This week we take the Squirrel Picnic table trend too far, then we meet @Matthew Cremona, a long time maker who prefers to start each project with a tree!
Hey guys! Welcome back to Maker Break, where we share our favorite maker videos of the week, and challenge ourselves to build a project of our own! I’m Rob, and this week I looked outside, saw a ton of squirrels eating food on the lawn and in the trees, like barbarians. So I decided to take it upon myself to build them a proper cafe. This, people, is the new normal.
So these squirrel picnic tables have been popular over the last few weeks, and seeing as the lockdown has left me with the options of talking to my family, or watching the squirrels, I thought it was time to jump on the band wagon.
My parents have been staying with us for the last couple of week. (I’ll explain why in the description) so my dad decided to help out.
I designed our little tables around only two different pieces. One 8inches, and then 4.5 inches for the mitered legs. We took a leftover treated cedar 2×4 and decided to cut it to length first, to make our table saw cuts shorter.
Now my Dad is a finish carpenter, and his level of precision is measured in 64ths, while mine is more of a “fits, or it don’t” So I let him square up the 2×4 first and then cut it down to ¾” strips.
I kept reminding him to use either the gripper or the push stick, but old dogs. So if you see him use his bare hands anywhere in this segment, don’t do that.
Next, we cut 11 in strips for the legs, ripped them down to ¾” as well, and then cut 30-degree miters at 4.5” length each.
Now I figured that a half-pound squirrel wouldn’t need any more than glue holding his table together, but my dad insisted we do better. So we used pocket holes on all the legs since they’d be supporting everything else.
You know, my dad has 45 years of carpentry experience. So while he has a different way of doing things, I’ve learned it’s best to just let him do it.
Then it was time to sand down the parts. We aggressively sanded the edges of the 8” pieces to give the wood a bit of a bevel.
Then we started assembly! We first glued together the tabletops, and then glued and screwed in the legs. Next, we attached the cross supports with glue and a couple of brad nails to hold them in place while they dried.
Finally, we added the seats, because squirrels have gonna sit down. Amirite? The last step was to add a mounting plate that we could easily screw into a tree.
My daughter donated a few dollhouse plates that we screwed in place, and then screwed the tables directly onto the trees. We baited them with peanut butter and waited.
We haven’t seen the squirrels use them yet, but the peanut butter keeps disappearing, so we know something is eating it. That’ll have to be good enough for now.
