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Thread: A Dining Table Top

  1. #16
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Cincinnati, OH
    Posts
    924
    Another very nice example of your craftmanship. Thanks for sharing and setting the bar so high.

    One characteristic that stands out to me in the photo is the central alignment of the red oak grain patterns. I believe this indicates your careful milling of the log to get the best visual (and structural?) effect from your lumber. This attention to detail is often overlooked and quite difficult to find with typical retail hardwood sources.

    I have been tempted to start a thread on grain selection when purchasing hardwood lumber. The visual appeal is obvious as is stability but the interaction of run out and workability is a source of interest and frustration for me. I most frequently build with black cherry and the inconsistent runout makes hand planing difficult to impossible on the boards I have used since the longer boards have with grain and against grain sections. Any thoughts are appreciated.
    Rustic? Well, no. That was not my intention!

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    WNY
    Posts
    9,648
    Thanks Dave. I, too, am very critical about grain pattern, especially for a table top. There are different schools of thought on how best to mill a log to maximize the amount of clear lumber. One way is to align the best face parallel with the deck and cut boards until you get defects, then rotate to the next best face and repeat. Another way is to pick the best face but align the center of the log parallel with the log deck. If the log has little taper there isn't much difference in how the lumber looks but if there is substantial taper there will be. If you cut parallel with the surface of the log it's akin to riving and you will get consistent grain patterns for the first few cuts, but then you will start cutting across the growth rings as you get closer to the center and the patterns will change. If you align the center of the log parallel with the deck it's the opposite. The first few cuts will cut across the growth rings but then become more parallel as you get closer to the center. Take your pick. I think most commercial mills follow the first approach because it is likely to give you the most board feet of clear lumber.

    Black cherry tends to grow pretty straight in the forests near me, often with little taper for 30 feet. I milled about 1500 BF of it last Fall and saw little difference in the grain patterns whether I aligned it with the face parallel or centers parallel with the deck. Butt logs are where you get the most taper, but also often the most clear wood. With those logs I milled them with the best face parallel with the log deck. Here's a photo of one of the logs on the mill and the other logs to be milled; not much taper in any of them.




    With the red oak for this table I was at the limit of my mill, 30" diameter, so I didn't have much flexibility. I had to take off a 3 or 4" thick face cut from all four faces in order to get the cant narrow enough to clear the 22" cut width of the mill. The boards for this table likely came from those face cuts or the first cuts from the cant. Those logs didn't have much taper, as you can see in the photo, so the cuts were parallel with the growth rings for the most part.



    John

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Cashiers NC
    Posts
    603
    Very nice result. I am jealous of that pile of cherry logs.
    Charlie Jones

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    McKean, PA
    Posts
    15,596
    Blog Entries
    1
    Very interesting design and good looking table top.
    Lee Schierer
    USNA '71
    Go Navy!

    My advice, comments and suggestions are free, but it costs money to run the site. If you found something of value here please give a little something back by becoming a contributor! Please Contribute

  5. #20
    A table built for the generations ! Love it!

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Scarborough(part of Toronto|) Ontario
    Posts
    306
    WoW, gorgeous!

    Tim

  7. #22
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Alaska
    Posts
    711
    Simple doesn't mean easy.....I've been trying to perfect a basic martini for years now. Just can't get the ratio dialed in.... That table looks freekn cool as hell to me. I'm totally stealing that design idea.

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