Harvest Table

I built this table this past winter for a friend of ours who is an interior designer. She sent me a picture from a magazine and said build me this. The only guidance she gave me was that it needed to seat six and she wanted it to look old. The wood is heart pine. I found it at a place in north alabama. This company specializes in finding and remilling reclaimed lumber. They travel all ove the north and buy up old industrial buildings that are being torn down and ship it back south and resaw it to make flooring and finish lumber. They had beams sitting on the yard that were 2’x2’ and larger. you couldn’t even find that nowadays. According to this company, the trees that this lumber came from was propbably cut down over 100 years ago. Which if the tree was 100+ years old when it was cut, then you’re looking at wood from the revolutionary period. If you’ll look at the legs you’ll see that the nail holes are visible. What you can’t see and i didn’t take pictures of were the 1/2” bolt holes under the table top. There is a lot of character in this table.
I used loose tenon joinery for the legs and apron, figure 8 fasteners to attach the table top, and the bread board ends are rabbited and dadoed together.
This is the first time i really used different hand tools to finish with too. I didn’t use any sandpaper on it. All surfaces were finished with a #4 plane, my new scraper plane, and card scrapers.
With her being an interior designer, she wanted me to try a different method of color(i don’t believe in staining beautiful wood) the wood. She wanted it a little darker, something to make it match the age of the wood and not the fresh color of being recently milled. She came up with using coffe to add a little color. i took a pot of coffee and boiled it down to about a cup, very strong. It added just the right amount of color. The finish is my standard blend of pure tung oil, boiled linseed oil, and polyeurathane, 5 coats with a paste wax top coat..

-- Joey, Magee, Ms http://woodnwaresms.com