got the apron drilled for pocket screws and stained. attach tomorrow.

then start making legs.....

got the apron attached (sorry, no pic), got it flipped over and got the top stained. overall shot and some close ups of some of the epoxy/turquoise dust infills. total of 13. i think it's looking awesome....

it's going to take 2 strong men to move this around.....ugh.....what dummy designed such a heavy table??!!

;

Edited May 23May 23 by DAB
added pic

the gremlins didn't let me post the overall shot. maybe later.....grrrr....

Edited May 23May 23 by DAB

Those inlays look awesome! Definitely a family heirloom.

to my pleasant surprise, the turquoise dust has some gold colored flecks. by pouring from the backside, the heavier, larger pieces, including these gold flecks, sink to the bottom, which then makes them very visible when everything is turned over. the "pretty" layer is only about 1/16" thick (as i know from pouring excess into a mold). so useful info to know later.

when it is time to put on poly, i'm going to try putting a little of the dust into some small cracks with the poly.

here's a shot of a ring i made from some of the excess, you can see how the larger stuff separates.

little branding today, and started making the legs. not enough Ls to glue up all 4 at once, so apply 13 clamps to one leg and do more later/tomorrow.

made them a little longer than needed, so i can trim the ends square and true and to proper length. four #10 biscuits per assembly. the outside corner will be chamfered later.

6 minutes ago, DAB said:

apply 13 clamps to one leg

The more clamps the better!

Project is really progressing.

arrgh, it's a pirate table, only has one leg!!

need to sand, cut to proper length, and stain and drill bolt holes, but you get the idea.

#2 gluing up, should get them all glued up today, one every 2 hours.

and by leg #3, i figured out a better way to draw the joint nice and tight. use the clamps to draw it into the clamping square. duh....

hey, i'm making it up as I go, and learning stuff too. stuff i'll share if you are inclined to learn from my mistakes. no charge.

Experience is a wonderful thing, it lets you recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Coming along nicely DAB

someone was asking about a book for furniture design/building.

i've never learned anything i know about woodworking from reading a book. i took shop class 40+ years ago in Jr. and Sr. High, learned the basics of which tools do which operations, and how to use them safely.

i remember going thru old Penneys and Sears catalogs, looking for ideas of furniture to build in shop class. one idea from that page, another from another page, start drawing and thinking how i'm going to make this.

for this table, thought about it for quite some time, saw a few pics on the internet, settled on this design as buildable, and allowing the maximum number of people to sit comfortably around this table and it's size.

give me a picture, and i can probably build it.

Sounds like the way I've always done things Dab, not always the fastest builds but always interesting

long ago i got the old Wood magazine in the mail each month. they normally had several projects to build if you were so interested, i rarely was, but what got me was the text would tell you to make a certain piece a certain size, but their drawings didn't always show you everything you needed. i found it confusing to try to follow along. i'll do it my way. build one part, measure and make the next part, wash, rinse, repeat. i've found that trying to cut all the parts at the start is fraught with danger.

Remember that magazine, infact still have a stack of them for reference on occasion and yes I am aware of the problem you mentioned. Still built some stuff only don't remember what

Of the woodworking publications, wood is my favorite and I've built a good many of their projects. But it's true they do have the occasional gaff, and it's usually pointed out by a reader trying to work through things and finds the error. But I suspect that's true of all the publications. Even so I've never cut all the parts in the beginning, I usually cut them as go.

we've got legs!

four in fact. cut to length, sanded, and stained.

poly tomorrow or friday for everything. bolts i got were too short, longer ones should be here sunday. oh well.

tried a little experiment on the underside, on some small cracks. filled with turquoise dust (dry), then carefully added poly to cover. had to sand with 220 some of the grains that were too high or escaped, but that method will work well on very shallow cracks that i didnt' fill with epoxy earlier....good to know. have a few small spots on top that will benefit.

first coat of poly on the underside of the top and the legs. 2 more planned. then flip it and do the topside, also 3 coats planned.

Lookin good!

i'm in a holding pattern, waiting for the connector bolts to arrive from Amazon. need those so i can correctly drill the holes in the legs and apron before i flip it over to finish the top.....c'mon amazon......

the bolts arrived, 2 sizes, as i wasn't entirely sure which size was correct. the smaller one was it. 35mm long. now i have 142 bolt sets extra (50 too small, 42 just right-only used 8, and 50 too long). sigh. at least they are cheap.

got the legs fitted up, a 3/8" hole was a little snug, so up one size.

took them back off and flipped to start finishing the topside.