prepping some live edge slabs of Quilted maple.

[John Spitters]

For the past three days I've been working on flattening these three slabs of Quilted Maple.
This involves a tremendous amount of hand work with the hand planes, I'm using a 5 1/4 jack a smoother and my jointer. so far I've filled up a large garden waste bag just with the shavings from the hand planes. Not only must these slabs be flat and true from end to end but they must also not have any twist in them. It's a good workout and I'm sure I'll have dropped a few pounds by the time I am done.
Fortunately I have a 24" drum sander so I'll be using it to flatten and true up the rest of the slab.
prepping slabs.jpg


These two slabs will be for a table that is to go in our own home, the finished table will be apx. 6' in length by 30" in width. The table will be built to the same height as our kitchen counters so that it may also double as a kitchen island. My plan is to eventually also build 4 chairs to go along with the table.
prepping slabs2.jpg


This 3rd slab is destined to be another table for the gallery, it is the next slab from the flitch sawn log as to the last table built, and my intent is to replicate that table with this slab.
All three of these slabs feature some very nice quilting
prepping slabs3.jpg

[Tom Sontag]

I just tackled a similar project and certainly know about the workout you are getting. If I had yours to do from the start, I would begin with a hand held power planer to get things close to flat on one side and use that sander with a coarse grit for the other side. There certainly is an intangible reward in doing things with all hand tools, but on the other hand it could be just a two hour project instead of three days.

[Jeff Monson]

Looks good John, hand planning those large slabs is a ton of work. For the last slab I flattened, I built a quick router sled and used a 3/4" straight bit. I had both sides flat and true thickness in about an hour.

[John Spitters]

Hi Jeff
I keep giving thought to building one of those router sleds for flattening, and perhaps I should build one sooner than later.
Especially since I have access to many many more of these slabs and the plan is to build perhaps one table per month for the gallery, especially since they are selling so well.

John

[John Spitters]

I needed to use the pressure washer today to remove some of the remaining bark on the live edges of these slabs and since they were wet from the water I thought that I would take a quick pic to show the quilting. These are going to make one very nice table.

[Prashun Patel]

Now that's just showin' off. Those slabbys aint to shabby.

[Jim Matthews]

I'm not sure people will pay good money for something so uneven.

Send them to me, I'll ship you some nice Poplar that's straight as the day is long.
That will save you a good deal of frustration that a nice Canucks fan already bears in undue measure....

[seth henry]

I had some flitches band-milled a year and half ago and have started working with them for bar tops, benches, tables and headboards. I cribbed an article from FWW and went the sled route form the get-go.

I built two simple 9' rails from laminating three 3/4" x 2" ash boards. Used hole saw to make clamping holes every 12". I clamp these to the bench on either side of slab and use a simple plywood sled for the router. I shim the slab to approximately level and lightly clamp one end (don't need much as the weight of the flitch is usually enough). Start at one end, swtich the clamp halfway. I use the Amana 1" straight bit (45236). Have been taking as much as 1/4" per pass in hard maple but it appears I generated enough heat on the last one to permanently weld the bit into the router chuck.

This takes about 20 minutes per side on a 8' x 20" flitch. If it is close to true I only rout one side and finish the other on the timesaver (open face pnumatic belt sander).

Only downside is dust collection doesn't really work on this setup and lots of chips.

Wondering - are there planer/jointers out there that can handle big flitches in a single pass? If so, how would one get access to one? I have about 100 big flitches air drying, stored and it sure would be nice to trailer a bunch somewhere and get them prepped. Truing up lumber just isn't that fun after a while.

Hi Jeff
I keep giving thought to building one of those router sleds for flattening, and perhaps I should build one sooner than later.
Especially since I have access to many many more of these slabs and the plan is to build perhaps one table per month for the gallery, especially since they are selling so well.

John

[John Spitters]

Update ...
I went ahead and purchased this form Woodhaven. http://www.amazon.com/Woodhaven-3004...productDetails http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...ML._SX270_.jpg plus this for the planning bit http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...woodworkweb-20 http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31wm-P3JxQL.jpg already have it in the shop now just need to build the long side rails and I'm in business . Should reduce what was a 1-2 day job flattening a large slab to an hour or less.

[Dave Beauchesne]

[QUOTE="
Wondering - are there planer/jointers out there that can handle big flitches in a single pass? If so, how would one get access to one? I have about 100 big flitches air drying, stored and it sure would be nice to trailer a bunch somewhere and get them prepped. Truing up lumber just isn't that fun after a while.





[/QUOTE]

Seth:
You need to find somebody with one of these. 24" Oliver jointer. My buddy also has an Oliver 24 " planer.
Not sure of your location, but these are I'm Canada's west coast. There will be folks not too far away that have big equipment ( likely ) start asking around.
Good luck.

[seth henry]

Dave - Thanks for the pics. I will be asking around for sure. John, looks like a good pickup. Please post a report when you try it out.