Cool small tables

I have a cousin in Greenville who is an attorney. He recently built a new house, and floored it with some walnut from trees that were cut down from some hunting land his father owns. The flooring was ripped into veneer and put on something stable, it really turned out amazingly beautiful. He did have a few really nice slabs of walnut left over, and liked the live edge look. So I offered to make something cool out of the slabs. This turned into a couple of really sweet end tables. I had enough left over to put together a sweet burl table for my parents too.  I started with the table tops.

Two slabs - I got a board and two pieces for the tops out of each slab

The cutoff burls - one of these became the small tabletop

planning a table top

The small top and the other side table top

Finally gluing up the tops

Gluing up the other top

I bent a batten to create a curve on the ends

These are already cool. Ben really liked the live edge look, and the contrast between the darker heartwood and the sapwood. To make up these tabletops, I took one live edge piece and cut it in half, so I had two lengths that I could join together. The top picture shows that the slabs only have one live edge, so I ripped out a board for the table bases, and cut the remaining live edge to the right lengths. I also had a piece of wide cherry laying around, so I cut the same length out of that and ripped two boards for the centerpiece. Then I put everything through the planer to get it to the same thickness, and routed the cut edges using a rabbet. So I was able to rabbet these three boards together with plenty of glue surface it turned out nice.

Actually, it turns out that I either didn't get the thickness the same or didn't have the router bit set high enough, the cherry ended up a few millimeters too low under the surface. After the glueup was cured, I pulled out a batten and faired a curve on each end, then cut that clean. After sanding everything flush, I still didn't have a good top so I had to bust out the totalboat epoxy to raise up the cherry to the level of the walnut.

Tops are coated with epoxy

detail of the rabbet joints

Now with even more glue? notice the drips - not good

These table tops turned out fantastic, until I started putting the epoxy on there. Maybe I didn't mix it enough, or maybe the temperature just wasn't right outside, but it would not cure no matter what. I left it baking in the sun for a week straight and still had sticky parts. I ended up taking it off with a planer and a shitload of 40 grit sanding belts.

One of those boards, and groupings of tapered legs

The cool burl on the small tabletop

Finishing with the other parts, cut the legs to size, time to build some table bases.

Finish the countertops

We had demo complete last time, ready to install the new butcher block countertops. These had to be cut and fit precisely in order to get a clean install.

Dry fit of the largest piece with a sample of the tile, before the hole for the sink was cut out

Back outside for some stain - really makes the grain pop

This Old Masters stain on the oak was brilliant

Sink hole was cut to size, and it's all stained

Side piece glued down

This small piece beside the stove is finally in too

Love how this finally turned out

Everything lines up smooth

Now with holes for the sink, faucet, and a filter

Plumber got the faucet installed

New disposal & drain

Original vs finished product - quite a difference

Overall these turned out fantastic. The color and grain are exactly what we wanted, the tile is gone and these butcher block countertops are installed and fantastic. I just glued them down, no mechanical fasteners. There were still some gaps in the joints, those got filled in with glue or caulk.

Update: you can see in that picture that the notch fits around the door jamb nice and flush. These were installed a few months ago, and I still haven't put the tile in, and those air-dried countertops finally dried some more? Now there is a 2" gap between that door jamb and the countertop. I think I'm going to end up replacing these with edge grain countertops anyway.