Well, here’s proof and don’t forget; the most important safety rule is to wear these, SAFETY GLASSES.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqdraj9wvto

Check it out.

Side bar: Here is a great link to the story of the tree to the table created by the church’s webmaster. Look for the photo of the tree trunk with the chain saw. I am told that the chain saw has a 48” cut!!! Click here to see the slide show.

After finishing the church’s conference table in mid-December and getting Christmas and New Years behind, I worked with my clients on the design of the chairs. The wood of choice, of course, was the same as the table. Red Oak with Black Walnut accents. There was still vast quantities of oak from the tree. The design was based on a chair plan I found in FWW. With modifications to some of the basic elements, the chairs will complement the tables. The changes were to the back/front and side rails profile to match the lower leg of the table, walnut plug accents, and the Gothic arch theme of the back splat.

The finish was the same as the table – four coats of Minwax Wipe-On poly. No stain.

FWW Chair

My Chair

The challenge of chairs, I guess, is the angles. With the help of lots of jigs and a Wixley digital angle gauge, some of the difficulty is diminished.

I found the FWW article very helpful. I bought the measured drawings and made a few construction modifications. Mainly, the use of loose tenon joints as much as possible. The milling of traditional tenons on some of the parts and loose tenons on others seemed unnecessary and wastes wood.

There are a couple of milling and construction blogs coming about these chairs and also a blog on my newly made loose tenon mortising jig. Keep in touch.

Sawdustonmyshoulder.

This morning in the shop, I sharpened 5 – 1/2 inch 4 tooth bandsaw blades with my new Dremel tool. Worked like a charm. $175 worth of bandsaw blades saved from the trash.

Take a look at this blog site about how to do this. I saw it several months ago but I didn’t have a Dremel. This site says that the resharpened blades most likely won’t be able to be used for veneer resawing but for everyday general use. I tested the sharpened blades and they work great!!

Here is the link to the site with a short video: http://www.woodturningvideosplus.com/resharpen-bandsaw-blades.html

It took about 10 men to lift and move it to my 12 foot trailer to move it to the church. The legs and stretchers were assembled using oak pins using the draw bore pin method. The table top dropped into position nicely and with a few screws to keep it from “floating off”. :-) You can never trust gravity, you know.

Thanks for watching my progress through the construction of this project. I learned a great deal from it and hope you have also.

Here it is…. my clients hope that church members will stand aghast at the site of this table and the “lovely” metal chairs and anti up for a gaggle of new ones. Preferably, something in leather and oak. Time will tell.

The two side tables are to be added to each end to make the total length 16 feet long and seat 20 people. When not in use, they will stand against the wall.

This was found on the part of the wood that looks like it was once an outside part of the tree and either the tree grew around it or it was deep in the crotch. The side of it didn’t give any clues to what was inside and only when the bark fell off did it revel itself.

Here is a photo of the complete board…

Here is a zoomed up area of the board (the area in question is circled in red)...

Here is a close up of the formation after the outer bark fell off and reveled itself…

Here is a really close up of the grain pattern…COOL!

I haven’t cut into it yet. I am looking for advice on which tool…band saw seems to me to be the best tool. If so, what would be the blade choice?

Thanks.

Here are the photos of the process….

With the template clamped in place, I cut the female part of the inlay with a Delta Inlay kit. I cut the outside of the area with the 1/8 inch bit in the kit and used a 3/8 inch bit with a 1 inch bushing to finish cutting the waste. I did cut the outside deeper. I did this to make sure the inlay would lay flat in the space.

I did flip the template and cut the inlay using the 1/8 inch bit. I did make the cut in three passes. Making sure when I cut the corners in the middle that I slowed the feed rate and held the bushing tight again the template. It worked and I was able to cut the inlay in one attempt.

Here are the pieces laid out ready to fit. I did have to lightly sand the edges of the inlay pieces, round the corners, and bevel the bottom of the inlay pieces so they would fit easier in the space in the table.

And a close up of the pieces.

I dry fit the pieces to make sure of the fit and then used the holes I drilled in the space and a dowel to gently persuade the inlay out of the space.

I used yellow glue to glue the inlay in the table but I used Gorilla Glue on the miters in the center of the cross. I just applied the Gorilla Glue to the joining edges and NOT to the bottom of the inlay piece because I was afraid that the GG would expand and push the inlay out of the table.

Here is a close up of the center of the cross. Hope you can see the mitered intersection. I think this came out very well.

After using a No. 4 smoothing plane and random-orbital sander, the cross inlay is flush to the table top and the walnut is beautiful. I was very careful to make sure the grainlines in the inlay matched up. Thanks for reading my blog. Now, it’s time sand and sand again before using paste wood filler to fill the open grain, staining and top coating.

Here’s the completed inlay.

I made the male parts with 45 degree cuts to form an “X” in the center. (See photo below)

Well, first the kit has an 1/8 inch downcut spiral bit. Have you ever used an 1/8 inch downcut with MDF?

“How’d that turn out, Sawdustonmyshoulder?”

“Not too good!”

That little puppy did cut the MDF alright, but it packed the sawdust back into the kerf so tight that I thought the bit had broken or wasn’t deep enough. After I used another bit to clean out the female part of the inlay, I had to take a chisel and cut out the original kerf.

The only trouble I had in cutting the male part of the inlay was when I was turning the corner in the center of the cross. The bit wanted to stray off coarse pretty bad. (See the detail shot below) I am glad this happens on the male part as opposed to the female. I can recut the male blanks. I can’t remake this table top.

_

The router kit really makes the inlay fit REALLY TIGHT!!!!

I think I will try this on another attempt at the male part. I didn’t cut all the way through the plywood the first time and I had to do a great deal of trimming. What I will do is cut the female part of the inlay then turn the template over to cut the male part. That way the male part will not have to be trimmed before I inlay it.

Has anybody had any experience with this?

When I left you last, I was preparing (down South we say, “fixin”) to work on the breadboards on the big table. Well, I have attached them, and attached the breadboards to the smaller tables also. I have made tables with breadboards before and this time I decided to see if I could come up with an easier more accurate method of cutting the table top. What I did different this time was to cross cut the table top with a router and straightedge instead of a circular saw. I aligned the straightedge on the top of the table and put another straightedge on the bottom. I aligned the bottom straightedge with the one on top. I used a 1/2 inch downcut spiral bit to cut across the grain to the depth of the shoulder of the tongue. I then marked the width of the tongue and plunged the bit to cut the tongue off. Usually, I cut this tongue off with a saw but I have never had much success with this method. Then I turned to top over and cut the lower shoulder on the tongue. After cutting tabs on the tongue, I cut the mortise in the breadboards and used the hollow chisel mortiser to finish the mortises. I used a draw bored tenon method to attach the breadboards with 1/4 inch walnut dowels all the way through the joint. Here is a photo of the top of the table showing the walnut dowels.

I have also finished the skirts…
before inlay

after inlay

The above photos shows before and with the walnut inlay on the big table skirts.

I mitered the corners on the skirts and reinforced the joint with screws and plugged the holes with walnut plugs.

I really like the way the oak and the walnut work together.

The photo above shows the template in place for the cross inlay. I cut the template with a router and a pattern out of a 4 by 8 sheet of 1/4 inch tempered hardboard. The cross will be 62 inch tall and 31 inch wide and 1 inch in width. I think I will use the grain of the walnut inlay in same orientation as the table top. The walnut for the inlay has been under the table for about 3 weeks. The atmosphere has been so humid down here, the table top has expanded about 1/2 mm on each side. Not bad for a 54” table top to expand only 1 mm over its width. I will check the moisture content on the table and the walnut before I cut the inlay. They should be really close now.

Well, next thing is to route the inlay space, cut the inlay, glue in the inlay and finish sanding the table tops. Then, route the edge treatments and start the finishing.

Thanks for looking.

I worked on the table’s skirt which will be 2 inches thick and 3 inches tall when finished. The sides will be 11 feet 4 inches long and the ends will be 46 inches long. I had to glue up the pieces because the longest stock I had was 10 feet and a little over 1 inches thick.

After I glued up the blanks, I glued on a 1/4 inch thick book-matched veneer.

Here is the veneer being glued.

Here is the bookmatched veneer and the seam.

With this seam in the middle of the long sides so I am considering an insert of walnut in the shape of a keystone. This should contrast nicely and match the inset walnut cross on the table top.

I also started on the breadboard ends to the large table. They are going to have to be 14 inches wide to make the final table top 12 feet long.

Here are the blanks. 15 inches wide and 60 inches long.

Since, I only have a 12 1/2 inch planer, I will use my Performax 16/32 drum sander with 36 grit, 60 grit, and 80 grit sandpaper to get them to thickness.

I have an idea on how to mate the breadboards to the table top. I will blog it in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for looking.

Quixote, sorry, no visible curls tonight. I took about an hour sweeping up all of the mounds of sawdust on the floor. There are few under the workbench on the other side. I guess I could have kicked them out and into the photos. Next week. OK?

Here’s the project at the end of the day…

Hey, Quixote, can you see the curl? Between the first two ribs? Here, let me zoom in… :-) That came off the big ole No. 8 jointer!

I made up 8 double-tapered supports or ribs to hold the top flat and allow a mechanism for attaching the legs to table top.

After rough cutting stock to size, I jointed the face and planed to 1” thick and jointed the edges. I used the jointer to taper the sides using the method in this video from Popular Woodworking’s website. Works like a charm! See the link at the bottom of this blog. On the first cut, I did set up a stop block on the outfeed table held all the marking and measuring to a minimum.

I screwed them to the bottom side of the table. NO GLUE was used for this part of the construction.

I used my Kreg K3 Master jig to cut 8 pocket holes in each rib. I drilled 1/2” holes, 3/8” deep on the underside of the ribs to allow for wood movement. This photo of the cross section shows the pocket hole and the relief cut.

The ribs were notched to keep the stretcher from flexing when weight is applied to the table top.

Note: You see in these photos that the boards have large voids or dished out areas in them. They still have the air dried patina on them. These are the areas of the wood that are where a limb come out of the trunk and caused a large area of switchback grain and BIG undulations in the edge of the board. My client saw them and wanted me to not patch them over. She wanted these to show that the table was handmade and not a big chunk of plywood. I obliged her wish. After all, the customer is alway right.

Next week and weekend, I will be making the 3” deep skirt and rough cut the breadboard ends and edge boards.

I am going to have to hire some of my youngest son’s friends to help me turn the table top back over. Going to cost me some cash or maybe just a pizza or two. Nineteen year olds have an appetite!

Tapered leg video: http://fw_woodworking.permissiontv.com/index.html?showid=115402