Beginner ideas

Big Board Table

Ive been shuffling this piece of wood around to various locations in my shop, garage and finish room for about 3 years now. Enough of that ... I decided it was time for it to be something besides just a cutoff too big to throw away .... The question always was exactly what should it be? Its a bit of an odd size, 40 x 68", and for now its going to be a coffee table with a steel base like one Sam made recently. I had plans to do some fancy stuff on the top (recessed squares like on the bar doors, maybe some metal or abalone inlays), but in the end, its a big board and I decided to just let it be that for now. Sam and I are working on a series of collaborative designs with metal and wood and this will be another in the series ... Click the pictures to enlarge them.

The base ... I think well blacken and oil it next week when the top is done
Scraping the top ... If you dont have one of these two handled scrapers, get one... Trevor had milled the board flat on the cnc but there were still tool marks that had to be removed. The #80 made short work of that ...
Joint it straight and rip it to 39.5" wide ... Cut the ends o nthe panel saw ...
Plane the end grain and polish it ... off to the finish room
Origin of the cutoff ... We had a commission for a 40 x 84" mahogany table about three years ago and when I contacted Irion lumber, I asked if he had any wide mahogany for the top. When I told him how wide the table was, I think Myron said something like, Yeah, I have some that wide. I had to buy the whole board, but hey, not such a bad thing now ....