Yet another Table

byLabman

79.2K followers

Updated 4 years ago

Last Fall we acquired this nice piece of Burl Maple from the lumber yard. They happened to have a few of these slabs. The one that we liked especially well had bark inclusions with moss growing in it.

The first issue that I had was how to seal the bark and moss without removing it from the table. I wanted to embed the bark into the epoxy layer and keep it intact to show it off in the final piece. I finally settled on sealing it in place with a thin coat of Epoxy applied with a foam brush. Making sure that all of the pieces of bark were sealed was a job unto itself.

Once sealed, I needed to create a dam around the piece. I wanted it to be flexible to follow the contours of the edge. Live edges are very popular right now and I wanted to make this thing as free flowing as possible. I used some 1 inch sheets of insulation board, cut them to size and sealed them with packing tape to make sure they would release from the epoxy when it had cured.

I won't go into all the details of this table but one feature that I want to talk about is the waterfall edge. This is a 45 degree cut on two pieces that make the grain continue from the top to the end support.

The other end (the board wasn't long enough for two waterfalls) is a random piece of Live Oak that I had. I framed it in place with some hard Maple that I had left from another job. I don't believe I have ever seen this sort of thing done before so it should be a nice selling point.

As I was beginning to pour the Epoxy for the table, the weather turned cold (below 65 degrees and the epoxy doesn't cure). So, I needed to take a break from this project and sort out heat for my shop. Several weeks later, I was the proud owner of a woodstove installed and piped in to keep me comfortable in the winter. Now I could keep the shop warm enough to continue working with the epoxy.

I had one more issue to sort out, I needed a jig to cut the 45 degree mitre joint for the waterfall and, since I didn't want to test the jig on this expensive piece of wood, I needed to make another table to check the function of the jig.

I made this from Yellow pine that I harvested back in 2017 and air dried. It seems that I neglected to mention this table but here's a pic of it. I finished it in February. I was going for a rustic look with this table but a fine finish just sets it off.

The jig worked very wel but the corners aren't precisely 90 degrees. (92 1/2) I made a few adjustments and everything squared up.

I was very impressed with the waterfall edge. Here you can see how the grain flows around the corner.

But I digress.

Needless to say, this Maple Burl table was a significant investment in both time and materials.

OK, I'll share the pics.

From the top, you can see the Burl popping up around the bark inclusions.

The grain follows the edge.

At the other end, the framed leg looks pretty spectacular too.

All told, this table took about 6 months to build, in the process, I've completed a host of other things.

This is somewhat like a website. At some point you plan what it is that you want to do. You get started on creating your masterpiece but something pops up that causes you to either take a new direction or set things aside for a bit to sort out some of the details.

Don't fret, it happens to all of us. This project illustrates how many little minutia need to come together to complete it. Your website is no different you are blogging away and becoming a better writer, you are learning SEO, you are refining your skills.

You are becoming an Authority. Authority takes time. Enjoy the journey.