slab furniture

Crosstimber Tables

These images document a build in its early stage of a family of black walnut tables, centered around a richly grained and beautifully colored walnut tree which we salvaged from a farm near Winfield, Kansas. The tables are a collaboration between my best friend/business partner and myself, sharing designing and building tasks to create, what we hope, are some authentically good pieces of furniture in the continuing tradition of live-edge/natural-slab furniture.

Big Bear of a Locust Log

We cut this big dead Honey-Locust (Gleditsia triancanthos) at Boaz last fall. I cut him in half out there free-hand, which took nearly 3 hours, then hauled him home. After some flattening I cut the halves into 3.5″ slabs. I still had to use the tractor to move them.

Table Build in Red Oak Part 1

The following is part 1 of a photo essay on a rustic and a little bit twisty red oak hall table build.

Composing

Roughing out the leg spindles

Cutting the tenons to width

Establishing taper with a gouge

Breather, almost there

Leveling out with a jack plane

Down to size with the spoker

After shaping with an angle grinder and hand sanding through many grits

Leg # 2 at dawn

Side by side

Composing again

About 11 days left and a lot of work to go

Cutting in Butterflies

Last week I cut in three walnut butterflies into the cedar table top under way in my shop.

Below are a few photos from the process. After shaping the walnut butterflies, they are scribed individually into the top, then the bulk of the waste is removed with a 1/4 ” straight bit in a router, and finally pared with a chisel to the scribed lines.