Epoxy Coffee Table

This coffee table is 18" x 48" and is made from Liquid Glass Deep Pour Epoxy dyed with Black Transtint dye, and red cedar sourced from California.

I wanted to challenge myself with a larger epoxy project and I had these red cedar cookies sitting around, so I decided to make a coffee table where more than 50% of the table is epoxy. This in combination with the end grain wood caused some challenges later in the process. I didn't have too much material to work with, so I resawed the red cedar cookies in half, which also contributed to future challenges. I didn't have immediate access to a drum sander, and the cookies were relatively flat after resawing, so I decided to leave the cookies rough sawn for the epoxy pour instead of trying to smooth them out.

The epoxy form is made from 3/4" melamine and the seams are sealed on the inside and outside with silicone caulk to prevent leaks. In total, this table took about 3.5 gallons of epoxy, all I had, and could have used a little more epoxy since some pieces were protruding by almost 1/2" in some places. Once the epoxy had cured for a week, I tried to demold and found that the mold release didn’t work as well as it should have. This led to lots of smashing with a hammer and using an oscillating multi-tool to try to get all the melamine off.

Flattening the table was another challenge because of the end grain I could not use a planar due to the risk of tear out. However, I did use the planar to bring down protruding pieces to the height of the epoxy. To finish off the flattening, I went to another shop and used their drum sander to get the table flat on both sides and to final thickness.

I could finally square up the table using the track saw and add a 1/4" round over with a trim router. I sanded through all grits starting at 80, to remove the marks from the drum sander, and went up to 320 grit which took about 8 hours of sanding. This was about when I started to realize the epoxy table was bending from the heat of being outside. The heat in combination with the end grain wood, epoxy, and how thin the table had gotten, about 1-3/8", are what I believe caused the table to cup in both directions, length and width. To try to pull the table square, I welded a frame from steel c-channel, but that only marginally helped since the table actually bent the steel instead of the steel pulling the table square. I decided this was the best it was going to be.

The table legs are made from welded rectangular tube steel and are placed in a pocket cut out under the table and secured to threaded inserts in the table. I also drilled and tapped 1/4"-20 threads on the bottom of the legs for adjustable feet.

The legs and steel frame are painted with semi-gloss black Rust-Oleum spray paint and the table is finished with 2 coats of Rubio Monocoat Pure and 2 coats of Blacktail Studio's Ceramic Hard Coat.