Hi Neanders,

About 6 months back I bought a bunch of Beech boards straight from a sawmill. They are 4cm (~2.5 inch) thick, about 40cm (~16 inch) wide and about 2m long (~79 inch). As I want to be Neander, but perhaps not go all the way I have access to a workshop on Thursday to do all the rip cuts. My plan is to laminate the top to be 10cm (~4 inch) thick, that means approx 16 full length rips. I bought a brand new rip saw that is 300mm (~11 inch) in diameter.

The legs I will laminate to be 12x12 (4.7 x 4.7) with tenons a la Schwartz. The table would be 2m long of course, I plan to overhang the sides 30cm (~12 inch) left and right of the legs. For the stretchers I will try to see if the shop has a bandsaw to resaw a few of the strips to 2cm thick (~3/4) as otherwise the stretchers would be terribly fat!

I have some very old hardware from a half-rotten bench that was kept in the family from which I can take a leg vise, at least the metal parts. I have a single piece of V-shaped ash I want to use for the leg vise.

Armed with the Swartz book I will go into "omg so many errors, but I made my bench" land, but before I do that here's some questions:
  • I've been reading about rip cutting and many people say you should plane before you rip, but only having the shop for one day (approx 6 hours) I'm not sure this can work out - there's quite some cutting to do! So, my plan was to rip a bit wider than needed to account for any dramatic bowing... Would that be just fine?
  • I've seen a bunch of tutorials on table saw safety because this is also going to be my first time using one of these beasts. It scares me quite a bit, especially as I try to stay away from electric things for all my woodworking. Any tips for a newbie on doing all these rips?
  • As I'm a glutton for punishment I want to hand-plane all the pieces, actually mostly to learn... I was wondering if you guys have any tips on hand-planing these long rips (4" x 79" x 2.5"). How "flat" do these really have to be to laminate them?
  • I know I should try to put them all strips in the same grain direction and try to put the curve of the rings in opposition ( so like... )()()()()() ), but are there any additional ideas for keeping the top stable and as flat as possible for flattening later?
  • The wood was air-dried and I think it has some moisture from being in a (relatively dry) cellar for a few months, this comes with two challenges: beetles (ARGH!) and the fact that the wood might bend again when it dries out further when I bring it into my home. Any hints regarding these two topics?


Here's a picture - ash slab on top, you can see the marks of the beetles in the chunks where the bark fell off. Also gives you an idea about the "straightness" of these slabs. Definitely not perfect, but not too bad either!

wood.jpg

Any help or advice is INCREDIBLY welcome!

Bram