Today I finally decided to start this table for a friend. It's not an end table but for the life of can't remember the name, but the one that most people have in front of their couch. Anyway, it's 24x36 made of Palo Verde. I have to make it in either 2 or possibly 3 pieces because of the cracks, punk and other stuff our desert woods are noted for.
Before finishing this post, I decided I would go outside and saw three pieces to make the 24" width needed for the width. The length can be cut after the top is glued together. All the other wood needed for legs and under top border thing (crs is really setting in) can't remember what it's called,( 1 hour later, I remembered. It's an apron.) will be cut after the top is complete. Anyway, went outside and it was just starting to rain. Crap, my table saw, miter saw and planer are all uncovered and sitting in the rain. It took me about 3 minutes to cover it all, then it quit raining. I looked up and saw more blue sky with patches of grey sky, especially the grey positioned over my house. Like I said, after I got everything covered, it quit raining. I don't think it rained more than 7-8 minutes, but just enough to really waste some commercial plywood or lumber that COULD have been sitting out there. But, l'm lucky as I decided to put that last bit of Hickory job away until I feel like starting it again.
This what I saw on my saw.
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I decided not to cover the saw as the top would just get real rusty, so left it uncovered . This is what the cover on the miter saw looks like in an emergency, but I hope it worked. Notice the shadow on the ground of my saw and some of thar wood stacked on the floor. It was there the whole time it was raining.
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This is what my saw looks like when not in use or if the weather looks bad.
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Anyway, on to the Palo Verde. I have 6 slabs ranging from 2" thick to 10 to 26" across x 38-42" long. The table I'm going to build is 24" wide, so all I'm going to need is 3 pieces at 8" wide that will be good at each end. It looks like that's not an issue. The top will be 1 1/4 inches thick. I never had to cut wood like this in my 47 years of being in the WW business. My biggest problem was the wood wasn't flat and was causing blade stoppage, but knowing how to use a saw made a lot of difference. I managed to cut 4 of the slabs with a straight side, jointed it and then cut down to a smaller width that will allow me to plane it.
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The two top pieces have been planned, but the bottom one weren't done yet. After thing dry up, I'll get back out and finish this.
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These are the cutoffs from the slabs. I'm going to cut the at 2x2s and 7/8 squares by pen blank lengths, both short and long. The 2x2s would work as bottle stoppers, but they will be sized to the longest I can get, about 10-12". There is color on 90% of them, but won't really know until done. Tomorrow sometime.
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I gotta go back out, uncover my saw, and cut the other pieces of Palo Verde so I can get the pieces glued up.
Not gonna do it as another grey cloud surrounded by blue sky is hovering over my house, and the cover on my saw looks like it got some more rain from the time I started this post................ Nubs