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Burl Table for the Wife


ScottR

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First shape I see in the Millennium Falcon. That's a hellofa piece of burl to use as a table top. I can appreciate the opulence of it. I've been wanting to make a neck from gabon ebony purely for the extravagance, but there's no way I can justify the cost.

Also, it's about damn time you smoothed it out! I was starting to wonder if you were planning on leaving all gouged up. 

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54 minutes ago, avengers63 said:

 

First shape I see in the Millennium Falcon. That's a hellofa piece of burl to use as a table top. I can appreciate the opulence of it. I've been wanting to make a neck from gabon ebony purely for the extravagance, but there's no way I can justify the cost.

Also, it's about damn time you smoothed it out! I was starting to wonder if you were planning on leaving all gouged up. 

Blame the excess on my wife. She got jealous of the burl top guitars I made, and guilted me into getting a top tomake her a table from. And yeah, a gaboon ebony neck would likely cost a fair amount more than this did.

And finally someone speaks up that prefers the smoothed wood carve to the gouged up look!

Thank you!

SR

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I got the top of the top and the bottom of the top flat. And sanded to 220 which was probably a waste of time on the top of the top, since there is going to be some void filling to do. At least it gave me a chance to wipe it with mineral spirits and see how it may look finished.

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I spent today taming the live edge down. In its raw state it was a dangerous as walking in shorts through a room a hyperactive kittens....demon possessed terrorist in training kittens.

I had to re-sand the top a bit several times to get the blood off from just handling the thing whilst de-clawing it.

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II made it about 75% of the way around before succumbing to my injuries, and deciding I needed some fluid replacement.

Adult beverage type fluids of course.

SR

 

 

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8 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Having your personal DNA deep in the pores is the best signature, impossible to fake!

Yeah, and it isn't the first of my projects to have that signature. Usually it's razor sharp edged instruments that are the risk. This is the first time I've had the actual project piece attack me.

SR

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Scott!

I've been distracted for a while and only just caught up with this.

Wow!   

When I say 'Wow', I mean WOW!!!   

No, that doesn't get there at all.  When I say 'WOW', I mean WOW!!!!!!!

The term 'Master Craftsman' doesn't come even close...

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22 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Scott!

I've been distracted for a while and only just caught up with this.

Wow!   

When I say 'Wow', I mean WOW!!!   

No, that doesn't get there at all.  When I say 'WOW', I mean WOW!!!!!!!

The term 'Master Craftsman' doesn't come even close...

Wow, thanks Andy!

This thing has had me distracted for a year now myself.

I've got a lot of catching up to do....

SR

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After getting it all de-fanged, I worked on the gluing surfaces. I spray-glued some 80 grit to the bottom and positioned the base and sanded it roughly in place. when I could see fresh wood on all the branch ends, it was ready to go.

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This is going to be the last time I get this view.

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SR

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I ordered some Zpoxy 30 minute to seal the bottom and attach the base. I was looking forward to seeing how that amber tint kicked the burl over.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found that the 30 minute version is crystal clear. :blink:

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Still, it made the bottom of that table top look pretty sweet!

SR

 

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2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

that really is an incredible piece of wood. Almost as incredible as the carving, amazing work as always!

Thanks and yeah it is. And once I told my wife it was for her table there was never going to be a guitar in its future.

SR

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2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

The carve on that supporting tree is off the scale.  I can't begin to imagine how many hours that has taken.

Andy!

Thanks.

Looking back, I see I'm past thirteen months of weekends on this project. Averaging  10 to 15 hours a weekend for 58 weekends so far......that's a fair bit of math and a proper butt-load of hours.

SR

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It's not wasted time. You've spent all those hours and months doing a service for the Lady of the House instead of practicing scandalous behaviour on the streets like kicking grannies and cursing in public.

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7 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

It's not wasted time. You've spent all those hours and months doing a service for the Lady of the House instead of practicing scandalous behaviour on the streets like kicking grannies and cursing in public.

So true. I've got to get this knocked out though. The neighborhood grannies are getting pretty dang cheeky lately.

SR

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Time for a little cavity filling.

I mixed up more Zpoxy 30 minute and filled the largest cavities to about a quarter inch shy of the lip.

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That amount of epoxy did generate some heat. Once it had set up and fully cooled, I piled in turquoise chips into the cavities and left them standing proud in little piles.

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Then I mixed up some of my table top epoxy. This is a brand I saw on several youtube videos. It was getting great accolades and comparisons to West Systems, but about half the price. The brand is Total Boat. Very clear and self leveling. I did some testing on scrap to see if my plan for the edges would work. So far I'm pretty impressed.

SR

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I left this overnight. It sets up in 4 to 8 hours and is okay for light use after 24, and fully cures in 5 to 8 days. It felt very hard to me the next morning.

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At which point I commenced to sanding rocks. Wood is easier.

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I see I left a ton of sanding scratches from the rock leveling. Back to work

SR

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On 4/24/2023 at 5:39 PM, ScottR said:

At which point I commenced to sanding rocks. Wood is easier.

YES IT IS!!!!!!! Welcome to the Crushed Stone Inlay Club.

In investigating crushed stone inlay, I discovered something we already knew: some rocks are harder than others. This means that some are far more appropriate for inlay as they will sand smooth far easier. Would that I had made this logical connection earlier. 

In hindsight, it seems best to me too mix the sizes of stones when doing the inlay. You have large voids, so you used larger stone. This left noticeable gaps. Mixing in a smaller grit would have helped fill those in. 

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48 minutes ago, avengers63 said:

In hindsight, it seems best to me too mix the sizes of stones when doing the inlay. You have large voids, so you used larger stone. This left noticeable gaps. Mixing in a smaller grit would have helped fill those in. 

There were some small grit in the selection and I crushed some of the chips as well. Where I could have done better.....had I figured out how was to see what was actually at the level of the table top when the stone was in a pile over the cavity. It felt pretty densely packed, but obviously there were gaps between nuggets. The clear that is going over the top should make subsurface stones more visible and improve the look.

It is what it is--no do-overs here.

SR

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This finish is a long way from being finished, but if it were a finished finish it would look quite a bit like this.DSC04344.JPGDSC04345.JPG

The resin in the crushed turquoise did clear up and now it looks a lot more densely packed.

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Not done, but closer to being finished.

SR

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