Pallet Coffee Table

During the school holidays I was requested to built some furniture by the boss. My wife quite likes the rustic look as it is in vogue right now. This makes it easier for me as the style requires the use of recycled timber as well as finishes that aren't perfect.The project I intending to build was a coffee table using recycled wood. 

Lately I have been building up my collection of tools for various wood projects and house alterations that I have been doing. The addition that I required for this project was a Biscuit Joiner. The role of this tool is to cut slots into the side of the wood to join (in this case) wood panels in parallel to make a wider surface. The tabletop for this project was made out of an old pallet. The legs were recycled from gluts, which have a similar purpose to pallets. I like this timber because it is square as well as it seems to be disposable to many builders and companies and therefore readily available to me. 

To make the tabletop I lined up the wood that I needed already cut to the size of the table that I wanted. I placed the pallet pieces out so I could see what they would look like together making sure that no pieces were bowed. With my pencil I numbered the pieces of wood so I would always know which order they would be in and I drew lines across the two pieces of where I wanted the biscuits joins to be. I could then use my joiner to put slots in exactly the correct places. I put glue along the edge and placed the biscuits in the slots and clamps together only the first two pieces of the tabletop. I have found that if you attempt to glue too many pieces of wood together at the one time they buckle and pop so I do this stage in two or three parts. Having wide enough clamps is imperative. For this project I did not have adequate clamps. I resorted to using rope and it is no where near as good compared to if I had long enough clamps. 

As I am relatively new to creating projects from wood I inevitably make mistakes at some point during each project. I'm sure in the future these mistakes will be become less as I become more confident and more experienced with woodworking techniques and practices. The major mistake that I made this time was building the coffee table from the top down. This made it really hard to make all of the legs square. I have learnt from this and will make sure that in the future I build from the ground up. As a result of building the legs last I initially had a wobbly coffee table. With making many adjustments to the crossbeams and the legs I finally had a sturdy coffee table. I have used four pieces of wood to act as supports between the legs. This is because all of the wood is pine and is light. These supports pieces are needed to keep the legs square at all times. If the wood was heavier these supports may not have been needed. 

As a finish I used several coats of a stain and varnish. The colour of this stain is known as Wenge. I have been really impressed with the stain and varnish as it means I can just use several coats and at the end I finish with a nice glossy coat. The table top required three coats to get a nice shiny finish with the rest having only two coats.

Tools that are essential for this project: square, level, saw ( I used a hand saw and a drop saw), drill, paintbrush, biscuit joiner, clamps, pencil, sander

Tools that aren't essential but are good fun to use: router ( first project I used it on)