It’s all the rage to use slab or live-edge furniture, and I love it! A piece of furniture that is so close to natural wood will appeal to those who believe wood is one the greatest creations ever made. The piece’s natural appearance is revealed by the grain and the imperfections and undulations of the live edge. The best part is that slab furniture can be made in a matter of minutes! Our waterfall coffee table (shown here) has one miter joint made with a circular saw, and a dowelled-on leg for support. Thats it! Flattening the slab takes some effort, but it is not difficult. The hardest part is finding a great slab, and thats where our friends at Horizon Wood Products come in.
You can easily find the perfect slab by visiting their website. There you will see images of real slabs in stock and choose the ones that suit your taste and project. Make your purchase and theyll deliver them to your house. No need to borrow a friends truck or take a long drive. Just relax and wait for your lumber to show up. Simple.
Okay, now you have your slab, lets get back to the simple how-to involved in making the table. Weve got three ways to make it even easier. Our short video below will walk you through all the steps, and weve broken those out into a step-by-step presentation below as well. And if you want to save it for a later date, simply download our PDF of the project build.
1) Each slab is unique so the final size of the coffee table is not set in stone. A coffee table should be approximately 102cm long. 46cm is the ideal height. The slab will determine the width.
2) The beauty of a live-edge slab is truly in the eye of the beholder. Some will want to retain the bark edge, while others prefer to keep the hardwood edge below the bark. Often much of the bark will be so loose that keeping it intact may be impossible. Before you proceed, make sure to inspect the edges for any loose bark. Some may pop loose with very little encouragement required. If you wish to keep the bark, it will need to be carefully glued in place at this time.
3) If you are removing the bark there will likely be sections that are not loose. In those cases, an awl, a chisel and a drawknife are all tools that will help with this. Slow and steady are the best ways to minimize damage to the hardwood underneath the bark.
4) With the bark removed, the edges can be cleaned up with a wire brush. Light strokes will be best as youre only working to remove dirt or organic materials left behind, leaving the hardwood as untouched as possible. A rotary tool (Dremel) with a small wire brush would also work, but again dont get too aggressive that you gouge the edge.
5) To flatten both sides of the slab using machinery would require a fairly large jointer and thickness planer. If you dont have a 76 cm planer sitting around, you can still flatten your slab with a simple jig and a router. A shop-made version is fairly simple, with a platform built to support a router with a slot in the bottom to allow the bit to protrude. The router can move across the entire width of the platform thanks to the platform. The platform is supported by two support boards that rise above the board. We purchased one from Woodpeckers.
6) Depending on the horsepower of your router and the sturdiness of the flattening bit, you may need to take multiple light passes across the slab. In our case we were able to remove about 1/20 cm with each pass. To start the cuts, find the highest spot on the first side and adjust the bit depth for the first pass.
7) Start the first pass across the entire board, making sure all the high spots are found, then adjust the bit depth a bit deeper to remove more material. Continue this process until you have a smooth surface. At this point, you will need to decide the thickness of your slab. We were able to get a 1-inch slab.
8) Allowing the grain to flow from the top to the bottom of the table is what makes it so beautiful. Although this may not be as precise as you would like, it is necessary to cut the joint at 45 degrees. However, the live edges of the slab make using a tablesaw more difficult. When using a quality blade and when properly guided, a circular saw is more than capable of the task. Adjust the base of the circular saw to 45 degrees. Double-check the setting by using a square.
9) We want to make our mark near the 46 cm height location, so we made a mark at 17-15/41 cm. We next measured the offset distance from the edge of the base plate to the blade (careful to make sure your bevel is angled in the correct direction), and moved our straight edge guide to that new line and clamped it in place. Simply make the cut by holding the base plate against the guide. Keep moving through the cut as any stopping and starting may affect the finished surface of the miter.
10) Once the first cut has been completed, move the straight edge to the second piece. Mark a new line from the base plate to mark the blade. A mirror image of first cut is taken at the exact location of first cut. If your cuts were smooth you should have a tight joint. If any gaps are found, a little work with a block plane will improve the joint.
11) We used another piece of live-edge lumber for the leg. The slab has been planed to the exact same thickness and the inside edges have been squared. The width of the leg is up to you, but were suggesting a 6-to-20 cm width for the bottom of the foot.The leg is simply held in place with dowels. The dowel locations are marked using the leg as a guide, and the dowel pockets are drilled into the top of the legs using a stop on the bit to control depth.
12) Dowelling centers were used to transfer the location onto underside of tabletop. Then, we drilled the mating dowel pockets into the top.
13) Perform a dry fit on the leg. After the table is assembled, spend some time sanding any pieces that are difficult to reach (underside of top and leg sides, inside of waterfall end) to your final polishing grit.
14) You likely know that endgrain-to-endgrain glue joints dont offer very much strength, but did you know that when you cut a board on a diagonal, you essentially expose a grain pattern that is more long grain than short grain? Mitered joints have great strength, and we chose to make our mitered joint without biscuits or dowels, as these can often add as much misalignment as alignment.We added glue to the mitered joint and then added clamps pulling against the joint in both directions.
15) The waterfall joint will not match the live edge no matter how many times you try. Once the end has dried, you will need to blend the edges. If the offset is very dramatic, you can use a chisel to gently blend the edges.
16) Next, attach the leg. Glue is applied to the dowels, and the leg is glued and tapped in place.
17) We added a few coats of polyurethane to bring out the grain’s beauty and enhance the live edge. It also provides a reasonable layer of protection for the surface of the table.
Much of the beauty and simplicity of this project comes from the wood slab provided by Horizon Wood Products. Visit their website (
