Walnut Slab Coffee Table - FINISHED!

Bill Arnold

1974
Staff member
Messages
8,622
Location
Thomasville, GA
The Ambassador delivered one of his Michigan chocolate slabs to me on his way to the Wounded Warriors gathering in Mississippi earlier this year. The photo below was taken on March 20, 2017 when he handed it off to me.

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Not that I'm the speediest guy around anyway, but when I was really ready to start the flattening process, I realized I didn't have a large enough flat area to work with. I had built a table system wrapping my table saw 10 years ago but it had seen better days. So, my first effort had to be some shop updates. I outlined those in a different thread.

I had looked at several options for a flattening system and decided on one I found at the Infinity Tools website. Here's their photo of it:

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I resized it to suit my slab dimensions and added one cross-member.


Larry had got me started on knocking off the bark in March, then I finished getting the rest of it off and sanding a little. This is a photo in mid-process of bark removal.

TWS_01.jpg


I was able to maneuver the slab from a temporary location and onto the work area - my router table - orienting it bottom up. Next, I removed the two middle cross-members of the cage, slipped it over the slab and re-installed the cross-members.

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I installed a 1.5" straight bit in an extension and then into one of my routers. To keep track of the routing location, I made index marks 1.25" apart on the top edge of the side of the cage. I made a pass back and forth, then moved the sled to the next mark.

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Here's how it looked after all of the routing passes. I didn't keep track of the number of passes. Initially, I took 1/16" to 1/8" in a pass, then a final pass of about 1/32".

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As of today, I have made one complete sanding pass using 60 grit with my pneumatic sander. I'll do more sanding on the bottom before starting on the top side.

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By the way, before starting the flattening I had done very little trimming on the slab. I mainly sawed the end grain areas to get rid of some roughness. I'll do a bit more trimming after I flip it back to the top side and do a little ciphering on it.

As always, comments are welcome!
 
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I'll be watching this one with interest. I've also got one of those chocolate slabs, and once I get my shop set back up, getting the slab made into something and out of my way will be a priority. I still haven't decided whether to preserve the bark edge or take it off. If I leave it, I'm not sure how to stabilize it.

Leo, if Bill's slab is from the same batch as mine (and I suspect it is), it's had 5 or 6 years to dry. ;)
 
I have one, too. Been drying in a shed in Arizona for the same amount of time as Vaughn's. Also destined to be a low table. Someday. Sighhhh....
 
Well, after detouring for some other project stuff, I made more progress on my slab over the past several days. I've been working on the bottom and have it dead flat.

I didn't bother posting all of the sanding passes I made, working through grits 80, 120, and 150. This whole thing is probably a bit boring, anyway.

I installed bowties across a couple of cracks, hand planing and sanding them flush before the final passes with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper over the entire bottom of the slab.

Below are photos showing before and after a coat of Arm-R-Seal with naphtha at a 1/1 ratio.

TWS_06.jpgTWS_07.jpg



More on the bowties (butterflies). I drew up three sizes: 4", 3", and 2" in VCarve and used them to produce both the bowties and the routing guides. I cut them on my CNC, making some samples with a piece of 1/4" plywood before doing the final cuts in 9/16" walnut. I cut the routing guides in 1/4" acrylic.

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Because I had seen other tables on which the builder used outlines of actual butterfly shapes, I cut out some shapes to see what LOML and I thought about them. I'm still uncertain whether to use them on the top of the table for added interest. If I use them, I'll install bowties first for strength, then make the butterflies about 1/16" thick and rout them seperately.

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Thanks for looking!
 
Nice! The (actual) butterflies look interesting, but in my opinion would be best suited for use in furniture intended for a female's use - a bit too 'feminine' for me. I'd much prefer the bow ties.
 
How did I miss this? I too, have a slab of some of that chocolate....

I like the regular bow ties best.

Really looking good!
 
When I was at the Philly Phurniture show, or whatever, last spring, I saw a lot of these tables, with butterflies in them to strengthen cracks. I decided if I were to make one, I would either put the butterflies underneath, or cut them from wood the same tone as the table. I didn't find the contrasting butterflies very aesthetically appealing. Just MHO. :)
 
Given u have a cnc and can cut virtually any profile why not think outside the box. If its to be a coffee table why not make the crack bridging pieces something very different related to the tables use.
 
Looking good, Bill. :thumb: I'm envious of you guys who have CNC capability for making things like bow ties and butterflies easier to do. I like the butterflies, but only if they can be laid out in a pattern that looks like part of the aesthetic plan. (For example, if it was a single, longer crack, and you could run a series of butterflies from the edge to the center of the table in increasingly smaller profiles.) Given the size and placement of the cracks in this slab, I think the bow ties would probably look better.
 
UPDATE

Over the past few days - not counting Sunday and Monday, for some reason (thanx, Irma!) - I've been flattening the top of my walnut slab. I ended up with a thickness of 1.75" all around. After I get LOML to help me extricate it from the cage, I'll start doing the sanding. I'll also do a little grinding on the long edge on toward the left of the photo to straighten it a little and remove the sharpness.

The lines you see in the slab are artifacts of routing. The lighter portion is from the bit going away from the camera position; darker coming toward the camera. If I close my eyes and run my hand over it, there are no ridges.

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I'm not sure when I'll be doing the next update. I'm waiting on a call from the hospital to give me the time to report Wednesday for a procedure. I'll tell you more about that in a different thread.
 
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