The Home-made Industrial Style Dining Table

We just moved to a new house and needed dining table for 4-5 people. We have spent quite some money for all the renovation, so a ready-made dining table is too costly for me. I googled to find if there was anything I can do about it and so I thought of my own industrial style DIY project for the weekend.

Step 1: Materials for the Works

Material List:

- 18mm or thicker (25mm) plywood or hard wood, or pallet planks if you have

- 25x50mm box steel (or 30x60mm or greater if you want it to look bolder). 1,5mm thick is strong enough.

- Power tools including a welding transformer

- Screws and miscellaneous items (rubber spacers)

Step 2: Prepare the Table Top

- My table dimension is 700x1500mm (for 6 people). So I cut the board of ply wood into this width and length.

- Cut 2 stripes at 100x1500mm and 2 stripes at 100x500mm from plywood to pretend the thick look of hard wood board to match the design. Cut the stripes at 45* using the miter saw

- Aligning the edges to the table top’s edges & nail the stripes to the underside of the table top.

- Ok, set it aside and let’s make the legs

Step 3: Cut the Steel for the Legs

- Cut the steel into dimensions. The image’s the draft dimension of the leg.

- Table height is 750mm (exclude table top). So we need 4 pieces of 720mm steel for the legs. 30mm spare is for the rubber spacers.

- The inset width is 500mm. We cut 05 pieces of 450mm (for shorter aprons) (exclude 25mm on each shorter side of the 25x500mm box legs)

- The inset length is 1300mm. So we need 2 pieces of 1200mm (for longer aprons) (exclude 50mm of each longer side of the 25x50mm box legs)

I'm sorry that I didn't take any photo of the pre-cut steel as my hands was too dirty with oil to touch the camera.

Step 4: The Legs Fabrication

I was so lucky to have my brother-in-law to help me with all the welding works for this table.

- Weld all the pre-cut steel as drafted. Use a 90* angle alignment so that your table wouldn’t like a drunk man going home. J

- We use rectangular box steel, so I set the shorter edge of the box (25mm side) upward and the longer side (50mm) sideward to make the legs stronger

*** Big Note: Please make sure you have a real good eye protection goggles/glasses when welding. I experienced eye flash (eye burning by UV rays) when using non-standard goggles. Trust me, it hurt really really bad. You don’t want to know about it.

- Now you have finished all welding works, use a grinder to grind down welding spots smoothly.

- Paint the legs with the color of your favorite. I painted mine black.

Step 5: Finishing the Installation

- Turn the table top upside down and align the steel leg on. Use metal screws or metal drill bits to drill holes on the aprons, 2 holes are enough for each.

- Use 6mm long wood screws and screw the table top and the legs together. Be aware of longer screws or you'll get them coming through the table surface, which is not very nice then.

- Install 4 rubber spacer/stabilizer for adjustable height. For this step, there are 2 ways, you use a smaller bit than the diameter of the bolt of the rubber spacer, then thread it and turn the spacer in. Or you use a bigger bit than the bolt's diameter and weld a nut onto the pre-drilled hole. I chose the second way.

- Turn the table over.

- Before this step, get the legs painted and let it dry overnight.