Transforming Raw Lumber into Something Beautiful

Before building the table, I have to put time into getting raw lumber into something that's workable.

The process of dimensionalizing is time consuming and labor intensive! But in the end, it will be worth it.

Notice the many holes in the bark. This is Powder Post Beetles and it's common to have to deal with this. This wood was air dried which is more susceptible to the them.

Here is the first pass of planing the wood to see what we have to work with. There is some real personality here but quite a bit of wood damage that needs to be addressed.

Notice the black dots? This appears to be moving in the direction of "splatic wood" which by many, is often prized.

Here is the first phase of applying epoxy to stabilize the wood.

Notice how important is it to tape the bottom side so the epoxy doesn't run through.

Here is the wood after the first epoxy phase is completed. It's more stable but will require several more epoxy phases to completely clean it up for table building.

Here is the equipment that helps with jointing and planing. Not cheap but having a solid piece of equipment heavily aids in this process.

As the wood becomes better dimensionalized, I trim to uniformed sizes for the table pieces.

Since I am designing a Beefy table, my plan is to make it 3 and a half inches thick. I started with 2 and a half inch Elm but by the time the dimensionalizing was complete, I ended with 1 and a half inch thick Elm so I decided to laminate 2 inches of Oak to the underneath. Here I matched the Oak for the table bases.

And after dimensionalizing that, all of the pieces are ready for lamination glue ups.

Builders routinely claim to never have enough clamps! It's true.

Notice the slabs leaning against the wall. Those are already glued up!

And after the Elm and Oak is glued together, I have to re-dimensionalize once again. Here you see more phases of black epoxy to prepare the wood for table building.

Next week the real fun begins with making the pieces for the table.

If you have any questions; as always, feel free to ping me!

Mark,