live edge dining room table

what's going on everybody, i'm johnny brooke,welcome back to another crafted workshop video. in today's video, i'm going to show you howto build this live edge slab coffee table. i used a router flattening jig to flattenthis enormous slab. this is an end grain, they call it a "cookie" slab, it's cut outof the tree horizontally. also installed one of these bow tie keys,or sometimes they're called dutchmen, and they help to stabilize the wood. as you cansee, there's a pretty sizable crack in this slab, but between the base spanning this crackand the bow tie key, it should be nice and stabilized. so, let's go ahead and get startedwith the build! the first step in this build is to make therouter flattening jig. these jigs are really

simple to make, you basically just need asled for your router to ride on above the slab. this sled rides on two rails, one oneach side of the slab. i sized the base of the sled to be wide enoughto fit the base of my router plus the widths of the side walls of the sled. i made thebase out of â½â€ plywood, which allowed me to get more depth without having to use acollet extension on my router. once i knew the width i needed, i ripped the plywood towidth on the table saw. for the side walls, i used two strips of â¾â€plywood glued together. since i used â½â€ plywood for the bottom of the sled, i wantedto make sure it was nice and stiff. i cut the sides to length at the miter saw usingsome offcuts of plywood i had on hand.

i glued the pieces together, added a few bradnails to hold them in place, and then added some 1 â¼â€ screws to tighten everythingup. with the sides done, i added glue to the bottomof the sides, clamped them to the base, and then added countersunk screws from the undersideof the sled. it's really important that these screws are well below the surface, as youdon’t want them interfering with the sled riding on the rails. next, i needed to cut out the channel forthe router bit. i marked the center of the base and then used a 2” forstner bit todrill a hole on each side. once the holes were drilled, i cut out thesection between the holes using a jig saw.

this doesn’t need to be very precise, asthe router bit will be used to finish up this channel later on. to keep the sled from falling off the rails,i added some stops on the underside of the sled. these are just scraps of â¾â€ plywood,and i attached them using pocket screws. for the rails, i used a 2x8 and ripped itto rough width on the table saw. the width of your rails will depend on the thicknessof your slab. the slab i’m flattening in this build is almost 6 inches thick, so icut the rails to 6 â½â€ wide. after ripping the rails to rough width atthe table saw, i ran that edge over the jointer to ensure it was perfectly flat. if you don’thave a jointer, you could either use a hand

plane to flatten this edge or just hope thatyour table saw left you with a straight enough edge. once i had one edge jointed, i ripped therails to final width at the table saw. with the sled finished, i headed over to mybuddy ryan’s shop, where we’d be flattening and finishing the slab. before flattening, i shimmed up the slab sothat any rocking was removed, and then we used the router to clean up the channel inthe bottom of the sled. we noticed that the rails were a little unstable here, so we attacheda 2x4 between each end of the rails and this really helped to stabilize things.

the router bit i’m using to flatten thisslab is this monster of a bit from infinity tools. it has a 2” cutting diameter, 1”cutting depth. i’ll have a link to the bit in the video description if you want to checkit out, i'd highly recommend using it for any router flattening project. with everything setup, i set the depth ofthe router to take about a â¼â€ off and started flattening. i made the initial pass standingin the direct path of all of the chips coming off the router, and ended up tearing up myshins. on the second pass, i moved to one side ofthe jig, and ryan and i passed the router back and forth. this worked much, much better.we needed to make quite a few passes on the

bottom of the slab to get it flat, but onceit was, we flipped it over to work on the top. before flattening the top of the slab, i neededto rip off about an inch from each of the rails, so that the bit could get enough depthto fully flatten the top. we did also try using a collet extension to help give the bit a little more depth,but it ended up getting bent when the bit caught during one of the passes. once the sled was back in business, we gotto flattening the top of the slab. this only took one pass, but we did get a little impatientand were probably taking off about â½â€ of depth on this pass. amazingly enough, thisrouter and bit combo didn’t have any trouble

and left a super clean surface. while we’re flattening, let’s talk aboutone of the sponsors of this week’s video, john c. campbell folk school. i recently hadthe opportunity to attend a week-long woodworking class at the school, and it was an amazingexperience. john c. campbell is located in brasstown,nc, about two hours from atlanta, knoxville, and asheville, so it’s centrally locatedto many places in the southeast. they have classes on everything from woodworking toblacksmithing to drawing and much, much more. to learn more, visit their website at folkschool.orgor check out the link in the video description below.

with the slab flattened, we needed to cleanup the absolutely ridiculous about of sawdust before moving on. if you’re going to flattena slab like this, you absolutely need to wear a respirator. the dust this process producedwas insane. i think we filled about four of these 33 gallon trash bags full of dust. once the shop was a little cleaner, we startedcleaning up the edges of the slab. there was quite a bit of rotten sapwood and bark onthe edges of the slab, and i just knocked these pieces off with a chisel and mallet.after removing all of the loose pieces, ryan cleaned up the edges using a belt sander. as you might have noticed, this slab has apretty massive crack running down the center.

to stabilize the slab, we decided to add abow tie key, sometimes called a dutchman or butterfly. i cut the bow tie out of a scrap piece ofwalnut off camera using my bandsaw and then traced the outline of the bow tie onto thetop of the slab. next, i used a trim router with a â¼â€ up/downcut spiral bit to clear out most of the waste. with the majority of the waste removed, icleaned up the walls of the pocket using a 1” chisel. since i got so close to my lineswith the router, i could chisel right to my line and get a nice, clean fit with the bowtie. after dry fitting the bow tie, i added glueand pounded it home using a mallet.

once the glue had dried, i came back witha plane to flush up the bow tie. and i only brought my smoothing plane with me to ryan’sshop, which probably wasn’t the best choice, but it still only took a few minutes to flushit up. next, ryan sanded the slab, first using abelt sander to remove any of the big router marks and then switching to a random orbitsander. while he’s sanding, let’s take a secondto talk about one of the sponsor of this week’s video, ecomfort.com. the summer heathas been making it really tough to stay out in the shop, so i reached out to the folks at ecomfort,a retailer specializing in home heating, venting & cooling.

we found an lg mini-split unit that was perfectfor my shop space, and i had it installed by an hvac technician in my area. to see amore in-depth video on the installation process, check out the video on my second channel,and to learn more about ecomfort, visit the link in the video description below. once we were finished sanding, it was timeto apply finish. we went with a simple danish oil finish, as we wanted the natural lookof the wood to really show through. we applied two coats, letting the oil soak into the woodfor about 30 minutes between coats, and wiped off any excess that remained on the surface. with the slab done, it was time to build thebase. and i actually built the base in my

shop before heading over to ryan’s, sincewe only had limited amount of time there. for the base, i kept it really simple andjust made a modern looking base using 2x4s. first, i cut the pieces to length. i’llhave a cut list available in the blog post that will go along with this build, whichwill be linked to in the video description. after cutting the pieces to length, i ranthem through my planer just to clean them up. this is a totally optional step and youcould skip it if you don’t have a planer. with the faces nice and clean, i decided torip off the roundover on each edge of the 2x4s, which i did on the table saw. to assemble the base, i used pocket holes.the way the base is designed makes it so that

none of the pocket holes are visible in thefinal piece, so you don’t have to fill these holes later. i did run into one issue during assembly.i didn’t think about the fact that planing the 2x4s would make the standard 2 â½â€ pocketscrews that you'd typically use with dimensional lumber like this a little bit too long, soi had to switch to regular 2” pan head screws. these ended up working fine, but it’s somethingto keep in mind. to further reinforce each corner, i addedone powerhead screw to each corner, using fastcap’s flushmount drill bit to countersinkthe screws. next, i needed to attach the stretchers thatconnected the legs to each other. i centered

the stretchers on the legs and then clampedthem in place, making sure i was on a flat surface, my table saw in this case. with the stretcher clamped in place, i added2 â½â€ pocket screws to secure the stretcher in place and i repeated this step for theother stretcher. after assembly, i sanded the base thoroughlywith 120 grit then 180 grit sandpaper. for the finish, i added a few coats of blackspray paint. i really like how the grain pattern shows through on the base, i think it givesit an awesome textured look. to attach the base to the slab, i used a few2 â½â€ screws, making sure to slightly widen the holes in the base to allow for wood movement.finally, i added some felt pads to the bottom

of the base off camera, and the table wasdone. alright, hopefully you guys enjoyed this one.this was a lot of work, but i really love the way it came out. that router flatteningjig just makes an incredible mess but it really does a good job getting the surface nice andflat. this was basically just part of a tree thatwas cut down in my buddy ryan's neighborhood, he's the one who built this slab table withme, and i think it turned out absolutely beautiful. if you guys liked this project, go ahead andget subscribed. i put out new project videos like this every tuesday. i also have linksto all of the tools and materials i used in the video description below.

and last, i want to say a big thanks to allof my patreon supporters, you guys are awesome. i'll have a list of all of my $10 and up patronson the screen. thanks again for watching everybody and, untilnext week, happy building.

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