How to Build a MODERN Round Wood Coffee Table

[Music] hey guys it's sheryl from wichita diaries and today i'm going to share with you how i built these modern round coffee tables from some leftover maple from my last project these are really fun builds and i'm so excited to share with you so if you're ready to get building let's go if you caught my last video you may have seen that i purchased some maple to build my new dining table with when i originally ordered that maple i had intended on building it in a different way that would have required more wood so when i changed my mind and built it the way that i did i had quite a bit of leftover lumber that i had already bought and i didn't want it to go to waste so with what was left over i decided to build myself a new coffee table i actually had just enough to build two of these in different sizes and still have a few random pieces that i can play around with later i've got the plans for this project including how to modify them for your particular size linked below so be sure to check those out after the video so these projects were really easy to customize i made this a i think it was 34 and a half diameter and this was a 16 inch diameter i adjusted the height which is as simple as just adjusting the length of the legs also i will show you two different ways of assembling these legs for this coffee table i use half laps on the legs to the like support pieces whatever you want to call these on this i simply use wood glue and screws both are plenty sturdy for a coffee table so either method is fine i began this project by laying out my tabletop pieces i thought it would be easier to just lay out the pieces and see what length seemed good for the braces for the size top that i was building okay so my existing coffee table is 34 inches in diameter so i guess we're gonna make this one 34 inches in diameter i need to figure out how long to make top pieces so they're going to fit together like this at like 30 degree angles so if the table is 34 diameter it's probably safe to make these say 15 the pieces i used to figure out my sizes were just some scrap two by twos that i had laying around so once i knew the actual links that i needed i started cutting the real pieces of course you can use store bought or pre-cut two by twos for this but i just needed to use whatever i already had and so i cut my own i brought these pieces over to the miter saw and cut one end of each piece with a 30 degree miter these ends will fit together in the center to make sure i cut everything in the right direction i fit these pieces together marked the top then mark the other ends with a line showing how to miter those these ends will need to be mattered so that the bottom is longer than the top so that the legs will slant in from the bottom to the top laying these pieces out like this just kind of gave me a better visual to make sure that i was cutting in the right direction i adjusted the miter angle to 10 degrees for this measured these to about 15 inches long and cut i repeated for all three pieces then i double checked the angles were right and the pieces fit once these pieces were cut i cut three more two by twos with ends mitered 10 degrees parallel to each other to use for the legs you can make these as long or as short as you need to make your table as short or as tall as you wish i made mine about 15 inches long now to assemble these pieces together on the larger coffee table i used half laps i put my pieces together and kind of marked the sections that needed to be removed for this i'm a visual person so it just helps me to see better what i'm doing just to mark these off i laid both the leg and the brace pieces together like this so that the parts i needed to remove are all facing up then i used a piece of wood the same thickness as my two by twos to draw a line showing how far i need to cut you could cut this on a table saw you can cut this with a router if i had a router table that would be real nice um if my miter gauge on my table saw was like like i trusted it um that would be cool too i don't really want to do any of those things so i am going to use my circular saw and cut all this out i thought about using a router and i started to set up everything to use a router and there's going to be a lot of material to cut out with a straight bit and i didn't want to make multiple passes we're just going to try it with a circular saw now don't laugh but i did this with my circular saw i set my blade depth to cut half the way through the board thickness and made a cut and then just double checked that this cutting depth was correct then i proceeded to cut multiple cuts to remove the material up to the line i broke off and chiseled out some of the rough spots but i'll be totally honest here this was a complete mess i should have used the router to begin with but it is what it is i ended up bringing out the router and set the depth to just remove a tiny bit of the material on the top just to help smooth things out a little bit i forgot to press record on the camera when i actually routed this but it was very similar to how i routed the legs on my last project all that said i don't recommend the circular saw for this or i mean it could have easily been operator error either way once this was smoothed out i applied some wood glue and clamped these together you'll notice that i actually cut a little bit too far down past my line when i swapped over to smooth things out with the router so there was a little bit of overhang on the laps that's okay though once the glue was dried i just trimmed this off and sanded it smooth there were a few places where there wasn't a real real tight joint to help hide those and take some glue along these joints and i'm going to um dip them in a pile of sawdust here so everything's nice and messy and then when i stand it smooth it'll look a lot better now if you didn't want to mess with half laps i did also make this same design for the smaller table using just wood glue and screws i cut the legs and braces the same as before except shorter since this was for a smaller table the main difference here is that since these aren't overlapping each other the leg pieces will need to be shorter since they will rest underneath these braces to attach these i used a 3 8 inch forstner bit in the top of the brace piece to drill out a small hole to plug later with a dowel to hide the screw then i pre-drilled through this piece placed it on the leg and pre-drilled again i used plenty of wood glue and a three inch long screw to attach these pieces i used some wood glue and a 3 8 inch dowel to plug the holes and once these were dry i trimmed them off with a flush cut blade on my oscillating saw and moved on with the build so you can use either one of these methods to attach the legs i used both and they both turned out fine the rest of the build proceeds the same no matter how you attach the legs so to assemble these pieces here in the middle i'm just going to cheat and use some screws so i will put three screws in here um one through there one through there and one through here and then i'm just going to use some dowels um to plug those screw holes this process was similar to how i screwed the legs together [Music] i used a forstner bit to drill out a hole to plug once the screw is in pre-drilled the hole then drove a two and a half inch screw to attach i used a generous amount of wood glue at each joint and once all three screws were in i plug these holes with 3 8 inch dowels the last part of the base of this coffee table was the what i'm going to call risers i just cut three pieces of 2x2 about two and a half inches long and glued these on top of each leg about two and a half inches in from the edge once the glue was dry i flipped this over and added a screw through the bottom for some extra security then i used my oscillating saw to flush cut all of these dowel plugs with the base complete i gave it a final sanding and moved on to gluing up the top i ran these boards through the table saw to just barely rip the edges off to give me a nice smooth square surface for gluing i glued up these pieces in sections adding one board at a time just like when i glued up my tabletop in the last video you could use dowels dominoes or biscuits if you wanted but i just used some glue while the glue on the top was drying i applied some ebony black stain to the base you could paint stain leave natural whatever but i just wanted some contrast so i went with a black base this was my first time ever using this black stain and it will definitely not be the last you guys know how much i hate paint and this was so much quicker and easier than using paint and you can also see a little bit of the wood grain peeking through this is totally not sponsored or anything but i just really highly recommend trying this stain it was a lot of fun once the glue was dry on the top i removed it from the clamps flipped it top side down and found the center of the panel now there are a lot of ways to cut out a circle you could use a band saw a jigsaw even a table saw if you're brave but i used a straight bit in my router with a homemade circle jig to make the jig i grabbed a scrap strip of quarter inch plywood remove the bottom plate of my router and then drilled out holes large enough for the screws on that bottom plate to fit through i placed this plate on the plywood and drilled out the screw holes then i traced the inner circle and cut that out with the jigsaw i reattached the bottom plate on my router with the plywood piece underneath then measured and drilled a hole half the diameter of the circle that i wanted to cut from the bit in this case the circle was going to be about 34 inches in diameter so i marked 17 inches from the router bit and drilled my hole i placed this hole on the center mark and drilled the bit about halfway through you don't want to drill all the way through since this is the bottom side of the table this particular hole won't matter but if you drill all the way through you'll see it at the top i left the drill bit in place but removed the plywood to adjust my cut depth to about a quarter of an inch i also put a piece of half inch plywood underneath the jig in the center to try to keep the plywood jig on the same plane since the router base was about a half inch thick then i proceeded to cut out my circle once one pass was done i could have dropped the router depth and continued making deeper passes until it was all the way through that would work just fine but instead i used a jigsaw to cut off the edges then used a flush bit in my router to cut the rest of the sides flush with the initial router cut time wise i think it took about the same amount of time so this probably wasn't much of an advantage since i was cutting away so much material with the flush cut bit i did have to make multiple passes this way too so really however you decide to cut your circle is fine as long as it gets cut once the edges were flushed i used the hand plane and belt sander to smooth and flatten things out then i gave it a final sanding with the orbital sander before attaching it to the base just like my last dining table build i'm gonna use these figure eight fasteners to attach this table top so i'm just gonna put one of these on each of these little i don't know risers i guess you would call them i attach these figure eight tabs to the risers on each leg by drilling out a shallow hole just deep enough for the tab to sit down into flush because these tabs are supposed to be able to swivel back and forth i used a chisel to remove the material on the sides of the hole then screwed the tab in place just tight enough so that it can move you could use a couple per riser if you wanted but i felt like three just one for each riser was fine for me then i flipped the base over on the bottom of the round top made sure it was centered and screwed these tabs in place to finish up i gave the entire table including the legs and underside several coats of clear poly to seal it and sand it between each coat i repeated all of this for the smaller table and then i sat down to enjoy them both these are exactly what i wanted for our new living space something simple but modern and they match the new dining table plus i didn't have to waste all that leftover maple so i hope you guys enjoyed this project as much as i did be sure to check out the plans linked below for more details if you'd like to build one of your own and if you can't wait to see what's next i'd love if you subscribe so you don't miss out thanks so much for watching friends and until next time happy building [Music]

Channel: Shara Woodshop Diaries

Views: 48,847

Keywords: making a round wood coffee table, round wood coffee table diy, DIY coffee table, how to build a round coffee table, modern coffee table, modern round coffee table, building a round coffee table, DIY coffee table plans, diy living room furniture, how to build a coffee table, coffee table build, circle cutting jig, coffee table, how to build a coffee table from scratch, how to build a round table, diy modern furniture, DIY woodworking project, round wooden table build

Id: 3KD5f3Wek5U

Length: 13min 9sec (789 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021