Do-it-yourself exclusive lagoon table: master class

Step-by-step photo instructions for making an original coffee table made of wood and epoxy resin

Sometimes, when decorating the interior of a country house and decorating the premises, you want something like that - unusual, stylish and not like everyone else. The main problem is that original and really high-quality works, for example, designer furniture, are expensive. But if you have "straight" hands and a great desire, you can make a thing that will not yield to the work of venerable masters. In this article, we'll cover:

• How to make an original table with an unusual tabletop in the form of a seashore
• How to properly work with epoxy

Home table, one in a million

First, let's show what happened to the user of the portal with the nickname aboba.

And now we will tell you how to make such a table without having much experience in carpentry work. But first, the background of the project.

aboba

My house is in the finishing stage, but I have long wanted to do something with my own hands. And so, one evening, sitting on the couch, I realized that I was missing a table. There is nowhere even to put a mug. I started looking for suitable furniture, but I didn't like anything on the domestic expanses of the Internet. I went to foreign sites and saw a table that, as they say, hooked me. Here he is.

The user's ardor was cooled by the price of a work of authorship - more than 10 thousand. Euro. T. because the soul demanded just such a table, and there was no way to get the original, aboba decided to do it myself. The only thing is to make some adjustments in accordance with your skills.

aboba

The stone, like the countertop in the photo above, is definitely not mine, and the appropriate tool for processing it is needed, but the tree suits me, although I am not a joiner. From it I decided to make a table.

After collecting bit by bit information on the technology of manufacturing such furniture and watching all the available videos, the user has developed a concept. The table will be based on elm, whose textured wood and properties are highly valued by cabinetmakers.

Having bought the required volume, aboba cut the workpieces to the desired size, roughly processed and glued two pieces into the tabletop, placing them on dowels.

Important: workpieces must be well prepared before gluing. Remove all wood defects, knots, places damaged by insects. The cavities were filled with colorless epoxy resin. The surplus was polished. According to aboba, he did not fill two large defects in the places of large knots with epoxy, but cut them out with a milling cutter to a strong base, turning them into creeks on the “woody” bank.

After waiting a week for the workpiece to grab properly, the user brought the countertop into the living room, put it on a stool and began to think at what height to fix it and what base to make.

If legs, then what? From wood, metal and what shape. After going through several options, including a completely designer one, as in the photo below, aboba settled on the geometry of the base, like the original - a cube.

The underframe was formed of 2 cm thick plywood assembled in a "bag" and glued on.

The operations for finishing the base are standard: processing with a plane, grinding and coating with special oil.

The next step is to mark the "coastline" on the countertop.

aboba

I remembered my school drawing lessons and drew a wavy shoreline, a reef and two backwaters.

Further, taking a manual router, the user, like a sculptor, cut off everything unnecessary from the workpiece.

The aboba tool was used for the first time in my life, but after a little training, everything worked out as it should.

The third stage is the production of "water" from a transparent epoxy resin tinted with a dye in the color of a sea wave. For this we made a "bath" - a form of plywood according to the dimensions of the table top.

The user glued the corners of the mold with masking tape in one layer. The joints are overlapped to avoid leaks. To prevent the epoxy from sticking to the tape, it can be coated with a thin layer of silicone or liquid soap.

Important: to pouring epoxy resin must be approached with all responsibility. In addition to protecting hands (wear gloves), eye organs (goggles) and respiratory tract (respirator), it is necessary to expel air bubbles with a hairdryer. If this is not done, they will remain in the "water" layer. Although bubbles (in the form of solidified soda) can be experimented with when making design work with epoxy.

Important: In this work, epoxy resin was poured in a layer no more than 1 cm thick per day. T. Since the thickness of the countertop is 70 mm, the process lasted for a week. The entire volume of epoxy resin was painted at once, before adding the hardenerto avoid color variations. The table top is completely covered with epoxy on all sides, including its lower part.

And it happened by accident. The resin, due to its high fluidity, penetrated under the countertop, pressed by the load. The bottom layer thickness was about 2 mm.

Before pouring the epoxy, you need to look at its characteristics and be sure to read the manufacturer's recommendations for the thickness of the permissible layer to be poured at one time.

aboba

Air bubbles from the resin are expelled by the air flow from the hot hair dryer. In this case, the epoxy surface is completely smoothed and becomes transparent. In my experience, it is necessary to expel the air with a hairdryer, periodically repeating this action for at least 2-3 hours after pouring, especially with a resin layer of 5-10 mm.

The countertop took 12 liters of epoxy at a price of 1600 rubles. for 1 liter.

After the polymer gained strength (after 7 days), the forum member disassembled the formwork and proceeded to the monotonous process of eliminating minor defects, grinding and polishing the product.

Then he connected the tabletop with the "leg", placing them on glue and dowels, having previously milled the corresponding groove on the back side. The next stage was the final polishing of the table top and the application of three layers of glossy varnish with a spray gun.

According to the user, he removed the grossest flaws with a rotary sander. Then he brought out the planes, grinded and polished the tabletop with an eccentric sander. The grain changed sequentially: 80, 120, 180, 220, 240, 280, 320, 400, 500, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000. Despite all efforts, even after the "two thousandth" grain, the surface remained dull. Even special car polishing pastes did not help. Only the application of a finishing layer of varnish straightened the situation and the table, as they say, “played” with gloss.

The table feels like it weighs about 90 kg. You can sit on it, and nothing will fall off or break.

It took the user 3 weeks to make the table.

But in fact, if we set aside the waiting time for the strength of the glued products, it took 3-4 full working days.

The cost of making the table was about US $ 30,000. rub. Affected by the high price of epoxy resin.

aboba

I am completely satisfied with the result. The gloss does not fade, the coating is not scratched, it is easy to clean with water or soap. The application of varnish is 100% justified. Small scratches, if they appear, can be polished. Even if you drop something heavy and sharp on the table, the defect is easy to fix. You just need to cut out this place on the countertop with a router, polish the edges and plane to transparency and fill it with epoxy again.

The user does not intend to stop at the achieved result and plans new work on this technology.

Appreciate golden hands and diligence, click like!

More in the FORUMHOUSE theme learn about the original table and ask a question aboba about the features of its manufacture. We also advise you to study the topic table with embedded glass.

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In the video - the process of making an unusual mirror with an aged wooden frame.

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