| Blog series by Cory | updated 753 days ago | 3 parts | 6002 reads | 14 comments total |
Part 1: The rough work
My Dad asked me to make a table for his office where he could work on some computers. His office is in a building that was built in 1880, so it’s got some really cool beams and exposed brick walls. We had torn a building down that was built at the same time and I kept some of the timbers, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use some of them for this project. Here’s the beam (it’s 12’ long, 12” wide, and about 3” thick): At some poi...
Part 2: Flattening The big top (not the circus kind)
Muscling around this lumber hasn’t been easy. I need to have a perfectly flat top and bottom surface, and it’s too wide for my planer and jointer. I guess that means hand tools. I spent quite a bit of time using my Lee Valley low angle jack plane and my smoother to flatten both sides of the table top. I forgot to take pictures of the process (my arms woulda been too tired to hold up the camera anyway), but believe me it generated a lot of shavings. Here’s the top nice a...
Part 3: Finishing up the table
I spent quite a bit of time flattening and smoothing the table top last weekend. I used mostly my Lee Valley low angle jack plane, a #4 smoother, and card scrapers. I did use a little sandpaper on the edges to break them. The finish is 2 coats of a 50/50 BLO and mineral spirits mix. I find that mix to be much easier to apply than straight BLO. After that cured came 4 coats of General Finishes Armor Seal and a coat of paste wax. That meant the top was complete. Then came the bottom. ...
