Coffee Table Part 1

I hope everyone has had a great Thanksgiving Weekend!


I've been giving a lot of thanks this weekend myself. We've had wonderful family in town, spent a lot of time with friends, ate some good food, and started building a coffee table. 


Wait, what? 


Yes, you read that right, I finally started working on my coffee tables. I bought the steel for them last week and was able to begin working on the smaller one thanks to having family in town to watch the Con-Man.

So to begin I cleaned the grease off my steel bars. I just used some Goo Gone that I had but any degreaser or even paint thinner will work.

Ew look at the grease!

Next, before I started assembling it I used my Dremel Tool with the grinding bit to grind off any rough ends. This way my corners will fit together nicely.

Rough End

Smooth End!

I started the small coffee table first. I thought it would be good practice and it would go quickly. I wanted to lay out all my pieces first just to make sure everything would fit together properly.

As I was doing this they kept falling over, so I remedied this by using Gorilla glue to hold it all together until I could tack weld everything. This might sound silly to someone who does this for a living but it worked for me.

I was finally ready to start some welding! My Mother in Law was nice enough to take a picture of me in action. Thanks Ms. Dee!

And after a while I had the base and frame together.

It's not finished yet, I still need to straighten out any angles that aren't 90 degrees, grind off any slag, then polish it up and find some reclaimed wood for the tops. But it's a start! I'm getting excited!

Before to long I'll have this:

Anyone else take on a big project over the long weekend?