Now that I knew I was going to use beading wire with crimp-secured end loops, I had to decide how I was going to connect the two pyramids. (I decided not to worry about connecting the top and bottom disks until later.) The wire had to connect the insides of the pyramids' peaks, letting the top of the table hang off the bottom (which sounds nonsensical, but is accurate).

I didn't want any hardware at the tips of the peaks; I thought that would spoil their look. I needed to hide part of the attachment hardware by embedding it inside the peaks of the pyramids. I decided to try small J-hooks. I knew that there would be considerable tension on the wire, so the hooks had to be secure.

My first thought was to form the hooks from ball-end straight pins, and capture the balls inside the peaks. I raided my wife's sewing basket for two pins and bent their ends.

Those looked okay, but I started worrying about how thin the pins were. I envisioned the tensioned wire unrolling the hooks. (My wife had also warned me that those balls sometimes slip off the pins.) Next, I tried 16-gauge nails. I wasn't able to get a tight enough hooks. I wanted them to be unobtrusive, and they were too big.

In the end, I found some medium-sized paper clips and formed them into J-hooks by bending them as tightly as I could around a 16-gauge nail.

I created a "knob" for each hook's shaft by bending the end around a crimp tube. These makeshift knobs were small, but I thought they'd be enough to keep the hooks from pulling out.

To create the pockets inside the pyramid peaks, I hollowed out the ends of the peaks with a fine-toothed saw and chisel.

Then I created (triangular) exit holes for the hooks' shafts by shaving small flats underneath the pockets.

A dry test fit shows the hole.

Now I had to decide how to glue the pyramids together. I decided to start with the peak ends of the sides. I realized that my base cutting triangle (plus an unglued base segment) could serve as a form to keep the sides being glued aligned, so I waxed it to keep squeezed-out glue from sticking to it.

Here, I'm gluing the first pair of peak ends. I used my hands as clamps until the glue set. It took just a few minutes.

I had to remove any squeezed-out glue from the partially formed pocket to leave room for the J-hook knob.

After that joint dried, I glued on the third side the same way-flat on my bench. This time I just used the unglued base segment to set the angle. I also filled the pocket with glue and put the hook in place. I had to make sure the hook stayed centered within the three legs as the glue set. (I didn't want it to dry pressed against one of the legs, for example.)

After that joint dried, my first pyramid was truly starting to take shape. I had a nice little tripod.

I glued the other pyramid's sides together similarly, but I made my first annoying mistake. I started over-thinking things and worrying that wood glue wouldn't be strong enough. I decided to use epoxy for the second tripod, and I regretted it immediately. It was such a pain. It was messy and slow to set up, and the epoxy didn't "grab" the wood at the joint as quickly. It worked, but I ended up with a small gap at one joint, and one of the legs was about a degree off. Next time I'll just stick with wood glue.

Now I had another important decision to make-how to sequence the glue up of the base segments to the tripods to complete the pyramids. Initially, I thought I could fully assemble one pyramid, then maneuver the other pyramid's tripod into place before attaching its base segments. I played around with the two tripods, and I was convinced I couldn't follow my original plan. Instead, I knew I could glue one base segment to each tripod, intertwine the two tripods, and then glue on the other base segments.

I attached the first base segment to each tripod. It was very simple. I clamped the side of the tripod to the bench, and then applied glue and hand clamped.

Then I intertwined the two pyramids (never to be separated again) and attached the other base segments one at a time, letting the glue dry before moving on.

After a few iterations, I was ready to attach the final base segment. Due to the epoxy gluing error I mentioned, the opening was slightly too small for the segment. The segment didn't just slide into place like all the other sides had.

I had two choices. I could trim off the end, or I could try to force the segment into position. I chose the latter. There was just enough give in the pyramid to allow that to work. That was a big relief, and now I had two conjoined pyramids.

I let them dry them dry overnight. I wasn't too proud of the epoxied pyramid, because it had slight gaps at the peak. (The wood-glued one was almost perfect.)

I filled the gaps with a glue/sawdust mixture and sanded all the surfaces. I clamped a narrow piece of scrap to my bench to create a little table that would support the pyramid side flat, and I was able to use my sanding block. It was tedious, because the pyramid I wasn't sanding kept getting in the way of the one I was, and I had to sand in sections.

With that done, the pyramids were finally assembled. They just needed some finish. I used flat General Finishes water-based poly, which dries very quickly and doesn't darken the maple. I used strings to suspend one pyramid over the other so the two didn't touch.

Then I carefully brushed the finish on the bottom pyramid (three coats), and let it dry.

I re-strung the two pyramids to finish the other one. Then all that remained was some light sanding, and the pyramids were finally complete. Now I could start on the top/bottom disks.