My first woodworking project

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

I once found a couple of elm burl slabs for sale on the cheap, so I bought them without having any plan for them.

They have the size of a medium coffee table, so why not try to make a coffee table?

they were cut in slabs with a chainsaw and far from flat. To begin with I tried to use my scrub plane to roughen them nearly flat. After lots of lots of sweat and swearing I gave up and took them to the nearest wood shipbuilding yard. They have a thicknesser whitch can take up to 100 cm wide boards.

Now they are flat, but still have marks from the machining.

I used a holesaw to drill three 48mm holes in an angle in one of the slabs and then I went to a friends machine shop to borrow his lathe were I turned three 50mm aluminum axels into taper for the legs.

I have then used my orbitsander to sand down the machining marks.

Im filling all the cracks and knot holes with different colors of hot glue.

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[Lee Schierer]

Interesting project. I would recommend using epoxy to fill the holes instead of hot glue, which may be rubbery. Epoxy will cure hard and is available in some colors.

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

Yes, I have probably made a mistake using hot glue. I have found out that I have to be really carefull when I sand it. If it gets too hot, the glue melts and get ugly. The problem is that its too late to change it, since I already filled the cracks

I guess its learning by doing some times

[Yonak Hawkins]

That's an amazing piece of wood.

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

It is indeed, but its so curly and interlocked that its very hard to plane

[Allan Ferguson]

A very challenging piece of wood to work with hand tools. Good luck with your project. Allan.

[Raymond Fries]

Very nice.

Enjoy it always.