On a recent trip to my hometown, I brought back this cool oak slab, harvested from my Grandpas property. I thought it would be a perfect candidate for a new coffee table. I started out trying to make the legs in the waterfall style. This is where the grain of the wood continues through the top and down the legs. Its a really neat looking design. I ran into some difficulties while trying to do this. The problem was that the slab was cupped pretty bad so that when I cut my 45 degree angles and tried to mate them up, the joint didnt align properly. I tried to correct this by sanding the profiles to match but was unsuccessful. I changed the design of the legs and proceeded with the build.
After a ton of sanding, I assembled the table using epoxy and deck screws. I plugged the screw holes with some contrasting walnut plugs, which I cut myself on the drill press. Then after some more sanding, I finished the table with wipe on poly. 3 coats on the underside, and 15 coats on the top. The reason for so many coats on the top is because I will wet sand and buff the top to get a glass smooth finish. I wanted to have plenty of coats, so that I don’t burn through the finish while sanding.
The table turned out great. You can check out a video of the build below.