Rebel Coffee Table, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020

“Rebel Coffee Table” – Star Wars-inspired table

Star Wars-inspired coffee table with mahogany rebel inlay into padauk and bloodwood, with walnut/cherry base, and Tatooine drawer fronts.


This is a little coffee table for our lair, which has also become my “office” when I’m working from home after lab work. My goals were 1) design it with a smaller footprint than my crappy old table. This is a little room. 2) have a slider for quick access and stowing of keyboard/mouse. 3) cover my PC tower, which I wanted more accessible from my futon. I intentionally made it asymmetrical to reduce size, though I can easily move the top to be symmetrical if I want in the future. The left overhang will double as a mount for an adjustable arm/second monitor I can swing out of the way when not working. And 4) have a touch of geek to it, which ended up being more than a touch 😂.


The top is padauk and bloodwood, inlayed by hand with African mahogany Rebel insignia. The legs are walnut firewood I milled myself. The rest of the base is cherry. The drawer fronts were scrollsawed from purpleheart, chakte viga, padauk, bloodwood, and maple.
Pardon the poor pics. It’s a dark basement. And I ain’t hauling this thing upstairs to photograph. lol

River Coffee Table – Daniel D. Brown, 2018

We finally have a new coffee table! Lombardy poplar (not to be confused with tulip poplar, which isn’t actually a poplar), walnut, epoxy (West System), and blue ocean pigment (Eye Candy). This was definitely a learning experience, with many mistakes and challenges along the way. But in the end, I’m more than happy with how it turned out – and it’s much prettier than our old particle board/veneered table. The top came from a tree cut down across the street from our house. It had been standing mostly dead for several years (like most of the Lombardy poplars in the US). I chainsawed and milled the log myself. This table took me almost exactly a month to build. See my instagram for several posts detailing this build.

     

 

 

 

“Shadow Box Coffee Table,” Daniel D. Brown, 2004

I have a huge collection of fossils, shells, rocks, and other natural artifacts. I also had an old shitty table with particleboard insets. I decided to cut those out, build a shadow box, , a drawer, new legs, and get a custom-cut glass top (extra thick so my pets can jump on it without fear of breaking).

It’s not exactly well built or anything. But I’m pretty pleased with it for someone who hasn’t a clue what he’s doing.

Here was the process:

CoffeeTable01_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable02_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable03_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable04_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable05_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable010_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable07_DanielDBrown_2004 CoffeeTable09_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable08_DanielDBrown_2004_600

And the collection:CoffeeTable12_DanielDBrown_2004_600 CoffeeTable011_DanielDBrown_2004_600