First CNC Project Results In Coffee Table Of Catan

[Christian Finklea] was inspired by a glow in the dark table, and decided to try his hand at making his own… and it’s absolutely fantastic.

He designed the table using SketchUp Make, and overlaid the continents of our planet on a grid of hexagons — Though it looks like he left Antarctica out of the mix — poor Antarctica! Why hexagons you might ask? Well, his CNC machine isn’t that big, so he had to choose a smaller work piece size in order to make the table. Kind of gives off a Settlers of Catan vibe too…

Once he had all the intricate hexagons milled out, he began assembling the table. Lots of wood glue later the table started looking like a table. Now here’s the fun part — making it glow.

Using what looks like a kind of glow-in-the-dark epoxy, [Christian] filled in all of the country cutouts and waited for it to cure. Bit of sanding later, some more lacquer, and boom — he has an awesome coffee table.

Now if only he had stuck some LEDs in there too like one of these RGB coffee tables we’ve seen — Then you could also play Risk anytime!

16 thoughts on “First CNC Project Results In Coffee Table Of Catan

      1. unfortunately sacrifices had to be made due to the size of my mill bit and the time i was willing to dedicate to the project. dropping down one mill size for more detail added ~5 hours to each hexagon. (something i would do if commissioned, not really for my self)

  1. zoinks, a better choice in router bits would have done wonders to help him. That upward chipping of the wood is most unfortunate to see. I can’t imagine all that cleanup and it would have yielded much better results using a different bit and possibly move speed to RPM ratio. You can see a lot of filler in those places from chipping. And I’m not certain why the joints are so crazy. Perhaps it was a bad hexagon, or his machine is not running square, but the variations in joint widths, even within a single line, is most distracting, and from a CNC is should be no less than perfect and tight.

    1. unfortunately sacrifices had to be made due to the size of my mill bit and the time i was willing to dedicate to the project. dropping down one mill size for more detail added ~5 hours to each hexagon. (something i would do if commissioned, not really for my self) and as stated it was my first CNC project, fine tuning is still a must when i have more time.

  2. Do tell me you have files somewhere. I want to do this with our dining table in the kitchen because the tabletop is feeling the effects of water intrusion, and I want to mill a replacement.

    Nice job, with or without a better bit.

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.