Time to Admire and Enjoy

 I am so pleased now that it has come together, the challenge to myself was to get a correct joint on the corner of the banding, I do still have an upstand to put on the back and some sanding to do so the challenge is still there not to sand through the veneers.
I did sucomb to the idea of laying it all up on MDF and using MDF for the ground to the banding, the MDF is very stable and strong so that was the plus the down side is the weight I will have to live with.
The main body of the banding is European Beach so that is used as the wide boarder to the top in a short direction.

The contrast will be much greater once the lacquer coatings are applied and that will be for a later posting

Great progress

 A hundred and eighty four pieces are involved in the main body of this desk top, the pieces that are in the short direction are a Sapele Pomelle or is it simpler to say very figured  the long direction pieces are a straight grain Sapele when it has a coat of lacquer on it this will be far more obvious the off white infill is a Maple with a little grain showing.
The Pomelle was layed up on a laminate (formica) backing so it was 1.2mm thick and cupped so created something of a problem for me, the straight grain Sapele was 1mm thick so I pressed it onto paper to give it the same thickness as the Pomelle with excellent results, the Maple was about 1.7mm thick and easy to cut back once the glue was dry, I used PVA and having limited cramps available I was able to glue up about 8 pieces at a time, the center pieces were a challenge having to use pressure bars to transfer the weight from the cramp, some days I was able to get 3 glue up done so progress was slow, but what a result. 

Excitement

After some plain banding and some experiments, I decided to challenge myself, with a little help from someone who knows and some web research, the photos show the results.
The red is Padauk with some very white Maple then 1mm Sapele the other is European Beach, it is set in Sapele again its 1mm laminated into the curve.