Farmhouse Dining Table with Epoxy Resin Inlays

Farmhouse Dining Table with Epoxy Inlays Using Reclaimed Barnwood

This week I built a modern style farmhouse dining table with epoxy resin inlays a Parsons table to be more accurate. A Parsons table features legs pushed out to the ends and flush with the top and was designed almost a hundred years ago. To be a basic lasting design whether left unfinished She then gold or in this case inlaid epoxy resin and reclaimed wood. This farmhouse dining table is built from a mixture of red and white barn wood oak that is likely 50 to 100 years old. My friends at vintage reclaimed lumber in Oklahoma City provided all the wood for this project, and they are the sponsors of this video. I pick out my boards. You can see the issues working with wood like this. None of these boards were straight, and many of them were cupped or twisted for being such a simple design. This was one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever Completed every step along the way was a learning experience, and I had a few setbacks along the way. The legs are made from this reclaimed beam.

That was almost 15 feet long we brought the beam into the shop to mill the legs, and the first step was to cut them down to 32 inch long sections. The beam was about 11 to 12 inches wide in about five and a half inches tall, and as you see, I had to flip the beam over and Make this cut in two passes Using this giant medieval Tanna whit’s bandsaw. I resaw the leg blanks in half, and this is where I Encountered my first hiccup. The blade was deflecting and preventing me from getting straight cuts. Now I managed to get the leg blanks greased on the bandsaw. But that left a lot of cleanup work to be done to get them squared up. Next, I ran the leg blanks through the jointer to get to flat and square surfaces. Then I had to use this 14-inch rip blade to cut the legs to their final width a four and a quarter inches square Back in my shop. I laid out all the boards for the table top and measured out how much good material I had in each one I ended up with an alternating pattern of red and white oak boards for the tabletop. And then I could cut these boards down to a rough length of 90 inches long. This farmhouse dining table is going to be 7 feet long, and this gives me a bit of wiggle room before cutting the tabletop to its final length. I Ran all these boards to my jointer to get a flat edge, and then I cut them down to their last width of 5 inches over on the table saw. I Started with the five boards. That will make up the extended middle portion of the table and I’m using Dominoes to help with the alignment. Since the boards are a little bit warped Probably more than I needed, but it helped pull these boards back into alignment. I added dominoes and glue to put these two boards together. Now, as a bit of a task to get these two boards to line up. But with a little bit of coaxing and an excellent wooden mallet, I was able to make it work. Once the glue a draw I took the boards out of the clamps and I use my Stanley number 5 Jack plane to smooth. The bottom and then I skip playing the boards to help flatten the top without losing too much of that character of the wood.

I Repeated this process for the remaining boards and then glued up all 5 planks. That make up the long section of the tabletop again Using dominoes for alignment and to help pull everything together as straight as I could get it with a bit more coaxing I got the whole top in the clamps and added some call boards wrapped and packing tape to the end to prevent further bowing Once the top had dried I flipped it over on my workbench and shimmed up the high spots Now the idea here is to use a router sled to flatten the bottom as much as possible. Then I could flip the whole thing over and hit the top of the table. Only removing the high spots and leaving all the character With the longer section of the tabletop done now I could add the two shorter boards to the ends that the legs will sit flush against I Sanded them down and use the legs to mark the exact width. They need to be and then rip them over on my table saw. I Clamp the legs flush with the end of the table and use the leg on the other end to mark their length, which I cut over on the miter saw. I Had a Domino’s to these boards and attached them to the longer portion of the table with some glue and a little bit of brute force clamping pressure to pull everything into alignment. I Came back with my jack plane and also this small block plane to flush up this board and the seam to the rest of the tabletop. Moving on to the legs, the next step was to hit them with a belt sander and an 80 grit belt to remove most of The grit built up over the last 60 or so years. Once that was done it was time to start pouring the epoxy resin inlays. I started with the farmhouse dining table top, and I used aluminum tape here to short the bottom of the table first. This is my first time to use this East Coast resin, and I had excellent results. I mixed equal parts resin and hardener and made sure it was thoroughly mixed before I added the blue-green and white pearl pigments to get the depth of color. I was going for and now it was time to pour as you can see here. My first pour in the table top was a bit sloppy, and the uneven surface caused it to spread out a little bit. I got a bit more efficient with my pours, but I still had a lot of overflows that I had to address later I also mixed some sawdust into a batch of epoxy resin and filled any of the small gaps with boards connected The legs had several large cracks that I decided to backfill with this bondo fiberglass.

Resin instated of epoxy for Farmhouse dining table

Resin It’s much cheaper than the two-part epoxy resin. I was using, but in hindsight, I think I would have been better off Just filling everything with the same pigmented resin. This caused some issues of having the chip away some of this resin that was showing through the pigmented resin. Later on and Once at a draw, I came back with the colored epoxy and filled it in over the bondo. The resin I wanted to leave some of the checks for aesthetic reasons, but some of the bigger cracks had to be addressed for stability. Also, a quick tip doesn’t use regular packing tape as I did here. It did not contain the epoxy resin well at all; I quickly switched back. So using the aluminum tape also these epoxy pours took several weeks to complete. I had multiple surfaces to fill and often. I would come back after the epoxy dried to find that it just flowed down into some unseen crack. After pouring the epoxy, I used the heat gun to pop any air bubbles, and then I came back to remove the over-pour with a chisel after it dried. I also sanded down the resin, and it was here that I realized the sanding was heating the resin and making it easier to Chisel away I tried using a heat gun, and this worked great This made my epoxy over pore removal go much faster and have a much cleaner result.

I repeated this whole process all over again on the knots and cracks in the wood that I used for the aprons and once all these numerous epoxy resin pores were done. I sanded the resin first was 600 grit sandpaper then 1200 grit and finally 2,000 grit to get the shine that I was looking. For now, to begin assembling the farmhouse dining tables, and this is where I ran into a lot of issues. I use the sheet of plywood on the Flattest portion of my shop to have a good surface of reference to fit at the legs. I clamp the legs in place added a few weights to keep the table from blowing up and then Mark the alignment of the legs. The aprons were cut oversized, and I use this setup to mark out their exact length of roughly 25 inches. I cut them to fit on the miter saw and then repeated this process for the other three aprons. I came up with these 45-degree rest and a drilling jig the mortise had a slot for diagonal braces to hold the legs of the apron and Spoiler it did not work at all the idea was that shizz allowed these mortises.

Where a 45-degree angle that was going to hold the aprons could rest up against the leg and Then I would drill a lag bolt in through the leg to secure everything. Having the legs held on only by a single bolt made them far too shaky, and I had to remake the whole apron structure because I had already glued the battens in place. So back to the drawing board, I had to make all new aprons and rethink their connection to the legs again. I cut them to fit against the legs. But this time I marked out with the apron made it up to the legs. I Cut in two dominoes to the end of each apron and matching dominoes, on the legs themselves. Now I could dry fit the aprons and add the sinner stretcher and battens seen here also using dominoes. I took the whole apron assembly apart and then reassembled it piece by piece. This time was adding glue the way I clamped up the table base without the tabletop in place cause some significant issues.

I’ll explain more in a bit. But first, you see me putting the tabletop in place and then marking out where I need to cut it flush with the legs. Which I then did with my tracks off I added some dominoes to the aprons that are going to allow me to attach the tabletop with some tabletop buttons and Finally, I can move on to the finish. I use this general finish’s satin water-based topcoat. It’s my first time to use this finish, and I’m happy with the results. I put four coats on I put in all the tabletop buttons and attached the tabletop, and that’s when I discovered some issues with the fit. When I clamped up the Apron structure to the legs, the uneven clamping pressure and the fact that none of the reclaimed wood is perfectly straight. Managed to pull the base out of alignment, and this left me with these gaps, and this table did not meet my standards, This whole time, I was building a second table in the background. I learned from those mistakes in the first table fix them on the second table, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

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As found on Youtube