Coffee Table / Wine Rack for Paul's Wife

Paul, a friend from work, asked me how to edge glue to boards together.  Having learned from the greatest (Jim Strawn) early in my career at Boeing, I asked: "What are you trying to do?"  "Oh, you're making a coffee table." After a bit of discussion I invited him over to my house because he'd never done anything like this before and I already have all the tools and a reasonable shop. 

We also discussed design ideas, and two things shaped this table:

1) Four-foot, 1"x8", pine boards.

2) Paul's wife likes wine. 

So we decided to make the table with a wine rack underneath. 

It's hard to find pine in large dimensions, so we just cut three 4'x1"x8" boards into a bunch of 16"x1"x3.5" and glued up each leg out of four of them. Serious clampage needed. We ran out. There was a trick to cutting the grooves in the legs for the horizontal table and wine rack supports (2"), but I don't have pictures and will forego the description here. Suffice it to Say that it was a very cool trick that worked quite well. No fasteners whatsoever. The glue-up left the table legs a bit crooked, so we stacked some bricks on the high corners to hold it flat while the glue set. 

We used a couple stray sticks and wine bottles on the table saw to model the proper structure for optimal wine stackage and came up with 2" gaps between 2.5" supports. Here is the lower wine rack being glued up. 

The length and width of the table was determined by the size of the table top, which was 3 boards edge-glued with biscuits after running the interior edges through a jointer. About 21" wide and 48" long. The outer edges of the legs are 2" in from that. 

It was a trick getting the lower wine rack into the box after it was glued. I thought I could triangle it in one of the sides or the top, but ended up having to cut off and reglue one of the end tabs. Here it is being reglued, and it will never come out of there again. 

Here is the table unfinished (Paul says he will stain it dark), and in Paul's living room. 

The whole project took about 5 hours of shop time.  Three easy evenings.