Building a Live Edge Slab Coffee Table | Woodworking

Building a Live Edge Slab Coffee Table

Today I’m building this Nakashima inspired walnut live edge
table.

Let’s get right into it, I’ve already milled and ripped the
legs to their final dimensions, and now I’m cutting a bevel on the bottom of
the legs so they will splay outward. 

These legs are going to be attached to an arched base using
a bridle joint.  To cut the center notch
on for the bridle joint, and to prevent tear out from the dado blade, I glued
an angled stop block to my jig to register the leg against. 

I clamped it in place, and since there is so much material
to be removed I took it in several passes to get to the final depth.

This is also a very wide joint so after I cut the 1^st
pass in all the legs, I pulled apart my jig, and flipped the stop block around
so I could cut the 2^nd pass. By flipping it around instead of moving
the fence over, I am ensuring that the joint is centered on the leg.

Moving on to the arched base, I used a thin strip of maple and
bent it between a few nails to create the desired arched shape and trace onto
the work piece.

 The arch is going to
be attached to a Bezier curved trestle so before I cut the arched shape I am
cutting the corresponding joint using a similar process as before. 

I also want to cut the corresponding joints for the legs as
well.  To I am building a router jig
around the leg to ensure I have an exact leg width.  I clamped the jig down to my work piece and
routed out the waste.

To transfer the location of the dado on the other side, I
used my marking knife and a straight edge and just marked a line around the
piece, Rest my jig and cut the other side.

I did a test fit, and it was a little too tight, I guess
better to be too tight than lose, so I rest my jig eyeballing the amount and
slowly snuck up on a nice snug fit.

Once I was satisfied with the fit, I took it to the miter
saw, and cut the piece to its final length while introducing a slight angle or
add a little visual interest.

Now moving onto the Bezier curved trestle piece, I played
around in Sketchup with different curves until I found one I liked, I printed
it out to scale, cut it out and traced in onto my work piece.

I used the same method as the arch piece to cut the joinery,
and then cut the shape out at the band saw.

To smooth out the band saw marks, on the convex radius I
used the disc sander, and on the concave curves I used the spindle sander. 

Then anyplace that needed a little extra fairing of the
curves, I used a flexible sanding strip and smoothed it out by hand.

This joint is part bridle joint part half lap, and since it
was difficult to mark the exact depth of the half lap while it was square, and
too dangerous to cut on the table saw.  I
marked it out and did the final cut by hand.

I did a test fit, and it was just a tiny bit too tight so I
pulled it apart and paired off a little and tried again.

Perfect fit, I’ll just sand the bottom to match the radius
of the curve after I assemble it. 

I repeated the process on the curved trestle.

Then before cutting the legs to their final length I did a
little math to figure out the angle they were coming off the arch so the top
would site level.

Once I figured that out I cut them all to length at that
angle.

The top is going to be attached to the legs using through
tenons, so I set up a stop block so I could cut all the shoulders of the tenons
to the same length.

Of course the shoulder on the opposing side needed to be cut
from the other side of the blade.  I did
some careful layout and repositioned the stop block on the other side of the
blade and cut the opposing shoulder.

I did the same operation when cutting the cheeks of the
tenon away. I cut one side and then reset to cut the other.  Accept this time instead of being opposing it
just needed to be parallel so I just slid my stop block over the width of the
tenon and I was set to go. 

At this point I removed a fair amount of stock so it was
getting sketchy to stand up in the table saw and have a good surface to
reverence from, so I laid out the final cuts, and cut them by hand. 

To help secure the tenons to the top, I am going to use some
wedges, so I cut a couple of slots in the tenon at the band saw. 

To prevent splitting the leg I drilled holes at the end of
the slots to relive the pressure.

It is time to glue the base together, with five pieces and 4
joints, I wanted to make sure I had enough working time with the glue to be
able to assembly  all the parts  as well as do any kind of adjustments to the
legs that may have been needed to be sure 
the top sits level.

While that was drying, I turned my attention to the
top. 

The top of course was a bit too big for my planner so I
flattened it using a sled and my router.

Once the top was flat, I went to work laying out the
mortises for the legs. Since their isn’t much of a square surface to measure
from, I just positioned the base where I thought it looked good and built a
template around the legs.  A little CA
glue and ½” plywood worked out great.

Now with a little stubby pattern bit, I routed out a pocket
on the underside of the top following my plywood jig,.

I transferred the center of the mortise to the face side using
an 1/8” drill bit.  I then flipped over
the top and drilled a larger clearance hole for the router bit; the reason for
the 2 step process was because I wanted to reduce the chance of blow on the
face side.  If the large drill bit blew
out a big splinter it could have ruined the face side, or at least causing me
to remove a bunch of material to get past that scar.

Now from the top side I used a larger pattern bit to finish
removing the waste material.

Then I did the final cleanup by hand with a mallet and
chisel.

Once the template material was removed it was time to do a
test fit.

And of course the test fit was too tight so I did a little
more hand work to strategically remove some more stock. 

Once I was happy with the fit, I ripped some material for
the wedges, tapered them at the disc sander and drove them home.

Once dry I trimmed off the excess and sanded smooth the
sickout.

If you are interested in what other projects I am working
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leave a comment you know what to do, Thanks for watching.

https://www.briansbenham.com/building-a-live-edge-slab-coffee-table/