Making a Hexagonal Penny Side Table with Epoxy Coating (Beautiful!)

In this video I will show you how to make a hexagonal penny table with epoxy glaze. This size is ideal for use as a side table. I have been collecting Euro cent coins since introduction of the Euro as currency in Europe. I have over 8000 coins now so it was time to do something with them.

Video transcript:

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Tony Needs Hobbies. My name is Tony and I am really excited because finally, after spending about two weeks in the house I will be starting a new project in my garden shed that involves metal and wood. Because this week I will be making a penny side table. Have fun watching

I am going to make the top for this table out of an 18mm or ¾ of an inch thick board of wood. To give it a more robust look I will cut it in half and glue it together so that the thickness will be doubled. By diluting the wood glue with 10 percent of water I can use a brush to spread it nice and evenly so that the glue will be everywhere where the boards touch. Using many clamps and some scrap pieces of wood I attempt to distribute the clamping forces evenly for a tight bond. It is hard to clamp well at the center of the boards. Therefor I’ll put the center on a raiser of sorts, in this case a paint bucket. To press down on the boards I put this heavy piece of lead on top of it all and let it sit overnight so that the glue can dry.

The glue has had the opportunity to dry for almost 24 hours, but I’m a little bit worried because maybe I diluted the glue a bit too much. So let’s find out what happens when I remove the clamps

In my country, humidity differs day by day. That’s why I glued the two boards onto each other with the grain in opposite direction. It’s stronger and it will not bend or warp. Fortunately nothing bad happened when releasing the clamps. It all seems to be stuck together. I couldn’t find my compass so to draw the hexagon I made this jig fitting a screw and a pencil in a scrap piece of wood. The table top will be a regular-shaped hexagon. This is the most natural shape for round objects, like 1 cent coins, to be arranged in. I am aiming to fit the coins precisely, so that there is no extra space and no coins need to be filed or cut. To make the calculations I used the Hexagon Calculator from Omnicalculator.com, linked in the description. I still haven’t got a circular saw or table saw, so I cut as straight as possible using my jigsaw. Then I sand the rough edges and inspect the bond between the boards.

As you can see, the bond looks perfectly fine so I worried for no reason. There is however one little problem area that I need to spend some time on and that is this little hole. I will fill it with some wood colored filler.

To get a quick look of how the table will turn out I temporarily fix the legs. Then I fill the hole with some wood filler. The specific filler that I use cures in three hours. But it’s getting later and later and I decided to go to sleep and continue tomorrow with sanding the filler completely flush.

Today is the next day and as you can see the hole in the wood has been fixed. I will spend this day on raising the edge so that the epoxy will stay where it’s needed and after that I will stain the wood, which is pine by the way, using a mahogany colored stain because that will nicely complement the color of the coins.

I make the raised edge with pieces of rounded wooden profiles. These will be cut at a 60 degree angle so they meet up nicely. I eyeball this angle and leave the strips a bit longer than needed. When fitting the pieces I will sand them so that it will all precisely fit. After fitting I mark the strips and the location where they will go so that I don’t make any mistakes during the next step. That is gluing it all up with some wood glue. When that is done and the glue has dried, I quickly remove the legs so that I can sand everything smooth before branding and applying two coats of wood stain.

Like mentioned earlier in this video, I will use a mahogany colored stain. I think the color will go very nice with the copper coins. I put three screws back so that I can paint both sides while the table top can rest on those screws. Then I apply the first coat of this water based mahogany colored stain. After waiting 4 hours, I lightly sand all the surfaces. Once they are real smooth I apply the second coat and let it dry. Once dry, I re-attach the hairpin legs and turn the table over.

I don’t know what you think but in my opinion this is starting to look really nice. Now the next step is filling the top with coins and I calculated the dimensions of this table top to leave as little space as possible so let’s hope that I didn’t make any mistakes with those calculations.

The coins will be glued using an all-purpose solvent based glue. I want to emphasize the hexagonal shape, so I will use clean and dark coins alternately. I press the coins in their position as tightly as possible because there is no excess space. When all the coins are in place I press them down with a piece of hexagonal MDF with a heavy piece of lead on top of it. I let this dry overnight to be sure that both the stain and the glue are fully dried.

There are only two steps left for me to do and the first one of that is mixing up a small batch of epoxy to apply on top of the coins as a seal coat. Then after about 3 hours I will mix up the big batch and fill this whole thing up.

I weigh the exact ratio of resin and hardener according to the data sheet that came with my epoxy. Then I mix it for three minutes in one container, transfer it into another one without scraping the edges and mix it for another three minutes with a new stirring rod. This all ensures that the epoxy is mixed well. Then I apply the seal coat on the table top with a clean brush and let it sit for three hours.

After three hours I mix the big batch exactly the same way as the small batch. Once thoroughly mixed I apply it on top of the seal coat by pouring it in a gentle way. I do this all in the bathroom after letting a hot shower run for a couple minutes. This makes the bathroom the most dust free room in the house so that there will be no dust falling on top of the liquid epoxy. It gives the most shiny result possible. After ten minutes I use a small torch to pop air bubbles at the surface. This works really well. Then comes the hard part… Waiting until the epoxy has fully cured. That takes at least 24 hours.

I’m absolutely thrilled with how this little table turned out. But I still have around 8000 1 cent coins and I don’t know what to do with them. If you have a suggestion for me, please let me know in the comments. I really hope you’ve liked this video and if you did please hit the like button don’t forget to subscribe and for now I would like to thank you or watching. Bye, bye!