On with the easy tables

With the big difficult table finished and some wood to spare the macrocarpa slab lent its self to an outdoor rustic type, this slab being 90mm thick was difficult to cut with my limited resources, I was a leg short so I had to add some of my own wood, this picture shows it in an unfinished state it has now had some coats of Sikkens light oak water proofing.

The final table is a coffee table made using the left over kauri the white wavy stripe and the X rails are Lancewood an interesting tree that changes its leaf shape as it matures, they take a long time to mature and this was a big tree that had come down in a wind and must be old given its size.
I now have enough kauri left to make a chopping board and 2 small turned bowls.

 

Finished Table

My covid 19 project is finished, roughly 200 hours spent over the 8 weeks of our stay at home period.
It has been very rewarding to have the chance to work with such wood as this, and being able to dream of a design then make it happen, the icing on the cake is to see the owners of the wood so happy with what I have done.

Don't attempt this

I say "don't attempt this" because its not easy, I thought when I started cutting up this wood and making the table top it was a challenge, I wanted to save as much of the good wood as I could which is why the top has all those curved joints, it turned out very well and I was pleased I had made such an effort.
The idea for the legs came to me without giving much thought to what was involved, I did know what was involved because I have done something similar before, however I have found it to be a challenge, it has been good it has soaked up every moment of the 7 week lock down we have been through so for me I did not suffer in anyway from the lock down, the best part is I have only used 1/4 of a tank of petrol in the car since before we went into level 4.

This joint is what has kept me most entertained, this joint 4 times as there is one on each leg, also where the leg joins onto the table top, and in the picture the table is up side down.
The table is made so it can be dismantled this makes it easy for me to deliver it and should the owners ever move house they can get it out of the house, the table being one meter wide could be a problem getting it out of the doors.

All of the parts are now made, and have been assembled while up side down, the top is too heavy to be moving it about, yesterday I spent coating the legs and rails with Osmo oil but the over night temperatures were low and it did not dry so today I had the parts sat in the sun for a while.


The Osmo oil has brought the colours out of the wood and the contrast is more obvious, the Osmo coating only needs 2 coats so the end of building this table is very close then all the difficulties will be just a memories if I care to think back.

Good things take time

Its only been 2 weeks since I finished the top and started work on the legs and rails, the legs I had made before the kauri arrived and here I show what I hope to do on the legs eventual.
I now have some rails made that will span between the legs and some of the skins that will cover both the legs and the rails, the 2 rails will be covered with macrocarpa, this picture shows me laminating 10 pieces of 3.5mm thick together, I thought that if I used PVA glue it would take too long to get the glue on the 9 pieces and in the jig and it would have started to cure so my only option was to use epoxy glue that has a much longer open life, the epoxy shows a line more than PVA would have done but I thought it would enhance the look of the laminated curve, this piece is 40mm thick and will be cut into 4 of 7mm thick then glued onto the top and bottom of the rails.
Its a long slow process but now I look at the dates its only been 2 weeks, during that time I have put feet on the legs so the ply is unseen also I made some tops for the legs that will have a dowel sit in them to locate the top, I have cut some mortice holes that I got wrong and am now in the process of remaking, the tenons are made that will take the wedges, the wedges shown here are a temporary wedge and the final one will be much different.
The last photo shows me trimming off the excess wood after I had glued on the 2 sides of the legs, I have a toy shaper that is ideal for this kind of work.

   

What a Picture

Today we decided the top would be Osmo oil coated so that is one coat, in there I can see a sea scape.
I did another mock up of the legs and this time placed 2 chairs at the side of the table we decided there was plenty of room for 2 adults to eat dinner.
Now its time to get on with making the legs.
The 2nd picture is of the top and the mock up of the legs put away for the night.

Top ends

My table top now has 2 ends and while the photo shows only one of them having its finished curve both of them are actually finished, now there is a lot of sanding to do.
Half of the table in this photo has water on it, but 10 minuets later it was dry and it all looked the same, its been warm during the day here.
In these pictures the legs were mocked up temporally so I could see what the end result would be, how much room there would be for chairs, the 2 curved pieces that hold the legs together will be much bigger they will have tenons on the ends that push through a mortise in the legs with a wedge to hold it all together.
The legs will have some contrasting wood in a pattern running down front and back of the leg, I am hoping to move the legs further apart on the long side making it easier to get 2 chairs side by side.

The colours of bog kauri

I now have all those shapes glued together and the 2 long boarders, it has been a slow process, once I had worked out the method or maybe that is I worked out how to do this with the tools I have, a band saw could have been useful but then again the wood is heavy and it would have been difficult to manage these long pieced through a band saw on my own, my main tools have been a router and a jig saw for cutting those wavy lines, I do have a table saw a buzzer and a thicknesser all good machines for cutting straight lines.
The 2 outer straight pieces are a different colour so I would guess that they have not sat in a bog for years they are a very rich colour darker than a lot of kauri I have seen, the colours have been accentuated because I gave the whole top a wipe with water after I wiped off the excess glue 5 minuets later the top had dried and the colour was very different.
Now I only have the 2 ends to make and glue on this is going to take a little longer as it is going to involve some curves.