Hello all,
I have recently joined the forum and thought I would share my current project and get some input on design.
Back story:
My father-in-law was a career navy man. About 20 years ago they were decommissioning a ship and he salvaged what he calls the "Captains landing". It sat in his basement for 20 years before he pulled it out a few weeks ago and gave it to me. For a Christmas surprise, my wife and I are converting it into a new coffee table for him. The landing is made from what appears to be white oak, and has lots of water-worn character from where the poly wore off and water seeped in. There are also lots of holes in the corners from what I can only imagine was attached railing, so those will need to be fitted with dowels. The dimensions are currently 37" X 23.75" X 1.75".
For design, I am thinking something with a Greene and Greene/Craftsman style. Anyways, more on that later. Here are some pictures!
This is before it was sanded down:
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Here it is after many rounds of sanding to bare wood. Note the deep (dark) water stains in the wood and the stain from nails:
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I am going to turn this into a checkerboard type design, so I have to fill in each hole individually. To do this, I had to back fill the large gaps with strips of birch.
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Now that the easy part is over, I have cut and planed strips of cherry to fit in the gaps. Now to cut them all! Of course, not every hole is the same so they all have to be individually cut and fit. I also have some 5" wide by 1.75" thick cherry to add as breadboard ends, but haven't exactly figured out how I am going to attach them yet. Here are the ends so you can see how they fit together. Not sure how another M&T joint would work with the current construction. Thoughts? Run multiple dowels through the two pieces to attach the end caps?
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I hope to work on it this weekend, so I'll post more progress pics as they are available.