More Work With Studio D, Part 2

Over the holiday weekend, I took a trip to Evansville, IN, to visit one of my wood suppliers, Joe Schneider. He has a great selection of wood and the price is better than anything I can find within 50 miles of the Greater Saint Louis area, so it’s worth the trip.

This time I was after an 8/4 plank of walnut that was 98″ long, about 20″ wide for most of its length and then about 30″ wide at the crotch. There were several slabs to choose from, so I picked the one I felt was best suited for the project.

Once again, there were those who doubted I would be able to fit the wood into my Toyota Venza…

Not even the German Shepherd had faith in my car!

Since I knew the rough dimensions I needed, however, we just cut it into two pieces there and I only had to drop down half of the back seat.

Before we left town, we were directed to a place called “Carrie Jen’s” (which seemed an odd name until we realized it was an Amish-based restaurant called the Carriage Inn) for some delicious fried chicken and bumbleberry pie with ice cream. I think the beard suits me. I’m amazed it has taken me so long to get around to growing one.

The beard isn’t too bad; the pie was delicious.

Now that I have the pieces home, I’ll make some cardboard frames of the table dimensions (5’6″ long by 12″ deep for the hall table and 24″ x 24″ for the end table) and figure out the best place to make my cuts. Having the visual reference always helps me to determine how to make such important cuts. I will take the opportunity to get the client’s opinion, as well, in this case.

I think they might want the hall table to be a bit deeper than the indicated 12″ and the crotch is about 30″ wide, so I’ll have to trim off 6″ from one of the live edges. But do I trim it from the left side, with the relatively straight live edge? Or from the right side, where there is some nice crotch figure? My initial instinct is from the right, because I think it will look better with the straighter live edge on the front of it, even though it will mean losing some of that beautiful figure, but I’ll have a better idea when I frame it out. This must be decided first; there is a bit of cup to the end table section, so I’m going to cut it to size before I flatten it to retain as much thickness as possible.

I’m not at all worried about the split, even though it looks rough. I will be stabilizing it with several bog oak butterfly keys and it is still quite solid on the far end. This table will be a first for me in that some of the keys will be exposed in the gap. This means I will treat at least part of each bog oak key as if it is a finished surface (planed smooth) and will need to figure out how to clean out the inside of the crevice (I’m thinking pressurized air for starters).

Stay tuned for more…

TKW