BUILDING A $20,000 CONFERENCE TABLE @North Idaho Tables

hey guys welcome to North Idaho tables this will be our first YouTube video let's start it off with a little Bang let me introduce myself my name is Casey and I started this business a couple years ago called North Idaho tables I specialize in high-end metal bases and I try to build some fancy tables so one thing I always thought that was missing in the table industry was most Builders would build with beautiful tops but their bases are always just simple or kind of lacking and the focus was the top my goal is to build a fancy base that you want to look at that complements a beautiful top so that way it's like a complete package I start out typically by drawing most of my designs when they pop in my head on a piece of paper and then I take them home to the computer and I draw them in a cheap 2D CAD program I then send them out to the local Steel company where they cut out all my parts on a laser table I built my bases the uprights out of quarter inch and then a cap everything box it all in with eighth inch flat strap this allows me to be able to weld big long welds without having to worry too much about any kind of distortion this weld was close to a minute and a half long from start to finish so just using that thicker material really does help downside to this though is they're just extremely heavy it's a common question I get all the time is how do you deliver them or how do you move them or you're going to stub your toe on them and honestly it's once you move them usually you don't have to move them again the beginning of this video started in my two-car garage but during that time we've been building this 30 by 40 shop it's uh pretty nice to finally have space I might do a video later on it if people are interested in kind of seeing some more details or the whole process of building that shop there's some other companies out there that build uh some beautiful bases like fully line they're super popular they do a great job one thing I feel like most of the do-it-yourselfers mess up on is their Metal Finishing I start out with grinder get everything really close and try to be smooth and consistent then I hit everything with the Vixen file so every weld seam every corner every joint is hand filed and what this does is it flattens out all of your grinder marks when you go to powder coat this powder coat you don't use any filler underneath so if it's not perfect it'll show in my opinion that's the biggest downfall of most do-it-yourselfers is their Metal Finishing and you can see it when it's painted I think most people don't grasp what it's going to look like once it's painted and then it's kind of it's too late at that point I did the math on this one it's close to 100 feet of Welding which is then 100 feet of grinding then 100 feet of hand filing this takes a lot of time and this is why my product is not cheap it's just the quality fit and finish when it's all said and done I laugh at this clip because you can see me struggling to get this base off my weld table and then shortly after I realized I had a forklift after getting all the metal finishing done I couldn't help but lift the top up and set it down on the base for the first time to get an idea how this table was actually going to look now I will say I wouldn't consider myself like a fancy woodworker I'm always learning I'm watching lots of YouTube videos like Sawyer design and Blacktail Studios they've got lots of great tips if you haven't checked those guys out you should now as far as the slab goes I go over to Portland or just south of Portland Nick here on the left with his dad over at Maverick Sawmill he's an absolutely great guy to deal with he's been wonderful tons of advice too this black walnut slab is around 700 pounds it's 14 feet long six feet wide one thing that I've learned from watching all these other guys is they say it's very important to have some c-channel in these big slabs so this one's got four different C channels going down the whole thing it's a lot of work it takes some time but it's it's totally worth it just helps the wood down the road so it doesn't try to cup when I first started out building tables I would just use lag bolts and quickly learned that wasn't the right way to do it here you can see me getting ready for these threaded inserts and just allows a machine screw to actually be used to hold any kind of product so I use these all over the tables our c-channel for the bases you can see all these holes um I kind of went overkill on this base but this table was so heavy I wanted to make sure it wasn't going anywhere I've got two boys a five and eight year old and my eight-year-old uh he's actually out in the shop all the time helping me he started his own little cutting board business Nick from Maverick Sawmills helped support him with some cutoffs on some of these big tables and he sells them here locally lots of family and friends have helped support his business and he looks forward to working for something and getting to buy something with his money it's pretty cool to see you spend enough time on YouTube you'll see that other builders will fill these cracks with epoxy that was an option but the customer actually liked the natural look on this slab so we left all the chainsaw marks and all the cracks on this table this end of the table is over six feet wide so we weren't worried about anybody like sitting down and having an issue trying to ride on the table installing I think it was 16 or 18 bow ties on the bottom of this table [Applause] like I said I don't claim to be a high-end woodworker I'm still learning but uh definitely try to be as precise as possible especially on bow ties like this I did these about three quarters of an inch thick I wanted them to go down in there pretty good the slab was close to three inches thick now when you watch most other people's videos they're using some pretty badass chisels but these are just some 30 dollar Stanley chisels they work good it's pretty important take your time though if you try to rush this and you end up pushing over on your on your line or getting too wide you're gonna see it and you're gonna have to make another bow tie a little bit bigger and do it all over again if you're wanting to learn how to do Bow Ties I suggest going over to Blacktail Studios Channel cam does a great job I explain how to do it where I learned how to do this and it was definitely nerve-wracking my first one cutting into a pretty expensive slab hoping I did a good job and they turned out good just take your time up one end of the table and the middle of the table stuck out about eight inches just looked wrong I asked the customer if you wanted to come over and help trim it he was pretty excited because he got to go buy a brand new Husqvarna saw just to do it this is by far the most challenging slab I've ever worked with just being so big you had to reach so far just to get to the middle so going through all the different grits water popping everything in between coats it was a lot of work took some time I get asked quite often how do I move and deal with these slabs and fortunately I bought a forklift about a month ago and it's been a huge Lifesaver I actually bought it just because of this slab I don't have enough friends to be able to come over and help me flip these things over when I need to uh try to offer beer and pizza but it just wasn't working out so forklift was when I first started building tables the one of the most intimidating things was applying the finish on the wood I just felt like I wasn't doing a good job and I didn't know what product to use I did a lot of research and eventually it came across Rubio Monaco after using Rubio I wouldn't go back to any other product that I've ever used in the past I think it's the best one out there super durable started out as a hardwood floor finish you end up just kind of spatuling it on spreading it out you buff it off and let her sit let her dry for a day then I use a Scotch Brite pad in between coats and just kind of make everything like an even Cloud on the Finish there and then I apply a second coat and that's it I'd say now I've probably built probably eight or so tables using Rubio and every single customer is happy with it they've got kids spill red Kool-Aid on it wipe it off no water marks it's a great product I wanted to show you guys this clip now a lot of people will just hand wipe this Rubio off or they've got like one of those nice gem buffers at some point I'd like to get one of those but this is just a cheap DeWalt buffer and I just cut out little Circles of a cheap microfiber I get from Napa and I just change them out here and there and it works great here's another little tip for you using any kind of compressed air you can help spread the Rubio down into the cracks well if you guys have made it this far in the video just want to say thank you for watching I'd love to hear what you guys think of this table how it turned out down in the comments and if you do feel like I earned it I'd sure appreciate it if you liked and subscribed to the channel I'll work on posting more builds here soon but uh in the meantime enjoy the final photos of this table

Channel: North Idaho Tables

Views: 155,452

Keywords: wood working, dining table, blackwalnut, river table, epoxy, metal fabrication, wood worker, conference table

Id: H_ZG9PWY7wo

Length: 9min 41sec (581 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 03 2022