Help with making a top for a chest coffee table

[Jim Langley]

I am making a pyramid trunk coffee table out of red oak and am down to making the lid. The frame for the lid is made out of 1 x 3s and the top will be out of high grade oak plywood.

My issue is that if I lay the plywood on top of the frame, then it will hide the frame joints, but the ply sides will show. I have some roll on ply vaneer stripping, but am not sure I can get it to look really nice. I could also recess the ply inside the lid frame, (flush with the top of the frame), but the joints will show?

Any suggestions where to go with this, or other solutions.

[Mike Heidrick]

Why not just glue up the entire lid - no plywood?

[Jim Langley]

I thought about that, but already spent the money for the plywood. I'm on a bit of a limited budget.

[Milind Patil]

How about glueing quarter round on the edges ? It will not only hide the ply edge, but also give you "child-safe" edges for the lid.

[Jim Langley]

O played around with some oak edge banding on a scrap of wood last night and was impressed how good it looks if you use a hot iron and a roller. It stains well too! I think I'll go in that direction, thanks everyone.

[Doug Shepard]

I've often used Oak screen molding to cover the edges on oak veneer ply. It's just a skosh wider than the ply thickness so one edge will have to be trimmed flush (block plane works well for this) and re-radiused but it's a pretty quick way to hide the edge and it matches the ply face well.

[steven c newman]

You could set the panel into a rebate cut into the frame. That is the way I make tops for my chest of drawers that I've built over the years. I run a bead of glue along the rabbet, and add a few small nails to pin it in place. Nail holes can be filled.