How To Build a Modern Coffee Table (That looks Delicate, but isn't)

When you're making videos for youtube , it's all about doing something new .

So when we started designing , building and making plans for pieces .

A few months back , our focus was completely on doing just that making something new , new dresser , new rocking chair , new desk , new dining table , new dining chairs , new , new , new , and that's great .

That's the reason that I started making videos in the first place coming up with new things is literally my favorite aspect of everything that I do .

But sometimes it's nice to go back to something old couple that with the fact that we get a lot of requests for plans on pieces from our back catalog .

And this seemed like the perfect excuse to try something new , which is making something old anyway .

So that's what we're gonna do today .

Update and improve upon an old design and not just any old design , but literally the first thing that I ever designed and built .

And this was way back when I was taking a night class at a local community college way before I had any tools when basically I knew that I liked to draw furniture and I wanted to find out if I liked building it .

And if woodwork was for me , it was , anyhow , if you want to build this too , we're going to have links to the plans in the description along with all of our other pieces .

So check that out if you're interested .

OK .

So we've got all of our lumber rough cut into oversized chunks and now we're ready to start building .

And I guess if you're familiar with the old piece , one of the most common questions is probably gonna be in , what way is this piece any different ?

Or more importantly , better than the old one .

And there's a few that said , let's start putting this thing together and then we'll circle back to that .

I don't want to get too into the weeds this early .

All right .

So we're gonna start off by making our four legs .

And I always like to do this by cutting out a parallelogram that'll yield two legs .

So that means we need two parallelograms .

And you can see here that I'm using my Rockler cross cut sled , which I happen to think is perfect for this kind of cut that said it's not the only way to achieve this .

And you can certainly do it with any regular M gauge a mitr saw or just a piece of plywood and a few screws , which I'll demonstrate later in the video with our two parallelograms looking identical .

Next , we can mark out the finished shape of our legs and then we can cut those out .

And for this , you could use a tapering jig if you happen to have one .

But to circle back on what I just mentioned , here's how I can do it with a simple sled .

So basically , you'll get a piece of plywood , lock your fence in position and establish a cut edge .

Then we're gonna set up some temporary fences using plywood scraps on the sled so that we can repeat this cut as many times as we'd like .

And we'd like to do it four times .

At this point .

We have four tapered legs and four still rectangle shaped stretchers that we need to turn into leg subassemblies .

So the next step is gonna be cutting miters on all eight of these pieces .

And again , I'm gonna use a sled to get this done actually the same sled .

But this time , even though to make this cut , you could still use a Mitr gauge or a mita , I actually think that the sled is a superior method and we get deep into the reason and theory for this in chapter 4 , 14 of our plans , cutting the mitr joints .

And actually , since we get a lot of questions about what our plans include and how they're structured , we decided to upload this chapter as an example chapter and we talk a little bit more about it there .

So I'll throw a link to that in the description for anybody interested in finding out more .

All right , those pieces are looking good .

So now we can go ahead and assemble them and we can use dolls or dominos alone to do this and it'll be plenty strong .

But if you want to make them extra strong or if you like the look of it , we're also gonna cover how to make and install some splines using a simple table saw jig and we'll cover how to make the jig as well .

All right , I'm gonna let mine drive over night and then the next day I can trim and , or sand everything flush so that we can finish off the leg subassemblies by cutting the taper on the top edge .

And because I love them so much , I'm gonna use another Sledd to get this done .

So here I'm marking out the paper that I want to cut and getting my Sledd all set up .

Now , you might notice that when I actually go to cut them , you can see some domino mortises have already been cut in .

And that's because with just about any project , it's usually not best to completely finish off a piece and then move on to the next one and so on and so forth .

More typical would be to take something as far as you can and then set it aside and eventually come back to it at the proper time .

And that's because most pieces aren't sized .

Absolutely , but rather in relation to something else and to illustrate that point next , I'm gonna determine the thickness of my stretcher by referencing the taper that we just cut on the leg .

So if 100 people built this table , all of the stretchers would have unique thicknesses .

What ?

Oh , sorry , thick .

OK .

So we're jumping back in time here to before we cut our tapers and we're gonna cut the joinery for attaching our legs to the structure .

And for this joint , you could use Domino's dolls or pocket screws .

And if done properly , all should be serviceable .

And I know to some of you using a pocket hole might be sacrilegious .

But honestly , it's gonna be so inconspicuous within the project that I think it's a perfectly fine method .

All that said before we did anything .

Actually , before we even started this project , we made a test for this joint to make sure that it was going to be strong enough .

Should we test it ?

Mm .

I don't know .

I'll wait till tomorrow .

I let the glue here .

All right .

Fine .

I really want to stand on it though , man .

Yes .

Do you have or I don't know what he's worried about .

Yeah .

OK .

Back to reality .

And if you're worried about the pocket hole version , don't be , yeah , like this in this way is more than OK , let's turn our attention to the top for a minute .

And if I'm being honest , this was kind of grunt work .

So I'm gonna go ahead and have my shop assistant take care of it .

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Thanks and safe .

Now , let's get back to the building .

So at this point , if you used pocket holes , then obviously you've already assembled everything .

But if not , that's gonna be the next step .

And since this is pretty straightforward , actually , real quick before we do that , let's test how strong this joint really is .

Doesn't do anything .

But if we both stand on it , I feel like that is not gonna break it .

OK .

I did nothing .

Maybe jumping a little bit more on it .

Oh , I heard something .

Oh Yeah , we got a little crack .

We got a little crack in the , oh , it's so it's not even the joint .

It's actually doesn't surprise me .

It's actually the piece of wood split , the joint is still fine .

So , all right .

So if you're wondering how strong the joint is , it's stronger than the wood .

Now , it's probably a good time to circle back to that question that I posed early on in the video and that was in , what way is this piece any different or more importantly , better than the old one ?

And as I said , then I think there's a few .

So subjectively , the geometry is just better when I first started designing , I had this mindset that all angles needed to be whole numbers and usually in increments of five .

But as I've progressed , I've realized that oftentimes cutting arbitrary and unknown angles isn't really any more difficult than cutting known and whole number angles .

So take this portion of the table , for example , what's more important to my eye now is the convergence of points see how the angle of the top changes , right , where the continuation of this line would intersect .

I like that .

Whereas in the past , the angle changed kind of arbitrarily all because I wanted this angle to be a whole number .

I also happen to think that the blind Mitter is a nicer looking joint and probably stronger for this application than the half laps that I've used in the past .

And I also like the fact that they look the same when viewed from either the long or short end of the table .

Whereas with the half laps from one view , the leg is elongated and from the other , the stretcher elongated .

So you had to choose another .

And arguably the biggest change is the overall dimensions of the table .

So my original design is for a pretty low table .

Now , I happen to like really low and long furniture , but I also know that I might be in the minority .

So in the plans , we have dimensions for this table as well as a taller version that's more on par with standard dimensions that you might find .

Now , there's a lot more differences that I don't have the time to get into here .

But the biggest improvement in my eye from a production point of view and this was really important to me because the whole point of making plans is that it's relatively easy for anybody to replicate .

Is this intersection here in the past ?

The way that I cut this left almost no room for error .

Not only did the thickness of the stretcher have to perfectly match the thin end of your taper , but the width of the stretcher also had to come out perfect .

So that 45 degree cuts along either edge would perfectly match the thickness of your leg pieces .

But in the new design , the only necessary match is the thickness of the stretcher in relation to the end of your taper .

Meanwhile , the thickness of your leg pieces and the width of your stretcher can be anything reasonably close and we make it easy to refine everything after the fact .

So it's basically the difference between trying to perfectly nail one thing versus trying to perfectly nail two things simultaneously , which contrary to intuition is more than twice as hard .

OK .

So the way that we're gonna attach the two together is using these exposed floating tenons .

And this is a detail that requires a fair amount of work and that you really only notice from low angles .

So if you want to simplify things .

You could definitely skip this , but I happen to think that it's a pretty nice detail .

So here's how we're gonna do it .

Well , I guess first you could certainly do this with a drill press and a chisel or even a domino if you have one .

But we're gonna cover making a simple jig that kind of turns our router into a domino and then use that to cut mortises in both the base and the table top , which will be the same size and then we can make ourselves some floating tenants to attach everything .

Now , before we make these attachments permanent , we're gonna cut an edge detail on the underside of the table top .

And this is another place where I think the design has improved and to make this cut , we're gonna use the same jig that we used to cut our splines .

But if making this cut scares you , there are other albeit slower ways to make this cut or you could just go for a regular 45 degree chamfer instead another optional quote unquote improvement that we're gonna make is the addition of this thumbnail profile on the back side of our legs .

And Sean and I have been using this detail a lot , I think because it's a great combination of rounded but still crisp and it just really helps the piece to feel complete .

Now , you should see some names scrolling across the screen and those are the names of my new Patreon members .

So first and foremost , let me say thank you all for the support .

I say it time and time again , but it's true , you all are integral to enabling me to be able to do this .

So thank you .

And hopefully you should have received your t-shirts by now .

But if not , they're in the mail and also don't forget that anybody at the $10 tier gets a $15 discount code for plans just because I hate the idea of somebody double paying for something .

So if you want a t-shirt or a discount on plans or more importantly , if you just like the content and want to support the show , I'll have a link to my Patreon in the description .

So take a look at it if you're interested .

And as always , no pressure if you're interested in checking out these plans or any of our others , definitely give us a look and don't forget the example chapter that we uploaded .

If you want to have a little preview of what our plans look like in any case .

Thank you for the support and thank you for watching and we'll see you in the next one .