Slab Coffee Table (aka Spoonbill Coffee Table)
This was Matt's second Christmas project gift to me. I guessed what he was up to, and made sure I had a project planned that I thought we could finish (mostly).
Every year our woodworking guild has a picnic and several years in a row we had a sawyer come and slab out a log for sale to the members. This was an off-cut (the outer top-most piece) at one end of the log. This was a white oak log with a number of burls running through it. I bought this off-cut and another full slab. Since the off-cut was relatively small I thought it would be perfect for a coffee table.
I had some walnut that came from a tree a friend gave me. There were a couple of small crotch pieces that had some nice figure and a off-cut scrap that would make a nice cross-piece stabilizing the legs.
I borrowed a router flattening mill from a friend. You set the piece to be flattened between two rails riding on sawhorses, and then mount the router onto a sled which rides on the rails. You pull the router and sled over the piece in multiple passes to flatten the top. Change the router depth and repeat until the top is flat. Then you flip the piece over and repeat the entire process to flatten the bottom. The trick is making sure the top and bottom are kept parallel when you do the flattening. Afterwards we used planes to clean up the top and then did lots of sanding. We cut dados into the bottom to house the legs. The dados were over an inch deep.
For the legs we decided to keep the natural edges and not change their shape at all. They were a little wonky which makes the piece cantilevered and gives it a sense of movement which I like. After the normal flattening and thicknessing process the legs were almost done. Both the top and the legs had some cracks, so we cut some butterflies on the bandsaw and inlayed them to prevent the cracks from worsening. Using the band saw, I cut a bridle joint into the cross-piece. I made matching joints on the legs and slid the base together with some glue. While there was a good mechanical joint, this is a totally cross grain joint, so I slipped a couple of screws through the bottom of the cross-piece into the legs for good measure.
After oiling the entire piece I decided to try out my Christmas gift and sprayed the top with lacquer. Very sweet.
Every year our woodworking guild has a picnic and several years in a row we had a sawyer come and slab out a log for sale to the members. This was an off-cut (the outer top-most piece) at one end of the log. This was a white oak log with a number of burls running through it. I bought this off-cut and another full slab. Since the off-cut was relatively small I thought it would be perfect for a coffee table.
I had some walnut that came from a tree a friend gave me. There were a couple of small crotch pieces that had some nice figure and a off-cut scrap that would make a nice cross-piece stabilizing the legs.
I borrowed a router flattening mill from a friend. You set the piece to be flattened between two rails riding on sawhorses, and then mount the router onto a sled which rides on the rails. You pull the router and sled over the piece in multiple passes to flatten the top. Change the router depth and repeat until the top is flat. Then you flip the piece over and repeat the entire process to flatten the bottom. The trick is making sure the top and bottom are kept parallel when you do the flattening. Afterwards we used planes to clean up the top and then did lots of sanding. We cut dados into the bottom to house the legs. The dados were over an inch deep.
For the legs we decided to keep the natural edges and not change their shape at all. They were a little wonky which makes the piece cantilevered and gives it a sense of movement which I like. After the normal flattening and thicknessing process the legs were almost done. Both the top and the legs had some cracks, so we cut some butterflies on the bandsaw and inlayed them to prevent the cracks from worsening. Using the band saw, I cut a bridle joint into the cross-piece. I made matching joints on the legs and slid the base together with some glue. While there was a good mechanical joint, this is a totally cross grain joint, so I slipped a couple of screws through the bottom of the cross-piece into the legs for good measure.
After oiling the entire piece I decided to try out my Christmas gift and sprayed the top with lacquer. Very sweet.