When I left off, I had just tacked the frame together. I finish welded all of the crossmembers, working in sequence to minimize warping and keep the table square.
After welding, it was close but still had to be pulled into the final shape. After pulling around with some carefully placed ratchet straps, I was able to get the frame square a little better than 1/16" on the diagonals. Here you can also see that the crossmember welds have been ground smooth.
The next step was to build mounting tabs to hold the top in place.
These are just pieces of 16ga stainless steel welded to the crossmembers and legs.
All finihsed up!
I added some 1/8" thick rubber strip to the top of the frame. This will isolate it from the concrete a bit, provide a grippy surface, and space the concrete away from the stainless just a bit.
The last step before assembly was to seal the concrete surface. I decided to use an acrylic sealer, which should be more than adequate for a coffee table.
I bolted through the tabs using rubber washers to isolate the stainless from the concrete. This is strong enough to hold it together, but will not over-stress the threaded inserts I have down inside the concrete.
This photo shows off some of the weld finishing I did on the crossmembers as well.
All finished! I'm not quite happy that some of the rebar created ghost lines in the surface, but overall I'm happy with the finished product.
As expected... it's heavy.
As I loaded up I realized I don't have any coasters in my apartment. So I made some in matching 304 stainless!
Success!
Now back to the Jetta!!!
