Hi, I’m Jesper from Jesper Makes, one day
wife way asked me to something meaningful in my workshop, one being clean up the mess,
and two, make her a coffee table. So, I figured, why not do both at the same
time, and this video is all about making a beautiful pallet coffee table from all the pallet blocks I had on my floor from pallet dismantling. I looked on YouTube for “pallet blocks coffee
table” and there was only one video on the subject with 13 views on it, and this guys
take on it was not quite what I was thinking about, so I’ll just dive in and try some
stupid ideas. I will share all my mistakes, and trust me,
a make a lot, so hang on. I wanted to use all different kinds of wood,
and I also want random end grain and face grain facing up. This can go wrong in so many ways, but more
insight on that later. The blocks have been sitting in my shop for
about a year, so they are pretty dry, but some of them are loaded with resin, which will
cause issues later. My plan is to start up by gluing all the blocks
together, so I’m starting out by making a big puzzle out of the different blocks that
apparently came from as exotic countries as China, South Africa, Turkey, Canada, USA,
Ukraine, Sweden, and many other sponsors to this table. The next day... This is going to be a complicated glue up,
and I’m trying to decomplicate it a bit by gluing the 2 long sides first. That will make it possible to add clamping
pressure from all sides, while the blocks stay in shape. ASMR clamping pressure. Monster glue up coming up All the blocks are different sizes, and the
job now is to end up with a massive wood block After gluing the end pieces it’s time to
glue it all together. The opening time of my wood glue is about half
an hour, but the temperature is high and there’s a lot of sides to glue together, so I’m
working as fast as I can. One of the questions I always get from non-woodworkers
about wood glue is: Is it strong enough to just glue wood together, and don’t you need
screws and nails to hold it together also? If you’re wondering about this too, the
answer is coming up shortly. While the glue dries, a big shoutout to Mark
Dainer from Australia. Mark makes everything from pallet wood, he’s
very creative, and if you’re into recycled wood, I have linked his channel in the description. Make sure you go and check out Dainer Made on Youtube after you have watched this video. The next day I’m very excited to see the
result, and the glue up worked out as planned. The glue alone makes this tabletop more than
stable enough, and if the blocks had been all the same size there wouldn’t be all
these gaps and holes between the blocks. I’m making a very simple mold for this next
step. I plan to pour black epoxy resin into the
cracks, gaps and nail holes of the blocks, and to stop it from leaking out from the bottom,
I’m wrapping it in plastic film and duct tape. This is a deep pour epoxy resin from Entropy. If you plan to do any epoxy pours, my tips
would be making sure to get the mixing ratio right and mix it way longer than you think. I’m using a paint mixer drill attachment,
and even for this small bucket I’m spending on the good side of 5 minutes with the mixer
running. Make your there’s not any unmixed epoxy
at the bottom or along the sides of your bucket. Unmixed epoxy simply won’t cure properly. For some reason I thought the small cracks and gaps wouldn’t soak up much epoxy, but
I was terrible wrong on that. So, I ordered some bigger buckets with epoxy, and
waited almost a month to do the second and third pour here. This epoxy takes about 3 days to cure and
a week before you can start working on it, The moment of truth, did my mold hold the
epoxy inside or did it leak? There was a small leak but not too bad. A tip: Just pour a little epoxy to begin with,
and let it cure and close of any leaks at the bottom of your project. Then make the big pour and fill all the gaps
up. I needed to flatten it, and I don’t have
a thicknesser wide enough to run a tabletop through it, so I’ll just quickly construct
a jig so I can use my router to flatten it. The flattening went well, and after some sanding
I decided to start the finishing already. Too soon though. My plan was to keep the rustic look of the
pallet blocks, and I tried to add that with some wood burning. I have burned a lot of wood for the simple
reasons it protects the wood, and it looks great in many cases. However, when burning an epoxy table, the
epoxy will get soft again if you heat it too much too long. Don’t do that. Another mistake I made here was, I tried to
finish the burned and sanded tabletop with just one big layer of furniture lacquer, and
it just didn’t look the way I wanted it to. The burning made it look too dark with the
lacquer on, and I would really like to be able to see the different kinds of wood the
table is made up of. After a week or so I sanded it down again and I mixed up a cup of epoxy resin and started filling up
the r emaining small gaps, cracks and nail holes. When filling up small gaps it’s really handy to have a syringe, or even just a pencil to dip into the epoxy and let it drip down in the holes and cracks. An LED light from the side will expose all the small gaps in the surface. Nail holes are tricky, they go deep down and the epoxy sinks
down after a few minutes and you’ll need to refill it. I sanded it again with 40, 80, 120, 200 and 400 grit sandpaper. Tthen I treated it with some tabletop oil with a little brown color in it. After it cured I sanded it again and repeated the tabletop oil. Coffee solves everything. I sanded again and gave it 5 coats of Danish oil with light sanding in between each coat. I hate asking for your subscribtion, but I put a lot of effort into making these videos, and if you at this point have gotten any value or entertainment from watching the video, I really hope you will consider subscribing to the channel. After finishing the table, I showed some pictures of it to a
restaurant owner, and they immediately offered to buy it for their bar. If you have any question about anything I did in this video, please post it in the comments below.
