Hey Cal, as promised. First PIPs. More after the slab gets cut and planed. And after Phyl gets back with the camera.

That slab is 2" thick, about 16' wide and I'll cut it to yield a 48" long table top. The finished width will depend on the width of the glass "river".

 

 

 

 

Phone pics are fine by me Gene!  And remind me again - what is that slab?

 

WOW, That's gotta be heavy!

 

Nice mallet 

Cal that looks like that ole nasty mesquite wood.?

10 minutes ago, lew said:

Nice mallet 

34 minutes ago, Smallpatch said:

Cal that looks like that ole nasty mesquite wood.?

Absolutamently! It has become my favorite material. 

 

42 minutes ago, lew said:

WOW, That's gotta be heavy!

 

Nice mallet 

The slab or the mallet?

If it's the slab, I'm guessing, at 7 lb per BF, it weighs a tad over 100 lb.

Edited January 14, 20188 yr by Gene Howe

Nice slab of wood.  It will make a great table.

That is going to make one really nice table. Look forward to following along. 

 

 

Around here mesquite is king. Its everywhere. Problem is, the wood mills charge way too much for air dried wood to work with so the wood burning industry comes in and pays up to 4 dollars a cord to cut it down and haul it off. Another problem, if a person buys a cord of wood in July or August it will turn in to borer dust by the time winter gets here.The borers are so big you can hear them eating away just standing close to a stack of mesquite...

 

Also  the wood burning guys leaves the stumps in the ground  and all the limbs too small to turn in to fire wood laying on the ground. Its a big mess and attracts lots of those large borer monsters... From the caution light where I turn off of Tx 180 to my house is about 2 miles or I mile to the edge of the lake and all of this I mile or so was cut down last summer. Now its a big ugly mess for all the stumps have sprouted new limbs fixin to make more fire wood for a few years down the road.. No one worry's about it except the wood working guys and there ain't but a very few in this whole area....but if me or maybe more so I say, we, are the only ones that catches the migration of the borers for if any flat wood is laying around outside or small logs waiting to get put on the lathe, its too late, for we end up with holey  wood....

  Another thing, there is way too much wasted wood in any given mesquite tree so most all wood mills don't mess with it.

 

The first picture is walnut wood and the other is mesquite. They were sitting outside the shop last summer fixin to be use on the lathe...you can't put them in a plastic bags if the borers are already in the wood, they like plastic too. 

 

I'll still take this area over where rules and regulations eat up peoples minds....

Around here it is the powder post beetles.  Doesn't take long for fresh cut wood to be infested with them.

Jesse, I've cut through several logs with live borers in it. The first time was a bit of a surprise. We're a bit too far north to get any au naturale stuff so, every so often I'll head south and grab a batch of slabs. There are a few guys that process it big time. One place south of Tucson runs three big bandsaw mills and has several thousand BF for sale. Lately, I've been getting mine from a one man operation in Casa Grande. He gets his logs from cleared land and road construction sites. Much cheaper and closer, too. He has pistachio and pecan from grove clearings too. Might try some of that someday. But, I've got a lot of mesquite to cut first.

The pics are out of order. The first one is after splitting the slab and arranging it for the "river". The second one is track saw set up for the split cut. 

Next step is planing.....after lunch.

 

I think I may have been a tad light in my estimate of the weight of the slab. After shoving one side through planer on a sled, I swear that piece + sled is at least 60 lbs. May need to enlist some help.

You might talk to @steven newman about bringing the planner to the slab... but I reckon you would (will) get a workout either way you go

32 minutes ago, Cal said:

You might talk to @steven newman about bringing the planner to the slab... but I reckon you would (will) get a workout either way you go

Not sure, but I think that even Steve would balk at this task. Lots of real estate and some ornery grain. 

 

1 minute ago, Gene Howe said:

Not sure, but I think that even Steve would balk at this task. Lots of real estate and some ornery grain. 

 

 

Hey now!  You talking about Steve or the slab?

Steve may seem to have an ornery streak but, that's just a facade. I know him to be a pussy cat.

Here's the fantastic grain in this mesquite after planing.

 

Here's the prettiest side. Unfortunately, it's the underside of the table.

Well you could just flip it over after you eat