Making a Train Table for my Grandson

Hello All,

Well, time to make a train table for my grandson's wooden train set. Here's the background to that-

My grandson loves his little wooden train set. He carries the little wooden trains everywhere and he really needs a spot to set up his train tracks and other things that go with it. So I planned to make a very simple train table out of a pre-made IKEA table top and some plumbing pipe for legs. This project was just going to take about an hour to complete.

Famous last words.

IKEA was out of the table top I needed so I headed over to a big box home store and purchased a pre-made pine panel. So the panel will need to have a finish applied to it and the project will probably go on for most of this week. But my grandson is the best little guy in the world and he deserves a place to play.

So here we go-photos from today's efforts:

Here is a photo of the panel wrapped in plastic. It was 30"x 60" originally and I cut it down to 50" long. That should be large enough for the train set to be set up in circles. I sanded the top and sides and smoothed everything down and sealed the wood with Minwax sanding sealer:

Here is the table top after I stained it. This is a Minwax stain in honey. I applied the stain and rubbed off the excess and it's drying right now. Later on this afternoon I'll flip the top over and stain the underside:

After the finish is completely done, I'll attach the pipe legs with screws and the project will be done. I'll post some photos of that in a couple of days.

In the meantime, I found a tree that had been felled and took a branch for some spoon carving later this fall. Can't wait!

Stay tuned,
VW