Epoxy Coffee Table with Walnut Slabs and LEDs

- Hey I'm Caleb with YouCanMakeThisToo and in this video I'm gonna make this coffee table with LEDs underneath. This table is for a viewer that reached out to commission it after seeing my epoxy charcuterie boards video. To help keep costs down, I try to come up with a design from things I had in the shop. With some Photoshop magic I was able to come up with a few concepts and one really struck him. Now it's time to start cutting. Using the Photoshop mock-up as a guide, I lay out my cuts and start breaking down the slabs into the three main pieces of the table. The large slab had a split that made for a pretty obvious place to finish splitting it. Instead of using a planer sled, I thought I'd try a different technique for getting the faces flat and parallel. Even though these slabs are bigger than my jointer. It's pretty straightforward. They just get face jointed until there is a reasonably flat spot. The long slab was just barely wider than my jointer and only had a sliver that was left unjointed. So I was able to finish it off with a hand plane. The wider slab though needed a different approach. I was able to get a large reference area flat on it. So with the aid of some hot glue, I attached it to a flat board and then started sending that through the planer. This is basically still a planer sled. But by getting a flat spot at the joiner first that was big enough to safely support this slab, I don't have to mess with trying to shim a slab that's all wonky. Which is always kind of a pain to me. Once I get the top flat, I go ahead and pop off the slab. I thought a putty knife was gonna work but when it didn't I switched to a trick my metalworking buddy Richard taught me. Which is just hit it with a hammer. And you know what? That worked. Then I flipped it over and sent it through the planer until the side I partially jointed earlier came out flat and parallel to the top. And off camera I planed the other slabs down as well until all three were the same thickness. Then I could go get materials for the form. Where are we going? - To Home Depot. - [Caleb] Where do you wanna go? - To Home Depot. - [Caleb] Are you excited? - Yeah. - [Caleb] So my Home Depot doesn't carry 3/4 inch melamine and here's my options. So normally I like to buy the full size sheets 'cause it's a lot cheaper and cut it down. But since it's all wet, MDF probably wouldn't do so hot back there. So it kinda worked out. While I was in Home Depot evaluating my choices, I did some phone research and discovered these marker boards are actually melamine. Which epoxy doesn't stick to and bonus it doesn't have all the bumps of the particle board melamine you normally see. But it's really flimsy. So I just used some Starbond CA glue to attach it to a sheet of MDF and then trim the edges. It wouldn't fit to do the short sides on my table saw. So I lay down some blue tape to minimize tear-out and then use a flushed trim bit in my router to flush up the ends of the bottom of the form. Now to lay out for the final trimming and get these pieces so they'll fit in the form. Fortunately it's as easy as just laying them on the form and marking out the lines. I couldn't find the straight edge I normally use to guide my circular saw. So I just went ahead and used my track saw to make all these cuts right on the lines. It's the same results. I just think this went a little faster than using the straight edge and circ saw. And there we go. Now those pieces fit in their spot better than pretty much every car at my local Walmart parking lot. I just need to cut down some strips to wrap around the edges of the form to form the walls of the form. It's a lot of forms. Because I'm smart sometimes, I figured it would be a good idea to make sure epoxy doesn't stick to the marker board. Well the CA glue stuck and the epoxy isn't popping off. So I set to taping the form. Fortunately I have plenty of Tuck Tape left from when I did the epoxy boards. Speaking of quite a few people have asked me about using other tapes besides Tuck Tape. If you have experience with that or would be interested in me doing a video on what epoxy will and won't stick to let me know in the comments below. Now that I need to buy some more tape to tuck with, I can start attaching the sides to the bottom. There's not going to be much pressure on these and like me they're pretty short. So I just attach them with plenty of brad nails. If you think this will leak and ooze like you forgot to shake it before zipping it up, well you're right. But some silicone is going to fix that. First I just need to make a little tool to smooth the silicone. A dowel chucked up in my drill with some sandpaper makes quick work of that. But before I start siliconing, as some extra insurance, I pull out my shop sock. You can identify it from the old wax buildup on the toe and I liberally lac wax the whole form. Now I can start laying down some silicone to seal all the corners. It's been awhile since I used caulk and I was really pleased to see my technique was still pretty good. Check out how consistent that bead is. Also I went for almond instead of white caulk. I thought that'd be easier to see against the Tuck Tape and it seems to be. Once I went all the way around, I used the shaping tool I just made to smooth out the caulk. It's important here to use a shop sock to keep the tip clean. Silicone is pretty sticky and I don't want that getting everywhere. I didn't get started without you. Okay good news and bad news. Good news you're right I did. Bad news you're right I did and it's not Netflix so we can't rewind. But I'll bring you in close so you can enjoy how satisfying this is. Then I decided to check the epoxy again and realized that before I just made the boneheaded mistake of not letting it fully cure. This stuff does actually pop off the whiteboard. So all that tape was unnecessary. Anyway it's time to load the form except my boards won't fit tightly into the corners now that they're siliconed. But just a few swipes with the hand plane is gonna add enough of a chamfer to mostly take care of that. But before I start mixing epoxy, I need to know how much to mix. I came up with a clever way to figure that out from a photo. And I released a video that has that technique and three other techniques for estimating volume. So hit the card above if you wanna check that out. As you probably know wood floats and epoxy's actually denser than water. So it really has a tendency to float so I got it clamped down. I like to take my excess epoxy and pour it into these little silicone molds I have to make these pucks which are really handy for that. And I also elevated my mold off my workbench a little bit to give myself room to clamps. Now I just need to level it off and we'll be ready to pour. And it's time to mix up a bunch of epoxy. I start with four liters and end up having to mix a little more. I'm using TotalBoat Thickset which is perfect because this pours almost an inch thick and this stuff is the best at half inch to one inch thick pours. And yes as you can see. I did hear you and I did put my respirator on while working with this stuff. Once it was fairly mixed up, I added some black diamond deep blue sea pigment and a little bit of battleship gray pigment and then kept on mixing. And mixing. And mixing. You don't want to under-mix epoxy. Seriously it's bad. And now for the part that doesn't need anymore words. A few days later it's safe to de-mold this thing. The question is if I can do it safely. Here's hoping the tape and wax didn't let me down. After cutting the tape off the corners, I can get to trying to pry off the sides. Fortunately it goes great. The sides are a little taller than the tabletop. So I can tap them in a down and away kinda direction with the hammer and then they pealed right off. From the charcuterie boards, I knew that breaking the seal between the bottom of the form and the bottom of the table was gonna be the really hard part. Once I realized that my delicate lady fingers weren't strong enough, I tried some really stupid shenanigans. Then thankfully I realized that a putty knife would probably be a smart way to go. And it was embarrassing how easy that worked. Oh man this is gonna look good. This right here was an exciting moment. Seeing the top for the first time. I knew sanding this was gonna be a chore though. So I asked a friend of mine if he'd let me borrow his new Mirka setup to see if it lives up to the hype and can make this go easier. And for some dumb reason he let me borrow it. The big thing I'm supposed to see is great dust collection and super long life on the abrasives. And a big part of that is these net discs that let the dust through a lot better than regular paper because well it's a net. It works great on the small spots on the bottom but I knew the real test was gonna be the hours I'm gonna spend sanding on the top. One thing I really liked is it's quiet and comfortable enough that I was able to go full lazy mode. Which I enjoy doing and catch up on some YouTube videos while I sanded. And almost unbelievably I was able to sand all of the seepage of epoxy off the top with a single 40 grit net. The only thing that would have made this go better would be if I'd used some penetrating epoxy on the bark before doing the pour. Because the bark is a lot softer than all the surrounding material. So I had to be really careful not to sand divots into the bark while trying to sand the surrounding areas. Of course there was some air trapped in the pour that created little cavities when I sanded them open. But they were easy to fix with a little Starbond CA glue and some activator and a little bit more sanding. There was some seepage on the sides of the table. So I trimmed that off the long sides with the table saw and for the short sides the track saw made quick work of it. If this thing didn't work so good and much faster than my circular saw, I might actually be motivated to try to find the straight edge for my circular saw. Probably not gonna happen though. One detail I really like is the chamfer on the underside of a table. It helps widen the feel of a tabletop. To do this I just use my trim router with a chamfer bit to do this in two passes. And fortunately epoxy responds to the router really nicely. So don't ever be afraid of that. Another must on epoxy and hardwood is to break the sharp edges. They're sharp sharp. I normally use a plane or sandpaper by hand but I thought this would be a good test for the Mirka. So I slowed it all the way down and gave it a try and it impressed me with the amount of control I had and the dust collection again. And since I'll be using a water-based finish on this, I made sure to pop the grain with water to make it fuzz up and sanded it smooth again off camera. As with any open grain wood like this walnut, it's important to remember before finishing not just to wipe off any dust but also use air to blow any dust out of the grain pores that might have settled. But before I add any finish, I'm gonna try out this little Ortur. I don't know how to say it. Compact laser that Gearbest, which I do know how to say, sent me to try out and do a little engraving on the underside of the table for the client. For less than 200 bucks this is a great way to personalize the pieces and I really like that I can just set it pretty much on anything that I wanna engrave. They didn't pay me. They just sent it to me to try out but so far I'm really enjoying it. To finish this I'm going a little off script. I wanna add some warmth to the table but don't wanna muddy the blue with an amber finish on top. So I took some TotalBoat Halcyon and diluted it about 60/40 with water. Which is a lot more than they recommend and liberally applied it to the wood. I took care not to get too much on the epoxy and after giving it just a little time to set in I wipe off the excess. Halcyon is not a wipe on wipe off finish. Water-based polys just aren't but by diluting it more I was able to get the color to penetrate into the wood but it's not gonna penetrate in the epoxy. And then by wiping it off I'm not going to leave any amber haze on the epoxy but I'm getting the warmth and the walnut that I want. I do that twice before giving it an hour to dry. And then I coat everything with TotalBoat Clear Halcyon. This will build up the protective film over anything and get the shine back on the epoxy but without changing any of the color tones. Of course I need something to put this tabletop on. So it's time to work on the base. The base is an open cube. Just 12 pieces. Four pieces that are three different dimensions. I make these by measuring and cutting one piece and then using that piece to mark and cut the rest. I broke my hacksaw blade the other day though and didn't have a spare. So I figured I'd use my portable band saw. Of course the angle grinder would have also worked. And this actually gives me pretty consistent results as you can see. But some of them still weren't quite as consistent as I wanted. So I used the cutting grinding disc that Millner-Haufen sent me to even them up. Then I used the same disc to grind the bevels into pieces to have room for the weld filler to go. The awesome thing about these discs is if you ever wear it out or break one somehow they'll send you another for free. I don't weld enough to have any luck getting things even close to square on my own. So I invested a little in this Minion Fireball Square set to help me. This is my first time trying them. My dog wasn't any help in getting them clamped up but once I did have them clamped up they definitely worked as advertised and prevented the pieces from coming out of position as the weld cooled off. I don't know enough about welding yet to share much but I can get some cool video of it. So here's that. And if you're having problems rolling things square too, consider giving these a try. They definitely helped me. The first thing I welded up was the two rectangles that'll be the ends. Before I get farther, I grind down my welds using the Millner-Haufen disc to hock off most of the material and then a flat disc to blend it. Then I switch to a quick strip disc and set to removing the scale. This is the metalwork equivalent of sanding except there's not any cool tool yet that makes it quiet and dustless. But now I'm set to clamp the long stretchers to the end rectangles and get this base to come together. I use the Minion Squares to get the first two long stretchers on both rectangles. But for the last two pieces I just use some magnets to hold them in place and a square to make sure they're aligned before welding them. At this point there isn't much room for these to move around so this is plenty adequate. To attach the top to the base, I ordered some pre-made tabs from Amazon. My many magnets did a great job of holding them in place and I just zapped them on. And of course ground down my nasty welds. Now to finish the base I use some appliance epoxy paint after wiping the whole base down with denatured alcohol again. This stuff has worked really well for me and goes on fast and really is scratch resistant for the price. The last finishing touch on the base is to tap some plugs that'll act as feet into the bottom corners. And now for the two to be joined into one. I'm going to use those tabs on the bases to locate the positions for the underside of the table. A punch helps me make sure my drill bit doesn't wander and then I drill a hole to the proper depth for my threaded insert. It would be just fine to screw the base to the top. Especially since something like this is unlikely to ever be separated. But when someone spends a couple grand on a table, I feel touches like this are part of the kind of quality that should follow. Then the base can get put back on the table and installed. I used 10-24 inserts. So some 10-24 bolts with washers are perfect to hold it all together. The last finishing touch is adding some LED strips to the bottom. My thought was putting them on just the underside of the table would be best. So the top could be taken off the base easily without anything connecting them. To make changing batteries easier, I attached the battery packs to the underside with Velcro. I could of ran both of the LED strips off a single battery pack but the battery life would have gone down a lot. And both strips are gonna respond to a single remote. So I think this was the way to go. The LEDs ended up bleeding through the epoxy more than I thought and the strips were super obvious. So I moved them to the frame and put the sensors on Velcro too. So everything can be removed from the underside of the quickly. And there you have it. Now it's just time for some glamor shots. Anyway I hope you're inspired, learn something, or at least entertained. If you feel I've earned it, please make sure to hit that subscribe button and bell. And until next time make time to make something.

Channel: YouCanMakeThisToo

Views: 962,174

Rating: 4.8532839 out of 5

Keywords: ycmt2, youcanmakethistoo, woodworking, coffee table, epoxy coffee table, epoxy table, river coffee table, coffee river table, walnut and epoxy, blue epoxy, wood and epoxy, epoxy and wood, epoxy and walnut, wood and epoxy table, epoxy and wood table, make an epoxy coffee table, build an epoxy coffee table, epoxy table with leds, wood and epoxy coffee table, total boat, totalboat, total boat thickset, total boat thick set, total boat deep pour, total boat epoxy, totalboat epoxy

Id: f7IVmNEFKIY

Length: 19min 29sec (1169 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 05 2020