Kettle BBQ Pallet Side Table

Last year I was treated to a nice shiny new Weber kettle for my birthday, eventually I plan to build a BBQ kitchen but in the short term I needed a table to use alongside the BBQ while cooking.

As I intend to build something a little more permanent later on I didn't want to spend much (any) money on this project if I could help it. Ideally I want to use anything I already have left over from other projects so I had a dig around in my garage and found the supplies I needed

• Small pile of pallet wood
• Half a small tin of varnish plus some spray can varnish
• Left over hinges
• Assorted screws (mainly 30mm)

Tools used:

• Mitre/chop saw
• Jigsaw
• Sander
• Trimmer router
• Butane Torch
• Drill/screwdriver
• Kreg pocket hold jig
• Tape measure
• Pencil and sharpie
• BBQ
• A couple of cans of cider to celebrate!

I had stripped down a few pallets a while ago for a couple of other projects and still had some bits leftover.

Picking through the pile I looked for the straightest bits I could find and got enough to make a table top which was 52cm deep (the Weber kettle I have is 57cm diameter), and also a few of the larger bearers to use for some fold down legs. I decided to make it as long as the pallet wood peices would allow me, I dont need loads of space but the more the merrier.

I know that pallet wood isn't the best choice for a food safe table top but I dont intend to use the table to prep food directly on, it will be a table to hold important things, like my cider!

There have been quite a few instructables on burning/sanding wood and I quite like the finish so I thought I would give it a go on this project.

Using a butane torch I lightly burnt the surface of all the pallet wood I intended to use, once it had cooled down I gave it a rough sand with some 240grit paper in my sander.

Using screws I fixed together the table top with a couple of cross braces on the underside.

Next I used my Weber lid as a template for the curved section of the table top, once marked I cut the excess off before sanding all the edges off.

I knew I was likely to be using some paint on varnish for the top nd didnt want it dribbling through the old screw holes in the pallet wood so I grabbed some filler from my garage shelf and got the holes filled in and sanded off. Again, im not after pretty so I dont mind that the filler colour doesn't really match the wood.

One end of the table is going to be resting on the handle of the Weber so I wanted to make sure it wasnt going to move around.

The first part of this step was to get a rough template, to do this I used a peice of cardboard and drew around the handle, then I carefully used a knife to cut it out before transfering the shape onto my project, I remembered how difficult it was to see the pencil marks earlier so I used a Sharpie this time!

I had planned to use my router to cut out a recess in the wood but it decided it was time for retirement and wouldnt power on at all! Instead I improvised and used a small router bit in my Makita Trimmer, after a few slow, shallow passes I had the depth I was going for.

As shown in the previous step, one end of the table is intended to locate on the handle of the Weber, the other end will be held up with some folding legs. This will allow me to pack the table away easily when it is not in use.

First I measured how high the handle was on the BBQ, in this case it was 82cm. I also knew that I had cut a 1cm recess for the handle int he previous step, so my legs needed to be 81cm.

Using the larger pieces of the pallet wood I created a simple leg frame which was fastened together using glue and pocket hole screws. This frame will then be attached to the table top with some large hinges.

The whole idea of this project was to make a table which cost as little as possible but I did want to make sure it was treated with some sort of topcoat.

I managed to find half a tin of clear varnish which I used for the table top, this gave me enough for 3 coats before it ran out. The legs were sprayed with an aerosol varnish I had left over, but there wasnt quite enough so I had to resign myself to the fact I would have to spend some money and went to buy another can of the spray varnish to finish the legs.

The tin of clear varnish is not for outdoor use, but I usually pack away the BBQ after use so the table will get folded up and put away somewher out of the elements anyway (plus this is a temporary solution till I build my bbq kitchen!).

Once the varnish was dry I joined the top and the legs together witha couple of hinges and voila I had a finished table. Of course I had to go and light the BBQ, grab a cider and test it out straight away.

Would I change anything?

Of course, there's loads I could have done differently, but the purpose was to build something quick and cheaply. It would be great to have a nice flat, food safe top surface, or some hooks to hang tools on maybe, possibly even a bottle opener but those are all features I'll save for the big BBQ kitchen build later this year (hopefully).