Glulam Coffee Table

Bryce here. For my day job I am a Superintendent for a custom home builder and I love every minute of it. One of the perks of building houses is all the scrap materials that can't be returned or used. So a lot of the time it creates opportunity for me to get creative with different items and put them to good use. 

A glulam is a structural beam. It is engineered to be stronger than your typical 4x8 or 4x10 douglas fir beam that you might see over a common window header opening or door space that is load bearing. Oftentimes, glulams are used for very heavy loads, oftentimes carrying entire wall sections and roof-weight where the load needs to be properly supported in an open space underneath. Glulams are one of many types of engineered beams and tend to be the most common, along with LVLs, but we will save that for another time.

On a house we are building at my day job, there was a scrap 5' section of glulam that would have been thrown away. 

Let me take you through the process of how I made this into a beautiful piece of furniture.

Step 1

I had a co-worker help me miter the ends so that the legs would have a "waterfall" aesthetic. A miter is an angled cut that allows to points to meet, which creates a seam at the tip. This is a much cleaner look than a butt-joint, which is if you were to cut the legs flat off the end of the piece of beam and attach them directly as is. I used 4" wood screws, 3 at each end to attach the legs to the top. Counter sunk the screws, and filled the holes with wood filler to make them disappear. 

Step 2

I cleaned up the edges of the glulam with an electric sander using 60 grit sandpaper. I made sure to round-off all edges and sand off any bad chunks or lettering that came printed on the beam from the manufacturer. 

Step 3

I applied Minwax Ebony stain. Michaela wanted a dark stain, close to a dark brown with black hues. This was the perfect stain for that. Make sure to use long brush strokes and let the stain set for at least 24 hours. It will lighten a touch as it dries.

Step 4

Apply a clear coat of some sort to help protect the wood. I used a satin sheen, but you can also use a flat or gloss sheen depending on the space. I wanted something right in the middle so I went with Satin. There you have it!