This project was mainly comprised of gluing sixty-three pieces of walnut and maple boards together.  The varied widths and contrast between light and dark convey a “tree’s in the forest” aesthetic.  A simple concept that came out visually stunning.

Rough-sawn wood purchased at California Hardwood in Auburn. The walnut came from Indiana and the maple is fully figured.  We were lucky to come across these, the figured grain looks very cool.

Scaled design pattern into the dimensions that will be used for the table top (40″x76″)

Walnut boards going through milling process.

Milled Maple

All 63 pieces milled and cut to correct width

All walnut and maple pieces cut to width. These are all the table top pieces in correct orientation. Next weekend will begin to glue “sections” together (3- 4 pieces).

Once the gluing starts …one has about 2 minutes to spread the glue evenly, align the pieces and get the clamps attached before the glue starts to set and bond with the wood.
If something goes wrong during this stage, the pieces are basically ruined and we’d have to go back to the raw stock and make all new pieces for this subsection.

Suffice to say, we did a couple of dress rehearsals to assemble the calls and clamps before actually using the glue.

Gluing 5-7 pieces together to create 10 total table sub sections that will be planed and then ultimately glued to one another.

One subsection glued, planed, and trimmed.

More subsections glued, planed and trimmed.

Gluing two subsections together to create one-half of the tabletop.

Two halves of the tabletop pocket-screwed and glued together.

Used a 1/8″ router bit to the underside of the tabletop … will do the same for the rest of the edges excluding ends of “waterfall legs” … we purchased a 1 1/2″ router bit for that. 

Gluing leg to bottom-side of table. Also sanded and finished the bottom-side and legs with clear poly.

Fully-finished maple strips along the bottom for strength and stability. Elongated holes to account for contraction/expansion of the table over time. 

1 1/2″ Router bit for “waterfall” round-over on leg. For those not familiar with router bits … this one is really big. 

Waterfall round-over … took about 12-14 passes of slowly creeping the 1 1/2″ router bit to full cut.

The dark stripe is epoxy used to fill in a gap. Will sand it down and finish after it dries.

In this picture, one can see how a full-figured piece of maple looks finished (notice the continual “ripple” look). That is what makes the wood go to $8 square board foot from about $4 … 

After waxing … the top looks and feels as smooth as glass.

Table complete and finally home!