Coffee Shop Table Top Project
Some friends of mine run a local Coffee Roasting and Espresso Bar here in my area (Michigan), and they contacted me about building six new table tops for their coffee shop. For the design, we decided to inlay their company logo in each table.
I'm using Maple, Walnut and Cherry.
I decided to start with making the star.
To save some work, I made just two variations, but made them thick enough so that after the glue up, I could slice them in to multiple stars. I did this carefully on the table saw, using my fence with multiple passes as I rotated the star.
Then the table top blanks.
Now, I'm an amateur, and perhaps there is a better way to do this, but to inlay the stars, I centered them over the table top, traced them with a knife, and routed out the shape to prepare for the star. I cleaned up the corners with chisels and the knife.
It's important that you take your time here to make sure your joint lines are tight, but allow the star to fit inside the recessed area. I got better at this as I went along.
Then some passes through my homemade drum sander.
Next is the lettering.
On the first one,I ran it through drum sander after each letter to level off that which sat proud of the surface. On the rest of the table tops I fit all the letters first, then glued them in all at once, before going to the sander.
And here are a few with the finished logo.
The final dimensions will be 24" x 24". I plan on wrapping each with a 1 1/2 inch frame/edge in the contrasting color. So, for example, the two that use maple as the table top species will be framed with walnut (1) and Cherry (2).
I'm looking for your suggestions on the best finish choice. Bearing in mind they are restaurant table tops, so they need to withstand some abuse.
Some friends of mine run a local Coffee Roasting and Espresso Bar here in my area (Michigan), and they contacted me about building six new table tops for their coffee shop. For the design, we decided to inlay their company logo in each table.
I'm using Maple, Walnut and Cherry.
I decided to start with making the star.
To save some work, I made just two variations, but made them thick enough so that after the glue up, I could slice them in to multiple stars. I did this carefully on the table saw, using my fence with multiple passes as I rotated the star.
Then the table top blanks.
Now, I'm an amateur, and perhaps there is a better way to do this, but to inlay the stars, I centered them over the table top, traced them with a knife, and routed out the shape to prepare for the star. I cleaned up the corners with chisels and the knife.
It's important that you take your time here to make sure your joint lines are tight, but allow the star to fit inside the recessed area. I got better at this as I went along.
Then some passes through my homemade drum sander.
Next is the lettering.
On the first one,I ran it through drum sander after each letter to level off that which sat proud of the surface. On the rest of the table tops I fit all the letters first, then glued them in all at once, before going to the sander.
And here are a few with the finished logo.
The final dimensions will be 24" x 24". I plan on wrapping each with a 1 1/2 inch frame/edge in the contrasting color. So, for example, the two that use maple as the table top species will be framed with walnut (1) and Cherry (2).
I'm looking for your suggestions on the best finish choice. Bearing in mind they are restaurant table tops, so they need to withstand some abuse.