Build a spruce coffee table for $25

Collect choice spruce boards and lay them out on your workbench. The wood I used all started out at 11⁄2" thick. Lay out enough stock to make all the pieces required for the tabletop. Use a planer to bring down the thickness of the parts to 13⁄8". This step will make your boards straight, true and flat-ready for cutting the top slats, top sides and top ends. Use a stop block on your tablesaw or mitre saw to get the exact, matching lengths for each of these parts. Although these are all listed as 21⁄2" wide, leave them slightly wider for now. The extra width may come in handy later when you're fitting the slats in the tabletop.

Next, clamp together the top sides, face to face with their inside edges facing up. Mark the location where all the 21⁄2"-wide top slats connect to both of the top side pieces in a notch. The plans show how each pair of slats needs a 1⁄2" space between them. Use a square and pencil to make a line directly across both edges, showing where each edge of each slat belongs.

Keep the top sides clamped together while you cut 1⁄2"-deep kerfs across the inside edges. I used a radial-arm saw for this job, cutting to define each side of the notch. Pay close attention to the layout lines you drew earlier: the notches need to be exactly 21⁄2" wide.

Although I could have chosen to remove the waste from within each notch with the radial-arm saw, I used a bandsaw instead. It will make a smoother cut in this application. I set the bandsaw fence for 1⁄2" (the depth of the notches), then removed wedge-shaped pieces of wood, first from one side of each notch, then the other. Continue flipping the stock end-for-end, and by the fourth or fifth pass, you'll have a flat-bottomed notch with straight edges.

Next, on the side edges only, carefully lay out and cut the mitred ends to shape. Then, on the outside edges of all four edge parts, rout 3⁄4"-wide x 1⁄4"-deep grooves, on centre. These accommodate the fill strips that will be installed after the top is assembled. They are meant to hide the screws that secure the slats.

Top Notch
Dry-fit the slats you cut earlier into the notches on both side pieces. You may have to plane the width of the slats narrower to fit. Number the parts in sequence to make it easier to reassemble everything.
Predrill screw holes through the middle of the grooves in the top side pieces, then join all the slats to one top side edge using #10 x 3" wood screws without glue. Repeat to attach the other opposite top side. This dry-fit is meant to see how everything comes together.

Cut the top ends, mitre their ends, then join these to the rest of the growing frame without glue. Remove all screws, apply glue to the joints, then reassemble everything permanently with screws. Be sure the screw heads are countersunk below the surface so they won't interfere when you glue the fill strips in place over top.

Cut the side and end fill strips to size and add a 1⁄16" chamfer along the top and bottom outside edges. Mitre their ends, then glue the fill strips into the tabletop grooves.

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