Building a Custom Metal Table Pt.1 — Design, Machining, and Welding the Base

A half-inch slab of scrap aluminum, a pile of laser-cut steel, and two late nights in the shop — the Core 4x4 conference table starts to take shape.

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Building a Custom Metal Table Pt.1 – Design, Machining, and Welding the Base

Core 4x4 has been growing fast. With about twenty employees and an expanding production schedule, Monday morning meetings on the shop floor were not cutting it anymore. The solution? Build a conference table from scratch. Not just any table — a custom aluminum-top, powder-coated steel-base table designed and fabricated entirely in-house. In this first installment, Spence walks through the design, the machining, and two long nights of welding to get the table base built.

The Plan: A Table the Team Built Themselves

Spence Schramm in the Core 4x4 fab shop wearing a Core 4x4 shirt, introducing the conference table build project

The idea started simple enough: design a conference table big enough for the whole team, build it in-house, and put it in the upstairs conference room. Spence had the design drawn up for a while — a massive aluminum tabletop sitting on a powder-coated steel base with adjustable leveling feet. The tabletop is a half-inch slab of aluminum that had been sitting outside the shop for years, picked up at scrap price. As Spence put it, “sometimes I overdo things in CAD.” This table is going to be heavy. The aluminum alone is probably around 400 pounds.

For the base, the team over at Critical Laser in Lynden, Utah, handled all of the flat plate cutting. Spence sent them his designs, and they laser-cut every bracket, gusset, and leg section with etch marks for weld placement. If you need sheet metal or laser cutting work, Critical Laser is the real deal — they handle all of Core 4x4’s bracketry and long arm kit flat plate as well.

The Aluminum Tabletop

The tabletop is the centerpiece of the entire build. It is a single piece of half-inch 6061 aluminum with the Core 4x4 logo laser-cut directly into the surface. The plan is to eventually polish the raw aluminum to a mirror finish rather than powder coating it, then top it with tempered glass. But that is a project for a later installment. For now, the aluminum just needs to stay flat and serve as the reference surface for welding the top plate.

Starting from the Ground Up: Adjustable Feet

Laser-cut steel foot plates and mounting hardware laid out on a workbench with bolts and nuts for table leveling feet

Spence designed the table with adjustable feet so the team can level it on an uneven floor. The concept is straightforward: a massive steel foot pad gets welded to a 1.5-inch bolt, then the bolt threads into a nut welded inside the bottom of each table leg. Spin the foot to raise or lower each corner.

The parts looked good on paper, but there was a snag. The laser shop cut the nut holes a bit bigger than specified — a miscommunication on the drawing. Rather than recut the plates, Spence decided to work with what he had. This is a recurring theme with shop projects: you adapt, adjust, and keep moving.

Machining on the Haas Lathe

Haas CNC lathe in the Core 4x4 machine shop being used to face adjustable foot bolts for the conference table

To get the foot bolts perfectly centered and flat on the foot pads, Spence ran them over to the machine shop and threw them in the Haas lathe. The goal was to face each bolt and leave about an inch of material that would fit snugly into the foot plate hole. That way, you set the bolt down, it self-centers, and you get a clean tack weld every time.

Most of the team was over in the other building shipping orders, and only one machine was turning parts, so Spence could steal the lathe for an afternoon. One down, three to go — each bolt only took a minute to face. Quick work, but it made a noticeable difference when it came time to weld.

Day One: Welding the Legs

Spence examining the tacked-together table leg pieces in the Core 4x4 welding bay with laser-cut steel components visible

With the feet prepped, Spence moved on to the table legs. And this is where the design regret kicked in. The legs are an angular, geometric design that looked great in CAD but turned into a welding marathon in real life. Every seam needed to be accessible, every angle needed a clean bead, and the table had to be flipped and repositioned constantly to get a good welding angle.

Welding sparks flying as the steel table base legs are being tacked together in the Core 4x4 fab shop with a Jeep visible in the background

Spence started by tacking everything together to make sure the puzzle fit, then broke it all back apart and welded each leg individually. That turned out to be the right call — trying to weld inside the assembled base would have been a nightmare of awkward angles and blind spots.

By around 6:20 in the evening, the base was tacked together and starting to look like a real piece of furniture. But the welder Spence was using belonged to the production team (the shop’s spare welder was being repaired after falling off the forklift during the studio build). He needed to wrap up and get it back. By 7:00, he called it a night.

Day Two: Grinding, the Top Plate, and Upper Legs

Spence in the Core 4x4 shop looking at the table base progress with the welding station visible in the background

Day two started with the grinder. The welds on the base were solid but not pretty, and since this is a piece of furniture that is going to sit in a conference room (not hidden under a Jeep), Spence took the extra time to clean up every bead. The laser-cut edges also had some burr from the cutting process, so he smoothed those down while he had the grinder out.

With the base finished and ground down, the next step was the top plate — the steel plate that the aluminum tabletop will bolt to. This is where things got interesting. The half-inch aluminum slab is heavy enough to cause real warping problems if the top plate gets too hot during welding. So Spence bolted the top plate directly to the aluminum during welding, using it as a giant heat sink and straightedge to prevent any deflection.

Spence working at the welding station in the Core 4x4 fab shop with the table base components and hexagonal LED lights visible overhead

With the guys helping move the heavy aluminum sheet into position on the hoist, Spence tightened the bolts and started welding the upper legs to the top plate. Critical Laser had left etch marks on the plate as weld guides, so the placement was dead accurate. Each leg position was tacked, checked for square, then fully welded in place.

Where the Table Stands (Literally)

By the end of day two, the table had two major assemblies: the welded base with adjustable feet, and the top plate with upper legs welded on. The top plate still needed to be mated to the base, and then the whole steel structure was headed to a neighbor’s outdoor sand blaster for media blasting before powder coat.

Wide shot of the Core 4x4 fab shop with the table base on the BendPak hoist and leg components visible on the shop floor

The aluminum tabletop is going to get its own treatment — router chamfered edges, wet sanding from 400 grit all the way up, and a cut-and-buff polish for a raw mirror finish. But that is a story for a future installment.

For now, the table base is taking shape, and the team is starting to see the finished product in their heads. It is heavy, overbuilt, and exactly the kind of thing you would expect to come out of a shop that builds off-road suspension parts for a living.

Frequently Asked Questions

The tabletop is a single piece of half-inch 6061 aluminum plate. Spence picked it up at scrap price and it sat outside the Core 4x4 shop for years before being put to use. The Core 4x4 logo was laser-cut directly into the surface by Critical Laser in Lynden, Utah.

The aluminum tabletop alone is approximately 400 pounds. Combined with the steel base, adjustable feet, and hardware, the total weight is estimated around 1,000 pounds. Moving it into the upstairs conference room became its own engineering challenge in a later installment.

Critical Laser in Lynden, Utah, handled all of the flat plate laser cutting for the table base and the aluminum tabletop. They also cut all of Core 4x4's long arm kits and bracketry. Spence recommends them for any sheet metal or laser cutting work.

Core 4x4 is a fabrication and manufacturing company. Building the table in-house was a way to create something unique that reflects the team's skills and identity. The table features the Core 4x4 logo laser-cut into the aluminum, custom adjustable feet machined on the same lathe used for production parts, and a steel base welded in the same shop that builds off-road suspension kits.

No. The plan is to wet sand the raw aluminum from 400 grit up through 2000 or 3000 grit, then polish it to a mirror finish. The steel base will be powder coated black, but the aluminum tabletop will be left as polished raw aluminum with a tempered glass top over it.

What’s Next

Building a Custom Metal Table Pt.1 — this video
Building a Custom Metal Table Pt.3 — sanding, polishing, and the big move upstairs

Want to see more behind-the-scenes content from the Core 4x4 shop? Let us know in the comments. As the team keeps growing, there will be plenty more projects to share. sales@core4x4.com | (385) 375-2104