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Thread: Live Edge Coffee Table

  1. #16
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    Mar 2003
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phil Mueller View Post
    Jim, thank you!, but I can’t take credit where it’s not due. This is a photo I found on the internet some time ago. It’s how I want to do a slab coffee table for our cabin...at some point this winter. That’s the plan anyway. I hope mine turns out this well.
    Aha, so now we get a "how was that done?" debate. Here's my entry...
    It looks to me like there's gaps between the leg tops and the surrounding slab. If that's true, the legs aren't really connected to the slab, but rather they just stick through it. I think the base is a separate subassembly, and the slab just sits on it. (Okay, with a few screws to keep it from wandering around.) I think there are beams running across the slab from leg to leg. Probably mortise and tenon from the ends of the beams into the legs. Then there's a beam running down the midline of the slab connecting the crossbeams together.

  2. #17
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    Jul 2012
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    That makes sense, Jamie. Having stretchers between the legs would make that a much simpler job.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  3. #18
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    Jul 2012
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    Finally settled on this for the legs

    (ignore the grain direction )

    For the joints, half-blind dovetails seemed the best option, and also the hardest, by far. Yesterday I spent about 5 hours doing one pin and tail set. It took two hours to get here


    The first tail is done!


    Marking the first pin, with the angle and thickness of the wood, was a challenge


    On to the first pin


    It took me almost three hours to get here
    Last edited by Julie Moriarty; 09-18-2018 at 9:12 AM.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  4. #19
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    Oct 2007
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    Whidbey Island , Wa.
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    Nice work!

  5. #20
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    Jul 2012
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    Thank you, Paul! I've been chopping away at those dovetails but it's a slow boat to China.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  6. #21
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    The second set went much easier than the first but it still took quite a bit of time. Nature of the beast combined with inexperience, I guess.

    The tail is in a little less than 1/2" in the pictures below. But it's getting pretty tight.





    Got some more fine tuning to do. Time consuming and conducive to a stiff neck, but I'm much happier with the results on this one. The blue tape trick really worked well.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  7. #22
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
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    A paid project stopped the presses and little has been done on the table since I started the other project. In the meantime we debated laying glass over the slab or doing an epoxy fill. As we were debating I noticed the center rot has been flaking off every time it's moved. Some of the remaining wood is extremely fragile and tapers to a pencil point at some places. Because of that, the epoxy won out over an all glass top. Plans were to tint the epoxy the same as the glass on the kitchen island.

    On another thread, Ecopoxy was mentioned because it can be poured very thick, up to 1-1/2". It's their Liquid Plastic product that allows for thick pours. So I jumped in and ordered a gallon. But the price - OUCH! I bit the bullet because I knew I couldn't torch out bubbles with all that fragile wood in the center. I also ordered a small GloPoxy kit in green. I see epoxy experimenting in the very near future.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  8. #23
    You do very nice work, Julie.

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
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    Eastern KS
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    The glopoxy is fun. One of my painters has started playing with it. Puts off a pretty good bit of "glow" at least initially. Can't speak to long term.

    In your Dutchman, is that a streak in the grain or do cut a groove. If it's a groove can you explain why?

    thanks neil

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neil Gaskin View Post
    In your Dutchman, is that a streak in the grain or do cut a groove. If it's a groove can you explain why?

    thanks neil
    It's the pecky in the grain. I picked pieces where the pecky was pronounced. But once I decided to go with epoxy fill, I wished I hadn't installed those.

    On to the latest progress...

    I finally finished the dovetails and dadoed the two bottom pieces. Not glued up yet.



    Then it was time to play with the epoxy. I took a couple pieces of scrap and used blue painter's tape to form a dam around them. Then I mixed up a small batch of Ecopoxy 2:1 Liquid Plastic and threw some drops of purple Transtint dye in it. I used purple because I had the most of that color. Ecopoxy 2:1 LP is about the consistency of watered-down maple syrup. And it takes three days to cure. I wondered if the blue tape would hold, but in every video I saw, that's what they used.

    After pouring the epoxy over the two pieces of scrap, I had some left over. So I grabbed a piece of live edge scrap and taped up a spilt in the wood. Then I poured the epoxy in there, too. About 10 minutes later all the epoxy in the live edge opening drained out. When I checked the the other pieces I could see small amounts of the epoxy had leaked out. Obviously, blue tape doesn't hold up well on wood.

    I flipped the live edge slab over and removed all the blue tape. Then I started filling anything that couldn't be seen through from the top.


    Tomorrow I'll sand it smooth and try to figure out what I can use to contain the epoxy in the center part.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  11. #26
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    Fingers crossed... I took plumbers putty and made rings around the areas to fill. Based on what I've seen, it looks like they use foam boards to create the walls of the dam. I have a lot of 3/4" Celotex so I decided to use that to contain the epoxy. I screwed the Celotex to the underside of the slab and where the edges were close to the plumbers putty I could see it squeezing out. Tomorrow I'll jump in with both feet.

    Wish me luck!
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  12. #27
    Incredible work Julie! Following for updates.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

  13. #28
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    Thank you, Terry! As for the updates, they aren't what I hoped...

    I mixed the epoxy and added a few drops of blue Transtint. The color looked perfect. Ecopoxy says their Liquid Plastic can be poured in thicknesses between 1/4" and 1-3/4". If I filled the entire center to the top I'd be at 2". They also said Liquid Plastic does not shrink. With fingers crossed I began to make the pour, checking along the way for leaks. When I was confident the center wasn't leaking I gradually filled the center.


    Once the center was filled, I poured where I had built the side dam.


    Almost all of the other openings, that I thought I had sealed with wood putty, leaked. As the other sections settled, epoxy was added. Bubbles were torched out. But bubbles continued to form from the rotted wood and didn't stop until the epoxy started to gel. From there the bubbles couldn't be torched out.

    About 6 hours later a cracked formed. And it grew from there. As first it looked pretty cool. This is how it looked this morning:


    In the areas that look dull, I had used a chisel plane to shave off cured bubbles.


    I'm going to contact Ecopoxy to get ideas on how to deal with the cracks.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  14. #29
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    Mar 2005
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    Cashiers NC
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    Don’t give up. Inspiration will come. It will look great when you finish.
    Charlie Jones

  15. #30
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    Oh, no. No giving up, Charlie. I mixed up some more epoxy and poured it into the cracks. It filled them pretty well. The next day another crack developed. The slab was on sawhorses on the lanai and we got a cold snap - down to the mid 30s overnight. I think that played a part in forming the new crack. But I'll fill that, too. It has character now and I'm okay with that.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

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