pallet coffee table for a friend

My good buddy, Dave, wanted to make a pallet coffee table. We picked up some pallets together a couple of months ago. He started this project at his place but got in a little over his head so he came over and we built it together. His conceptual design. He was going to leave the pallets raw but his wife put the kaibash on that pretty quick. Who knows what kind of nasty stuff is on it. Last week we ran all the pieces through the planer and jointed the slats and recut the 45s for the top. Then I glued the top together into the 2 sides and ran them through the planer again. Yesterday we glued the 2 top pieces together and built the base. The legs are store bought because we ran out of lumber but the rest is all from pallets. Legs and apron are m&t and the stretchers are butt joints with screws and plugs. The 2 long apron pieces are pallet runners. If you look carefully you can see the skid cutouts facing up to keep a little of the pallet character.

It turned out better than either of us expected and gave me some more practice with this stuff. He’s going to sand it and finish it with danish oil and rattlecan poly. I can’t wait to see the finished product. This pallet wood shines pretty well with danish oil.