Cherry Basement Bar


Chestnut

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I dug out the boards to get a picture.

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Grain is pretty strait, it's qtr sawn ash. I have 6 of these boars all roughly the same size all sequenced from the same tree they are about 1.5" thick and need to be flattened. I'm currently working on a torsion top to accomplish just that.

@Chet K. I totally agree and was going to work something like this in but for space reasons can't. I'm going a little bit less formal bar and more tall cabinet. They wanted more space on the same level to play cards ect.

Thanks for the input guys. Scrapping and doing something entirely different isn't out of the question but it's on my dime at that point.

@gee-dub The basement is "his" space with heavy regulation on her part. It will be where he has his dart board game of thrones posters ect.

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Since the bookmatched boards are mostly straight grain, you can probably put a straight grained piece on the back and it will look fine.  But E is right, no skinny boards or racing stripes.

By the way, it will be difficult to get a nice glue line where those knots are.  The changing density can cause your jointer (or plane) to take a lighter cut on the knot (or it might just tear the knot out entirely).  Give it a try but don't be surprised if it ends up a little gappy adjacent to the knots.   Personally I think the knots look cool but you might just have to cut them out. 

 

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I would use the bookmatch boards & add a straight grained piece to the back, possibly ripping the bookmatch pieces down a little so the 3 boards are not wildly different in width. I like the bookmatched knots. If you get a little gap a careful use of filler will make it invisible. Practice on scrap ! Filler can change color under a finish. Know what to expect before you apply it to the project. Mask off around the gap to prevent filling the open grain on the ash. Even if the filler matches perfectly a suddenly smooth patch in an open grain top is a dead giveaway and filling grain on the entire top is a lot of work.

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I think the adding a piece to the back is going to be the trick. I might leave the front edge live edge .... I want their opinions. The top will be roughly 24" and with slightly milling and cutting I'll have 3 8.5" pieces.

Thanks all.

Now to practice for a long time on a jointer so i don't screw these up.

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53 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

I might leave the front edge live edge .... I want their opinions.

You may or may not want to hear this but it's a forum so I'm gonna say it anyway...

Don't give them the option because we already know the answer...get rid of the live edge before they know about it.  It'll look better, I promise.

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32 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

Since yoi have several boards from the same log, would you flip the 'filler piece' for the back edge, so it mates sap wood to sap wood?

Yes that is exactly what i was planing on doing.

After the comments there were 2 options. a heart wood "racing stripe" or what you suggested. I won't get this done for a while so if any one has any other ideas or input I'll definitely consider it.

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Learned a few things tonight while practicing on the jointer.

I had a 24" piece and a 72" piece that i was attempting at edge milling. The 6' piece was a 2x10 and was probably too heavy for my small jointer (joiner sp?). The 24" boards flattened great got used to the machine switched to the bigger stock.

Then i started getting frustrated. I couldn't seem to get the ends of the boards to mill out and ended up continually putting a frown on the board (milling too much out of the middle). So i decided to take a break and break down some MDF.  Grabbed my tape and my veritas strait edge i was using to calibrate everything. I just needed a good 48" strait out of the 6' board. Came to learn that i can't judge lengths for crap. my 24" piece was 48" and the 2x10 was 8' long not 6'. I'm far exceeding the capacity of the jointer. My jointer's beds are only 16" long each with the total length just under 44".

I abandoned trying to joint 8' long boards and if i can get 4' with this guy I'm happy. I will upgrade in the future but not now. I hope to be moving in a year and moving another HEAVY piece of machine just doesn't appeal to me.

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It's amazing how much better women are at determining correct lengths than men are?. If it were me, I would eliminate the knots and live edges and add  a third piece as others have said from the same "log", since it is straight grain, and not utilize the   book matched. 

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Got the torsion table finished that I'm going to use to flatten the top. Made it 3" thick and wrapped it with cletus hickory.

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My question now is. Do i flatten the slabs that i have before i join them together or after? My initial thought is before so I'm not compounding any twists or imperfections.

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Just now, Mike. said:

"girl I'm dating" 

Is that the same as girlfriend? I have been married 15 years so not sure how all that works in the Tinder era. 

I don't know either. We see each other every other weekend and have for the last year and a half. When i finish remodeling this house I'm going to sell it and move some where we can both live.

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I think the top turned out great. I spent more time making sure the boards were flattened and strait then i ever have and it was worth the time. It came out so nice i decided to make a saw cut in the wrong location to remind people that it's hand made. You can see the oops in the bottom right corner of the picture below. Now for finishing.

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Thanks guys. I'm kind of waiting until the last coat of finish is on to show the pictures with some poly on it. There is a bunch of figure at the far end and it looks fantastic. Some how this cletus figured out how to quarter saw as well, i love that there isn't any cathedral grain in this. Really looking forward to tearing into the 5 boards i have left for another project.

If your of the persuasion that ash is too close to oak you won't like it and that's cool with me.

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