I am building a 70" long by 36" wide table for our dining room, with 12/4 Ash. The legs will be attached directly to the table with large finger joints - no apron. Planning to use epoxy as opposed to standard yellow (PVA) glue. After planing, the stock will be about 2.8" thick. The stock I have is about 8-10" wide and was delivered to me reasonably flat on the faces. It's too wide for my jointer, but I was able to run it through my lunchbox planer with good results, without using a sled. I will handle the edges with my Festool track saw and then run it through the table saw for the other edge. I will use some dominos to help align the edges for the (epoxy) glue up. The boards will be around 7-9" wide after the edge jointing. Finger joints will be done with a band saw to remove most of the material, followed by a pantorouter with a 3" long 1/2" cutting diameter straight bit for the final pass.
The questions I have are 1) should I pin the finger joints and 2) should I align the grain pattern on the ends of the boards all the same direction or alternating? I would think with material this thick, it's not going to move too much in that direction. And with no apron it'll be free to move along the length and width.
Scott B