I finally finished my coffee table today. I started building it over 5 years ago...and stole the concept from an Ikea coffee table. It took me so long, because once I built the panels and the tops I didn't want to continue because I was afraid I would mess it up.
Well, the past 6 months I've finally worked up the courage to finish it...and get it out of my shop!
It's made of red oak boards, and has either beech or birch plywood inlay...honestly I can't remember which at this point. I bought all the wood at Lowes.
The top and bottom shelf are red oak boards biscuit jointed together. The panels I used a dado to make a notch for the ply to slide into. The wood was all stained with Minwax oil based stain, and finished with Minwax oil based polyurethane. The table top has 5ish coats of poly, the inside of the box has 2 and the rest has 3.
Overall it turned out pretty well, I learned alot while making it. The hardest part was getting the holes for the alignment pins aligned properly. The leaf does not fit as well as I'd like, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Ok, here are the pictures:
Here is one of the plans I make in google sketchup, almost a year ago to the day...funny....
Table closed, no leaf inserted:
Table open, no leaf inserted:
Looking inside the storage box:
Table with leaf inserted:
Leaf storage brackets (I made a post asking for suggestions not too long ago):
Well, the past 6 months I've finally worked up the courage to finish it...and get it out of my shop!
It's made of red oak boards, and has either beech or birch plywood inlay...honestly I can't remember which at this point. I bought all the wood at Lowes.
The top and bottom shelf are red oak boards biscuit jointed together. The panels I used a dado to make a notch for the ply to slide into. The wood was all stained with Minwax oil based stain, and finished with Minwax oil based polyurethane. The table top has 5ish coats of poly, the inside of the box has 2 and the rest has 3.
Overall it turned out pretty well, I learned alot while making it. The hardest part was getting the holes for the alignment pins aligned properly. The leaf does not fit as well as I'd like, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Ok, here are the pictures:
Here is one of the plans I make in google sketchup, almost a year ago to the day...funny....
Table closed, no leaf inserted:
Table open, no leaf inserted:
Looking inside the storage box:
Table with leaf inserted:
Leaf storage brackets (I made a post asking for suggestions not too long ago):