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 how
to build this live edge slab coffee table.
I used a router flattening jig to flatten
this enormous slab. This is an end grain,
they call it a "cookie" slab, it's cut out
of 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 can
see, there's a pretty sizable crack in this
slab, but between the base spanning this crack
and the bow tie key, it should be nice and
stabilized. So, let's go ahead and get started
with the build!
The first step in this build is to make the
router flattening jig. These jigs are really
simple to make, you basically just need a
sled for your router to ride on above the
slab. This sled rides on two rails, one on
each side of the slab.
I sized the base of the sled to be wide enough
to fit the base of my router plus the widths
of the side walls of the sled. I made the
base out of ½” plywood, which allowed me
to get more depth without having to use a
collet extension on my router. Once I knew
the width I needed, I ripped the plywood to
width on the table saw.
For the side walls, I used two strips of ¾”
plywood glued together. Since I used ½”
plywood for the bottom of the sled, I wanted
to make sure it was nice and stiff. I cut
the sides to length at the miter saw using
some offcuts of plywood I had on hand.
I glued the pieces together, added a few brad
nails to hold them in place, and then added
some 1 ¼” screws to tighten everything
up.
With the sides done, I added glue to the bottom
of the sides, clamped them to the base, and
then added countersunk screws from the underside
of the sled. It's really important that these
screws are well below the surface, as you
don’t want them interfering with the sled
riding on the rails.
Next, I needed to cut out the channel for
the router bit. I marked the center of the
base and then used a 2” Forstner bit to
drill a hole on each side.
Once the holes were drilled, I cut out the
section between the holes using a jig saw.
This doesn’t need to be very precise, as
the 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 ¾” plywood,
and I attached them using pocket screws.
For the rails, I used a 2x8 and ripped it
to rough width on the table saw. The width
of your rails will depend on the thickness
of your slab. The slab I’m flattening in
this build is almost 6 inches thick, so I
cut the rails to 6 ½” wide.
After ripping the rails to rough width at
the table saw, I ran that edge over the jointer
to ensure it was perfectly flat. If you don’t
have a jointer, you could either use a hand
plane to flatten this edge or just hope that
your table saw left you with a straight enough
edge.
Once I had one edge jointed, I ripped the
rails to final width at the table saw.
With the sled finished, I headed over to my
buddy Ryan’s shop, where we’d be flattening
and finishing the slab.
Before flattening, I shimmed up the slab so
that any rocking was removed, and then we
used the router to clean up the channel in
the bottom of the sled. We noticed that the
rails were a little unstable here, so we attached
a 2x4 between each end of the rails and this
really helped to stabilize things.
The router bit I’m using to flatten this
slab 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 check
it out, I'd highly recommend using it for
any router flattening project.
With everything setup, I set the depth of
the router to take about a ¼” off and started
flattening. I made the initial pass standing
in the direct path of all of the chips coming
off the router, and ended up tearing up my
shins.
On the second pass, I moved to one side of
the 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 once
it was, we flipped it over to work on the
top.
Before flattening the top of the slab, I needed
to rip off about an inch from each of the
rails, so that the bit could get enough depth
to 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 got
to flattening the top of the slab. This only
took one pass, but we did get a little impatient
and were probably taking off about ½” of
depth on this pass. Amazingly enough, this
router and bit combo didn’t have any trouble
and left a super clean surface.
While we’re flattening, let’s talk about
one of the sponsors of this week’s video,
John C. Campbell Folk School. I recently had
the opportunity to attend a week-long woodworking
class at the school, and it was an amazing
experience.
John C. Campbell is located in Brasstown,
NC, about two hours from Atlanta, Knoxville,
and Asheville, so it’s centrally located
to many places in the Southeast. They have
classes on everything from woodworking to
blacksmithing to drawing and much, much more.
To learn more, visit their website at folkschool.org
or check out the link in the video description
below.
With the slab flattened, we needed to clean
up the absolutely ridiculous about of sawdust
before moving on. If you’re going to flatten
a slab like this, you absolutely need to wear
a respirator. The dust this process produced
was insane. I think we filled about four of these 33
gallon trash bags full of dust.
Once the shop was a little cleaner, we started
cleaning up the edges of the slab. There was
quite a bit of rotten sapwood and bark on
the 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 a
pretty massive crack running down the center.
To stabilize the slab, we decided to add a
bow tie key, sometimes called a Dutchman or
butterfly.
I cut the bow tie out of a scrap piece of
Walnut off camera using my bandsaw and then
traced the outline of the bow tie onto the
top of the slab.
Next, I used a trim router with a ¼” up/down
cut spiral bit to clear out most of the waste.
With the majority of the waste removed, I
cleaned up the walls of the pocket using a
1” chisel. Since I got so close to my lines
with the router, I could chisel right to my
line and get a nice, clean fit with the bow
tie.
After dry fitting the bow tie, I added glue
and pounded it home using a mallet.
Once the glue had dried, I came back with
a plane to flush up the bow tie. And I only
brought my smoothing plane with me to Ryan’s
shop, which probably wasn’t the best choice,
but it still only took a few minutes to flush
it up.
Next, Ryan sanded the slab, first using a
belt sander to remove any of the big router
marks and then switching to a random orbit
sander.
While he’s sanding, let’s take a second
to talk about one of the sponsor of this
week’s video, eComfort.com. The summer heat
has 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 perfect
for my shop space, and I had it installed
by an HVAC technician in my area. To see a
more 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 time
to apply finish. We went with a simple Danish
oil finish, as we wanted the natural look
of the wood to really show through. We applied
two coats, letting the oil soak into the wood
for about 30 minutes between coats, and wiped
off any excess that remained on the surface.
With the slab done, it was time to build the
base. And I actually built the base in my
shop before heading over to Ryan’s, since
we only had limited amount of time there.
For the base, I kept it really simple and
just made a modern looking base using 2x4s.
First, I cut the pieces to length. I’ll
have a cut list available in the blog post
that will go along with this build, which
will be linked to in the video description.
After cutting the pieces to length, I ran
them through my planer just to clean them
up. This is a totally optional step and you
could skip it if you don’t have a planer.
With the faces nice and clean, I decided to
rip 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 the
final 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 ½” pocket
screws that you'd typically use with dimensional
lumber like this a little bit too long, so
I had to switch to regular 2” pan head screws.
These ended up working fine, but it’s something
to keep in mind.
To further reinforce each corner, I added
one Powerhead screw to each corner, using
FastCap’s Flushmount drill bit to countersink
the screws.
Next, I needed to attach the stretchers that
connected the legs to each other. I centered
the stretchers on the legs and then clamped
them in place, making sure I was on a flat
surface, my table saw in this case.
With the stretcher clamped in place, I added
2 ½” pocket screws to secure the stretcher
in place and I repeated this step for the
other stretcher.
After assembly, I sanded the base thoroughly
with 120 grit then 180 grit sandpaper.
For the finish, I added a few coats of black
spray paint. I really like how the grain pattern
shows through on the base, I think it gives
it an awesome textured look.
To attach the base to the slab, I used a few
2 ½” 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 was
done.
Alright, hopefully you guys enjoyed this one.
This was a lot of work, but I really love
the way it came out. That router flattening
jig just makes an incredible mess but it really
does a good job getting the surface nice and
flat.
This was basically just part of a tree that
was cut down in my buddy Ryan's neighborhood,
he's the one who built this slab table with
me, and I think it turned out absolutely beautiful.
If you guys liked this project, go ahead and
get subscribed. I put out new project videos
like this every Tuesday. I also have links
to all of the tools and materials I used in
the video description below.
And last, I want to say a big thanks to all
of my Patreon supporters, you guys are awesome.
I'll have a list of all of my $10 and up patrons
on the screen.
Thanks again for watching everybody and, until
next week, happy building.
