This old coffee table has been in my family since I was a small tadpole.. it had teeth marks in it from were I was a baby and my parents refinished the top after I cut all my teeth.. ha.. I have had it for 15 years now and it was just to heavy to move around my living room so I wanted a lighter and more modern table.. so be easy on me in this build cause it is a prototype to a dining table I'm going to build later.. there are some things I will point out about needing better joinery in later steps.. so here I go..

Step 1: Tear Down Time

tools:

table saw

planer

band saw

drill

supplies:

wood glue

n95 dust mask (sanding)

screws (I used the old screws they were 2'' )

I started by ripping apart the old coffee table and this thing had a lot of screws in it.. 20 screws holding the legs together and 20 more hold the table top braces together.. and 8 screws holding the top to the legs.. 48 screws.. and no glue.. wow.. it was all 2x6 boards.. so this would be easy to build from 2x4's or 2x6's

Step 2: The Start of a New Table

here I didn't put any pics of the planer and jointer in work.. all boards started out being 1.5'' thick went to 1.25 after I planed them down to get off old finish and now I have to get new planer knives ..but I am gluing the top and trimming the end grain.. getting it ready for it's profile. it came out 1.25'' after planing

Step 3: Bevel the Edges

In this step I'm putting a 45 degree bevel on the bottom edge to give it a lighter appearance..

table saw with a panel sled made this step easy.

Step 4: Angles

first I took the longest boards from my legs of the old table and cut them on the band saw diagonally to were I had 1.5 inches at the foot of the leg and I got two legs from one board.. then I cut a bunch of angles on scrap wood trying to get the angle I liked for the legs and I ended up going with 8 degrees.. make sure you cut that at both ends opposite of each other.. legs were 1.25'' thick and 16.75'' long

Step 5: Setting Up the Legs

here is were I made my first mistake.. I cut two front aprons and screwed them to the legs.. the mistake is .. dumb me put glue on them not thinking I was going to tear it back apart to put dowels in leg supports later.. cause I was thinking at this moment that the screws were to hold it tight while the glue dried and then I was going to drill the hole out to accept 1/2'' dowels later.. but that didn't happen..

Step 6: Checking the Over All Look and Stance

checking everything and still not seeing that I screwed up right yet.. so I liked the stance so I put on a stain that I liked .. I already tried on some scrap 6 different colors of stain and this dark walnut from varathane caught my eye better than minwax brand

Step 7: Laying Out the Leg Supports

checking leg supports took a bit pondering .. the side that was against the leg was a 15 degree cut and I decided I would just butt the supports together at the ends.. the black marks was what I was removing the flush the supports together.. I just knock them down with a plane and sander..

Step 8: Putting It Together

so this is were my second mistake shows it self.. in the first picture you can see I could only get one dowel in the leg because of the front apron that must have glued it self cause I didn't remember doing it at the time.. ha.. so I cut two pockets hole in the upper part of the leg support so no one could see it.. wwweeellllllll the third mistake was stupid me got in a big hurry and forgot the wood was planed down to 1.25'' and set the pocket hole jig to 1.5'' so I busted the side of two legs when I tightened the screws down so I pulled the screws and epoxy the wood and clamped waited and screwed it together..

Step 9: Plugging the Holes

my first way I wanted to remove the screws and drill it for long dowels in the legs to aprons.. but after looking thru all my long dowels to my surprise I had no 1/2'' or 3/8'' dowels so I said heck with it I'll cut some plugs and hide the screws and hope it doesn't fall apart .. lol but it turned out to be rather strong I stood on it and bounced and have been sitting on it to put my boots on in the morning.. the last picture is were I screwed it to the top and stained it and put one coat of wipe on poly on the bottom..

Step 10: Some Finished Pictures

these pictures were after I put 3 coats of wipe on gloss poly and let it dry for 3 days (humidity was high in north Carolina when I was finishing it ) the video I shot wasn't great it was compiled with my moto x phone thru highlight reels and then I uploaded .. I have other footage. I'm make a different video later.. hope you folks like it .. any questions just ask.. I thank you for looking..