Decorative wood patterned coffee table

All the trim pieces are cut, planed and doweled. Very careful marking ensures correct alignment.

So that’s the outside edge and leg braces glued up.

Still to do:

  • Inside edge will be tricky to fit.
  • Legs need a taper cut
  • Trim needs a rounded edge (router)
  • There’s the whole lower shelf to think about but that can actually be a later project.
  • Then it’ll just be a case of sanding down and putting a finish on
  • Finally, buying a piece of glass/polycarbonate for the centre.
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This is such an awesome project and I love that you’re documenting it so well. Nice work :thumbsup:

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Legs legs legs!

Challenge 1: Put a radius on the back corner.
Solution: Jig to let a quarter round router bit just drop down far enough. The leg needs turning and the other side done, because the total arc is greater than 90° Lots of trial and error and minute adjustment of router plunge depth. Each leg different. Totally butchered one and had to smooth it out with a chisel. You won’t be able to tell in the finished thing :smiley:

This notch is where the leg will be attached to the braces on the underside. Note to self: 20mm socket nut and 40mm bolt (Ikea standard hex head)

I am not going to document the lake of pain that I had to wade through to put a taper on, but I finally managed to get one through the process tonight.

TO DO: 5 more of those tapered legs, 6 corner brackets, socket nuts, bolts, 50cm polycarbonate square cut to hexagon, rout out rebate for same, sand, finish. Lower shelf secondary project.

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Legs complete. Leg joints complete. Jig for polycarbonate cutting complete.

Not long now!

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Really nice work, @tomnewsom – you said when I was last in that this was your first proper woodworking project. If that is the case, then you can really be proud of yourself! :smiley:

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Thank you :slight_smile:
It’s actually full of mistakes and imperfections, but I’m the only one who’ll really notice them!

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I’d call that done

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Nicely done

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What you reckon is the hour count? Or is that something you’re trying not to think about =]

Somewhere North of 50 hours I think

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#BOOM!

Nicely done. Great seeing the finished product. Assume it’s not staying in the chill out area?!

Nah it’s in my house already :slight_smile:
Kids haven’t destroyed it yet!

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That’s beautiful, Tom. Great to see the progress, too. Nice one! :thumbsup:

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Lessons learned:

  • Screwing up the consistency of the slices was the #1 mistake to make. The upside-down epoxy method cost me weeks of build time, and the surface is still very uneven as a result of the aggressive sanding needed to get rid of the leak-through. Sawing off the sacrificial mold was yet another extra step, the non-square results of which contributed to:
  • Fixing the trim pieces on afterwards added to the unevenness of the surface. Clamping while maintaining a completely level join was very hard.
  • The corners are not great. One in particular has a ~4mm mismatch between the triangle pattern and the trim.

If I was making this again, I would:

  • Use the sturdiest, most rigid end-stop possible on the chop saw to ensure even thickness slices.
  • Make each side of the hexagon as a complete unified piece - pattern and trim together - all glued at once on a flat reference surface/jig.
  • Then the six pieces could be doweled together and glued down to a single thin piece , ensuring a perfect corner.

Also, the interesting cross-section of the legs is not particularly noticeable in the finished product. I could have got away with square or round section and saved myself a heap of trouble. But I enjoyed the challenges and I notice the shape :slight_smile:

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The end result is great. It looks much more elegant that the cad design suggested… and I think it’s better without a shelf.
Thanks for documenting it so that we all may learn a thing or two.

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Oh dear.

Luckily the walnut and oak are only scraped, I kept a spare piece of ipe, and I have a whole load of similarly-grained ash. Anyway, the legs are bashed about a bit and the top’s been through some young children abuse. Time for a refurb!

I am not taking questions regarding the saw damage at this time.

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Wooooopzzz!! :man_facepalming:

Is that the first cut or the second cut you are not taking questions on?

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How to Repair Your Beloved Coffee Table After You Accidentally Saw into it Twice in Eleven Easy Steps

Step 1: Roughly cut out the border piece with a jigsaw.


Yikes the depth of those cuts. What a plonker I was.

Step 2: Neaten up the edges with a chisel. Lovely sharp chisels btw. Thank you very much to the sharpening fairies!

Step 3: Hack a lump out of your 2" Ash board because nobody’s there to unlock the circular saw.

Step 4: Plane square by hand because nobody’s there to unlock the planer/thicknesser.

Step 5: Creep up on the correct angle for the ends with the chop saw and teeny tiny slivers with a chisel to get a perfect fit

Step 6: Use the same process for patching the damaged ipe, but much smaller, and with much cursing ipe’s tendency to splinter. You have to take off tiny amounts with the chisel with each stroke, or it’ll lever out big chunks of wood. Didn’t get a picture of the actual patch piece but I had to wreck one before getting my chisel technique fine enough with the second. Got a very close fit in the end.

Step 7: Thank your local woodtech for supervision of the Festool biscuit joiner to get the edge piece reinforced. Glue (used the yellow PU stuff as my joint thickess was essentially zero). Clamp.

Step 8a: Borrow a belt sander to take ~0.5mm off the whole thing to a)take away the saw damage on the wenge, oak and walnut pieces and b) thoroughly erase all stains and child graffitti.

Step 8b: Crash the belt sander, tearing the belt and digging 1mm gouges into the surface (see the light coming through under the square).



Step 8c: Go to Screwfix for replacement belts. Sand another 1mm off the whole thing.

Step 9: Put a bevel on all the edges to replace the previous rounded edge. It looks tidy, and also there’s only a 1/4" roundover router bit in the box and that’s too big.

Step 10: Run your hand back and forth over the site of the original damage in amazement.


Step 11: Two coats of Osmo. Buff smooth.

I also took the opportunity to reduce the width of the rebate that holds the centre panel, which I think I will get cut in glass now the kids are old enough not to stand on it, throw it, build den windows with it etc.

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Hi Tom,

We are starting to look at our content inclusion for the Dulwich festival Maker fair we have a “Don’t be Shy! submit your Make” event happening on Friday. Would this be of any interest to you maybe and/or do you know anyone else I can reach out too?

Cheers
Dorine