy to fill the nail holes which preserved the look of the nail holes. I used wood filler and wood glue mixed with sawdust to fill the other imperfections.

The tabletop was rough sanded with a belt sander using an 80-grit belt. Finally, the tabletop was smoothed with fine sandpaper using an electric palm sander.

Now the dining room table construction was complete. The friends I made the table for were going to stain and finish the table themselves to match the décor and color scheme of their dining room.