Decent weather equals shop time for me. Had to solve a small dilemma though. I've had this Maple stump sitting on the porch/shop for over a year now drying. Admittedly not the ideal environment for that but that was the only place for it at the time due to the size and weight. Now way I could lift it up on the bench so I had to rig up an addition for my router sled get-up. This is what I came up with.
After planing it down level, I just couldn't resist hitting it with a little BLO to see what the grain looked like. My original plan was use this stump as a base for dining table so it was cut at 38" length to be cut down to the its finished height of 32". I was going to put the root end on the floor and put some kind of solid top on it. Now that I've seen the grain in it, I'm having a hard time sticking to the original plan.
While looking for that butterfly shaped slab I was working on last weekend, I remembered having another large slab that had bowed really bad on me last year.:BangHead: I had taken it up to the storage unit and left it there thinking I'd do something with it one day. Well, yesterday, I decided to tackle it and see what came of it. All things considered, I guess it was a good thing that I had originally cut it at around 6" thick. Planing out all that bowing to get a level surface end to end left me with a little over 2" thickness.:icon_thum
After all day planing and re-honing bits, it came out alright. I did a little initial sanding and gave 'er a real good coat with the BLO. WOW! This piece has some really neat grain and a lot of "flame" in areas where I never expected it.
This and the other two large slabs are all from the same tree. Thanks for looking.
After planing it down level, I just couldn't resist hitting it with a little BLO to see what the grain looked like. My original plan was use this stump as a base for dining table so it was cut at 38" length to be cut down to the its finished height of 32". I was going to put the root end on the floor and put some kind of solid top on it. Now that I've seen the grain in it, I'm having a hard time sticking to the original plan.
While looking for that butterfly shaped slab I was working on last weekend, I remembered having another large slab that had bowed really bad on me last year.:BangHead: I had taken it up to the storage unit and left it there thinking I'd do something with it one day. Well, yesterday, I decided to tackle it and see what came of it. All things considered, I guess it was a good thing that I had originally cut it at around 6" thick. Planing out all that bowing to get a level surface end to end left me with a little over 2" thickness.:icon_thum
After all day planing and re-honing bits, it came out alright. I did a little initial sanding and gave 'er a real good coat with the BLO. WOW! This piece has some really neat grain and a lot of "flame" in areas where I never expected it.
This and the other two large slabs are all from the same tree. Thanks for looking.