Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table

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Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - finished table Living on an island gives you plenty of opportunities to recycle old tables, jars, plastic planter pots, and so much more. Here it is difficult to throw things away so instead we try and up-cycle them to use them in our home. The table frame is from a bamboo table that had a broken glass top. The frame is in great condition and can be used to build a new table. All you need is some small pieces of bamboo to make a beautiful table for your home.

Total Time: 2 Days

Yield: 1 Bamboo Coffee Table

Supplies:

bamboo table frame
sander
1 Sheet sandpaper
80 small bamboo sticks
1 Can Bison glue
scissors
360 m Fine Jute
hack saw
cutting block

Steps:

Sand off all the old varnish from the table legs. It is important to not sand the leather wrapping on the table legs.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - sand the finish off of the legs

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - closeup of bamboo before sanding

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - sanding with care to protect the leather wrappings

Once the table has been sanded, take your garden hose and wash the table. Leave the table out in the sun to fully dry before you start working on the table.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - wash and dry in the sun

You will now need a lot of thin bamboo to cut for your project.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - bamboo in a sort of miter box

Measure the pieces of bamboo to fit across the tabletop. Mark the bamboo so you can cut the pieces you need for your project. Depending on how large the table is will depend on how many pieces youll need to complete this project.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - measuring the table top

Apply a small amount of Bison glue to both sides of the table at the same time. You can usually apply enough glue to glue down 8 pieces of bamboo at the same time.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - apply glue to both sides

Place the cut bamboo on the table and make sure you have enough glue so the pieces will stick. You do not want a lot of glue left over because you will need to have enough room to wrap the cord around the bamboo once the glue has dried.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - glue down the cut pieces of bamboo

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - table top half covered

Glue down all your pieces of bamboo and allow the glue to dry overnight. If you live in a place that is very warm the glue will dry within a few hours.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - finish glueing down the bamboo and allow to completely dry

Cut a piece of fine jute that is 6 times the length of the table top to start off with. This will not be enough to finish lashing all the bamboo to the table top. If you try and cut too much cord it makes it very hard to work with.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - cut jute 6x the length of the table top, to start lashing the poles down

Tie the cord on the table. Make sure you get it tied securely because you will be pulling on the cord when you are wrapping the cord around the bamboo and the tabletop.

Always work from left to right when lashing the jute on the table top. You are going to start off on the left and wrap the cord across the top of the bamboo, feed the cord down through the bamboo, and pull the cord towards you so that the cord is now on the underside of the bamboo table.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - begin wrapping

Pull the cord up and place the cord across the bamboo piece to form an X. Feed the cord down between the bamboo stick and pull the cord under the stick and toward you. You want to arrive at the left side of the bamboo stick. This is the same place that you were at when you wrapped the cord.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - wrapped with X shapes

You will now wrap the rest of the bamboo sticks in the same way. You will be working on the right side of each stick to start the X. If you run out of cord it is easy to cut another piece of cord. You will need to attach the cord to the underside of the tabletop. You are knotting the cord to the other piece of cord. Make sure you do this after you have fed the cord through the bamboo. Pull the cord forward and continue wrapping the bamboo to the tabletop.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - continue wrapping

Once you are done with both sides of the bamboo we will need to make a figure 8 down the center of the bamboo tabletop. This holds the bamboo in place and makes the top of your table stronger. You will need to measure the tabletop and figure out the center, now divide this in half. This is where you will place the cord on both sides of the tabletop.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - wrapping down the center of one half of the table

You will need to cut 16 times the length of the tabletop. You need plenty of cord to make the chain stitch so be sure to cut a good amount of cord. In order to make it easier to work with, I wrapped my cord up. Otherwise, you will be pulling the cord through the loop each time and this is very difficult to do.

Repairing A Bamboo Coffee Table - another view of the center half chainstitch wrap

To make your figure 8 - Form a small loop in your cord, feed the cord over the top of the bamboo, go under the piece of bamboo and come up the back side. Now take the longer piece of cord and feed it through the loop. Pull the cord and loop tight to form figure 8. Continue like this all the way down the tabletop to lash all the bamboo pieces together.