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Flame Birch- Need Ideas

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sugarlady1980

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Lisa
I need some inspiration you all. My dad gave me some 50 x 12 x 1 flame birch slabs. Think it would be a waste to use them for floating shelves? I wanted to do a skinny table for our hall but Im lazy and don't want to make legs and the hairpin things would be too big. Otherwise I guess I'll make a chest or something out of them.

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Figured boards that size, and I assume relatively flat, are nice to have for larger projects such as furniture. If I had them and didn't have a specific project in mind right now, I'd sticker them and save them until I did.
 
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  • #3
Ah well that makes sense. I have 4 of them and he said he had more back at home. Looks like I need to build my first piece of furniture!
 
sugarlady1980 said:
Ah well that makes sense. I have 4 of them and he said he had more back at home. Looks like I need to build my first piece of furniture!
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Were it me - I'd see if I could talk your dad out of 6 more boards just like those and make a blanket chest roughly 40x24 x 20 deep. I'd try to make it look like a solid block of flamed birch, so I'd miter the corners, bind the top so no end grain shows, do my absolute best to make my joints invisible. Get some aromatic red cedar to line the inside. And make a drop in shelf. I'd even try to hide the hinges if I could.
 
These are beautiful, and nice sized pieces. Go for a furniture project. Don't feel like you need to design to use all the wood. Rather, simply design something beautiful. Many have tried some variation on the James Krenov style pieces.
 
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  • #9
Thank you all for the ideas! I think I'm going to go for the large blanket chest. Not sure how many more planks dad has, but they're all mine.
 
If you want to get the most out of that curl, I suggest that you sand up to #2500 because chatoyance increases significantly when going from #600 to #2500.
Then choose a finish that enhances chatoyance, like shellac or tung oil or nitro-based stuff.
Birch is a high-chatoyance timber, so if you put together pieces whose fiber direction is 90° expect to see some mismatch!
Paolo
 
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