Hooped coffee / TV tables

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emabear

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I have seen these advertised and keen to try making one myself. Anybody with thoughts on construction? are they laminated form or hardwood with segmented hooped ends?
 
If you look at this one, identical top and bottom halves joined on the equator.

https://www.made.com/hooper-storage-coffee-table-natural-ash
Initially appealing but they place form above function. They are "reverse Tardis" - they take up more space than the surface area they provide. You can't put your coffee down (or use the shelf space) anywhere near the ends. Depends on your room layout. We have a coffee table in front of a long 3 seat sofa with an armchair at one end so the armchair user and sofa dwellers 1 and 3 would have to reach an inconvenient distance for a flat space. The % wasted space will be inversely proportional to the length of the table, a short one will be hugely inefficient. Some designs have sharper curves at the end so may be a bit better, so you could build a 'box' with thick material and use a router to put a curve on the outside of the ends as half way house.
 
If that’s what he is referring to Jacob that’s not really something that would be very easy to make at all, I’ve always thought I could make anything in wood, but that would make me scratch my head for a little while, yes if we imagine a letter O cut out of half inch plywood, one forming each side and another couple in the middle, then probably with half inch bits of pine glued up to the edges which would then give us a good glueing surface and probably use that special flexible plywood, never used it but I’ve heard about it, and wrap that round, not an easy thing to do at all! Quite right Richard a recipe for a lot of spills Ian
 
erm, not very!

I'm with you there, but can see why some people like them.

When you walk into a showroom things sometimes stand out. Bit like the Gold paint Volvo estate cars in the late 80's, OK under showroom lights but get it home and think "what have I done......." (not that I ever did). SAAB did one in what I described as cat-sick green, but they still sold a few.
 
I know a joiner made one of these for himself, to test out his vacuum kit. Made the ends that way and connected to flat panels, which he then biscuit to the sides, sanded, filled all the joins in 2 pack and then discovered spraying the finish to be rather difficult to get it into the inside.

But as you say it is a simple design, and made from segmented sections it wouldn't cost much to make. Only think about the finish as you'd probably want to use filler to hide the joins, only once complete it would be difficult to spray finish, the gun won't fit inside.

You could make it as 2 components rather than 4 (Glued up end segments being a single component)
2 deep U shapes, so only a single join in the middle, cut from sheets of ply(possibly use a template to get as many shapes out a single board as poss', but again you'd need a strong joint and a way of finishing the inside to hide the join.
It would be easier to spray/finish open ended U shapes, then join them
Unless you make the join a feature with an opposing direction strip, possibly even metal.
 

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