Back-lit Bar Table

It's always good to start with a picture of the final project. This way you can see if the steps I took match how you would invasion this project.

This being the first time I was to build a project of this stature, with a concept and a rough sketch on a scrap piece of paper. It is build, look, test and rebuild if required. The final project is to be built out of cedar 2 x 6's and 2 x 4's.

lexan panels for the images( printed at your favourite printer), and LED lights from Costco.

Lighting the lexan panels is the most important part of this project, because it is the use of back-lit lighting that brings this project to life. So for the lighting I picked up a package of under counter kitchen lighting strips from Costco. These are very affordable and very easy to work with.

Before going to far into the assembly of this project I needed to place a few of the panels in and see if the LED lights were going to give me the affect I was hoping for in this table.

Bending the panels into the router grooves of this round table became quite a challenge, because of the tension that was being put onto the frame from flexing the Lexan. First season learned here that I needed a lager circumference to allow for the tension and also a large lip to hold the tension. So I went from 3/8inch to 3/4 of inch for a lip.

All pieces to this puzzle need to be sanded, stained and clear coated.

Once we have everything finished we need to put all the pieces together, the table posts are mortised to the top and bottom of the table and then secured with L shaped brackets to hold the Lexan panels in place. This is a tricky part to the assembly of this project as all 4 panels need to be flexed in place and then the table clamped to allow the attaching the L brackets. Then the final steps was to attach the legs with wood screws.

Nothing better than seeing your finished piece used for the purpose you created.