Building a Custom Metal Table Pt.2 – Welding, Sandblasting, and Beveling the Edges
In Part 1, the Core 4x4 team laser-cut an aluminum tabletop with the company logo and built a steel base from scratch. Now it is time to finish welding, get everything sandblasted and powder coated, and start prepping the aluminum top for its final finish. Spoiler: nothing about this project goes exactly to plan, and that is what makes it worth watching.
Finish-Welding the Base
After a week away helping with production orders, Spence finally got back to the table project. The first task was welding the top legs to the base plate, then mating the tabletop frame to the base structure. The table had been sitting in two pieces — a heavy steel base with adjustable feet and the flat top frame — and getting them aligned on an uneven studio floor took some creative problem-solving.
Spence measured from each foot pad to the bottom of the tabletop on all four sides. One side was coming in at 32 inches, but the opposite side was noticeably low. Rather than trying to shim or force it, he used a welding trick: placing a single tack weld on the high side and letting thermal contraction do the work.
Welding tip: When you tack one side of a joint, the bead contracts as it cools. If the other side is only held by gravity, the piece will “hinge” toward the weld. You can use this thermal dynamic to fine-tune alignment before committing to a full weld pass.
While the tack was still warm, Spence lifted the low side with his foot on the pad and got it to move just enough — about a sixteenth of an inch — to bring all four corners within tolerance. Once he was satisfied, he tacked the other side to lock it in and ran full weld passes on every joint. The base was done.
Off to Sandblasting
The table was too large for Core 4x4’s in-house sandblasting setup, so Spence loaded it onto the forklift, got it into the truck bed, and drove it up the street to Cle — a company that builds industrial stairways and railings. They have a massive outdoor blasting area that could handle the full-size table frame.
On the way, Spence ran into a local customer — the same guy whose JL Jeep was featured in a previous Core 4x4 YouTube video with a 4-inch lift kit, crawl arms, and steering. It is a reminder of the relationships Core 4x4 has built with the local off-road community in Utah County. The shop powder coats parts for local enthusiasts regularly, and those connections go both ways.
Cle got the table blasted same-day, which meant the team could powder coat it the very next morning. After blasting, the slag and imperfections that were hidden under the raw steel were much more visible, so Spence did a final cleanup pass with a grinder before sending it over to the powder coat shop.
Powder Coating the Base
There was just one problem: the table was far too big to hang from the powder coat line like a normal part. The team needed a way to wheel it in and out of the oven without lifting it.
The solution was custom caster feet. Spence grabbed bolts from Double D Bolt — a family-owned fastener supplier that has been working with Core 4x4 since the company started 12 years ago — and welded them to caster plates. The casters would thread into the table’s foot pads, letting the team roll the entire base into the oven on wheels.
He also needed to protect the threaded foot holes from powder. The fix was simple: weld a nut onto the end of a tube that threads into each foot hole, sealing the threads off. Then the actual caster bolts go through the other end. Creative, functional, and built from scrap in about 20 minutes.
One note on the welding: the caster plates were zinc-plated, which is notoriously difficult to weld. Zinc fumes are toxic and the plating interferes with the arc. Spence ground off as much zinc as he could before welding and kept good ventilation — something to keep in mind if you are ever welding on plated hardware.
With the caster feet assembled, the table rolled into the powder coat oven for a black finish. The result looked great — a clean, durable coating that would hold up in a conference room without showing scratches.
Tabletop Prep: Epoxy Experiments and Beveling
With the base done, attention turned to the aluminum tabletop. This is the show piece — a half-inch slab of laser-cut aluminum with the Core 4x4 logo cut through it. The original plan was to fill the logo cutout with black epoxy resin, creating a high-contrast inlay effect.
Spence did a test pour with black epoxy pigment paste mixed into resin. The consistency was thicker than expected — the part A had thickened with age, making it hard to pour. He mixed it anyway and used a torch to burn out the air bubbles, which is a standard technique you see in epoxy table builds. The torch worked, but the thick mixture was not ideal.
The epoxy test was left to cure overnight while Spence moved on to the more immediate task: beveling the edges of the aluminum tabletop.
Beveling the Aluminum Edges
The laser-cut edges of the tabletop were sharp — dangerously sharp in some spots, with burrs left over from the cutting process. Spence wanted a clean chamfer all the way around for both safety and aesthetics. He grabbed a router with a bit specifically designed for aluminum (softer metals can gum up standard steel-cutting bits) and started testing on the back side of the logo lettering where any mistakes would be hidden.
The first few passes were a learning curve:
- Cut direction matters. Going against the rotational direction of the bit caused gumming and a rough finish. Switching to cut with the rotation gave a much cleaner result.
- Speed adjustment. Turning up the router speed improved the cut quality on aluminum, reducing the tendency for chips to drag.
- Burr interference. The laser-cut burrs were catching on the router’s plastic guide bearing, causing uneven cuts. A quick pass with a grinder to knock down the burrs before routing solved the problem.
- Depth control. Too deep and the chamfer ate into the face of the lettering, leaving a weird profile. Spence dialed it back and found a depth that gave a nice bevel without losing the letter shapes.
After burning through the practice letters on the back side, Spence had the technique dialed in: first pass downhill against the router rotation at medium depth, then a lighter second pass uphill with the rotation to clean up any remaining burr. The router bit was already showing wear after just four letters on one side, so more bits would be needed for the full table perimeter.
The tapered bolt holes also needed attention. Spence tested beveling one of the mounting holes for counter-sunk bolts, but realized going too deep would not leave enough material for the tapered bolt heads to seat properly. He decided to only bevel the top side holes (the visible side) and leave the bottom as-is, using flat-head counter-sunk stainless bolts that he special-ordered from Double D Bolt in 5/8-inch.
What Is Next: Sanding, Polishing, and the Big Move
At the end of this session, the project status was:
- Base: Fully welded, sandblasted, and powder coated black. Done.
- Tabletop: Edges beveled on one side, logo lettering chamfered. Needs sanding (starting at 400 grit and working up through 2000+), machine polishing to a mirror finish, and the epoxy logo fill.
- Assembly: Both pieces need to be moved upstairs to the conference room — a challenge given their size and weight.
The epoxy test came back looking promising after a few hours of cure time. The plan is to pour the final epoxy fill after the table is in place upstairs, minimizing the risk of damaging the finish during transport.
Part 3 covers the wet sanding, polishing (which killed three polishers), and the harrowing trip up the stairs. Stay tuned.
Frequently Asked Questions
Watch the Full Series
- Part 1: Laser cutting the aluminum top and building the steel base from scratch
- Part 2: Finish welding, sandblasting, powder coating, and beveling (this video)
- Part 3: Sanding, Polishing, and the Big Move
Core 4x4 manufactures control arms, steering kits, and suspension components in Orem, Utah. Visit core4x4.com | sales@core4x4.com | (385) 375-2104
