Terrible two table top tale...

[David Eisan]

Back in 2001 I made an ash coffee table for a friend and his wife,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/table.jpg

He called me recently to tell me one of their three cats had knocked over an open bottle of nail polish remover and there was some damage to the top,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/damage1.jpg

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/damage2.jpg

The nail polish remover had totally removed the oil based poly finish down to the wood.

I decided to run the top through my drum sander to remove all the old finish and then to refinish the top. I made this table before I had a drum sander. There was some pretty bad grain reversal in the top and I had to scrape away a lot of tearout,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/finishremoval.jpg

I ended up sanding off a lot of material to get all the finish off. So much in fact, that I sanded out the 1/16" walnut inlay,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/toomuchsanding.jpg

Opps.

Time to cut new grooves for new (and deeper) inlay,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/newgrooves.jpg

New inlay,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/newinlay.jpg

[David Eisan]

Okay, top all sanded, lets just break the edge with a 1/8" roundover. Grab Makita Laminate trimmer, looks like the right bit and right height, fire it up and start rounding over,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wrecked.jpg

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/wrecked2.jpg

Totally wrong roundover bit, totally wrong height, beads everywhere. Smash laminate trimmer on floor, take chainsaw to top and start over.

Nah, I didn't break anything. I wasn't really happy with how things were going all along, every step just didn't seem to go right and even if I hadn't used the wrong router bit, I would not have been happy with the finished project, it was just too thin now for the rest of the table.

Off to the basement to grab a little ash,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/ashpile.jpg

These are nice 8/4 boards that I got for about $0.50 a BF at auction a while ago.

Here are the rough boards for the top,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/roughash.jpg

The reason I did the inlay in the old top in the first place was to hide a big knot hole in the centre of the board that only fell out after final planing. I told Scott I had ruined the top and since I was making a new one I asked him if he wanted the inlay. He did. To make it less work, I just glued up the top with walnut strips rather than the extra work of inlay (which was just a cover up last time),

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/glueup.jpg

I ran the top through the sander and they cut it to length with my crosscut sled,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cutoffsled.jpg

Here is the top all sanded and rounded over with the correct roundover bit,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/sanded.jpg

Here is a pic of the new top beside the old top,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/sidebyside.jpg

The new top is *no where* as dark as it looks in the photo.

Installing the new top,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/install.jpg

Finished table,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/done.jpg

With 20/20 hind sight, I should have just made a new top off the bat. I am a better woodworker now then when I made the first top and I had/have tons of ash on hand. Oh well.

David.

[Richard Wolf]

Great tread. Very interesting pictures. How did you post more than 5 pictures at a time?

Richard

[Corey Hallagan]

Very interesting post/thread, thanks for posting. Great looking wood, project and work!

Corey

[Jim Becker]

How did you post more than 5 pictures at a time?

He's linking from a web site rather than uploading them to SMC.
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Nice recovery, David...sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do!

[Gail O'Rourke]

Excellent post, great job on the new top. What type of drum sander do you have?

[Richard Wolf]

[QUOTE=Jim Becker]He's linking from a web site rather than uploading them to SMC.
-------
QUOTE]

Thanks Jim! Not that I could do that, I'm lucky I can turn this thing on!


Richard

[john whittaker]

OH David....Some days are just like that. You must have the patience of Job. Bet something would have been broken if that happened to me.:D When things start going sideways in the shop....I wish I had the good sense to just say NO. Stop woodworking and go do something else. BUT Nooooo....:mad: I just keep on making a mess of things.... But some days things fall into place. Those are the days that keep us coming back.

Good looking table top...again.

[Wade Samuelson]

Dang....that was just the coolest post! Thanks!

[Chris Pasko]

I agree! Excellent post!

The table turned out great!

[Vaughn McMillan]

Great post, and you have a lucky friend. Nice table, too. I like the walnut accent.

- Vaughn

[Mike Cutler]

Very nice David, and Kudo's for going the extra mile and building a new top. Nice photo progression format for the thread, and a fine looking coffee table to boot. ;)

[Rob Russell]

Excellent thread. An interesting lesson is that sometimes it's easier to build new than try to repair. Either way, nice job!

[Charles Bruno]

Wow, I browse here in the am before I go to work, that thread was better than a cup of coffee.

Link to website, thanks for that tip Jim.

[David Eisan]

Excellent post, great job on the new top. What type of drum sander do you have?

I have a now discontinued Performax SuperMax 25. It is a 5hp 25" single drum machine. Look for it to be reintroduced soon by a new company that bought the rights from WMH tool group after they stopped making them.

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

David.