Refinished bar table with a nice Koi design using the Glowforge to make the stencil

I uploaded a video of the entire process on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/mcyz0ak_vlg

I got this old crappy bar room side table with cigarette burns from an auction and wanted to refinish it.

I strip the table down to find out the center of the top was not solid oak like I thought…bummer. To cover that center plywood I spray paint the center flat black. Then I make a spray paint template of some Koi fish with the Glowforge laser cutter out of some cardboard.

I paint the Koi fish on to the table top with a metallic gold paint.
Stain the bare oak with Golden Oak 210 from Min Wax. Touch up the gold paint template over spray with a sharpie pen. Finally seal the whole table with MinWax fast drying polyurethane clear satin. This project took about half a day of time, and I really liked the end resulting table. I am going to give this to my mom for mothers day I hope she likes it!

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Nice job!

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Oh wow! Great job on it, that’s an incredible transformation! :grinning:

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Thanks!

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Thank you!

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Very, very nice! What a great recycle job.

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Trash + Laser = Treasure

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Great job, love the recovery solution after the ply discovery.

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thank you!

Yep!

Thanks!

Nicely done!

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Thank you!

If you love koi there is one at GinKakuJi in Kyoto that has a head that is 30cm across. I have been lucky enough to be invited to a number of koi viewing parties but have never seen anything like it.

Lovely image, it works well with the table top

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Thanks!

I used to have a koi pond that had some very large koi (about 2.5 feet long) then we had a dust storm that did something bad to the pond and all of the fish died within days.

Great job, your mom will love it.

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Dust can cause algae blooms and that will kill the fish if it is the wrong type. Sorry to hear that you lost them.

Thank you!

Oh, nice table! You did a great job!

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Thanks!