Wife wants a coffee table...

I'd cut one about 1" thicker than you want for the table, & paint both end grain sides & let it set in the shed for 2 - 3 years.
Help it dry slow & crack/split less.
Then sand off the paint, Smooth out one side, & seal it.
Lots of work but it would make a beautiful table.
Even then it will swell & crack some thru the years. End grain is tough to work with, but real pretty wood grain.

Easier might be to have a few boards milled 2-1/2" thick. dry for a couple years then make a table.

8" thick x 50" round will weigh a great deal,even more with 10" rounds for legs.You're talking several hundred pounds easily,even after drying several years.Plus anything that big will crack tremendously,even when sealed to slow the drying process somewhat.Lots of moisture there,the stresses of drying means it has to go somewhere.Better off having a few thick wider planks (2 1/2" to 4" ) milled & dried for a trestle-style table top & legs.I dont recall one of those that didnt look great once its finished.

It will crack if you just cut it & place it aside - Bogydave is right on. Paint both sides thickly with paint or polylurethane. Even if it does end up cracking a bit, still should make a real nice tabletop. Personally, my preference would be to cut it as a plank and I think you would have much less cracking. Still coat the end grain to prevent cracking

I was told by a guy who does these projects that the best way to do a "round" or "cookie" cut table is to cut it thicker as others have mentioned, and then submerge it in water (local stream or pond, etc.) for a year or more PRIOR to drying it out. Why, I don't know. But even if you do as BD mentioned above, painting or polyurethane both end grains and leave it go for a couple years, it should be OK.

To prevent and/or control the innevitable checking, you could vacuum bag it with one of a whole host of sealers (epoxy, urethane, etc.). With sealer thru and thru, moisture loss will be controlled and even, and checking will be controlled. http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/HowTo-Publications/Vacuum-Bagging-Techniques.pdf

Then again... you're talking about one heavy table! Dry oak (infused no sealer) is 45 lb./ft3, making that 8" x 50" table top weigh 130 lb., and the legs roughly 10 lb. each. Do a good job with your epoxy and vacuum bagging, and I suspect you could drive that weight up significantly from there.

Protip: do not tip over a 150lb coffee table!

Pagey said:

Protip: do not tip over a 150lb coffee table!

Click to expand...

be careful how big you build it...if its too heavy you will be doing the vacuuming before you know it!

If SWMBO wanted a heavy clunky-looking table like that, I'd be hollowing out the bottom side of that 8" thick top as much as possible, only leaving full thickness at the perimeter.

I'm more apt to do the opposite, though. I prefer furniture to look more delicate than it is, which means a thick tabletop, thinned at the edges. This works well on a plank table, but would be very weak in your case of end grain up.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Jebus that's going to weight a lot. I thought about doing one too as I like building my own furniture but I was more in the 2-3" range, and after shaping and sanding I'll only lose 1/2" or so. I do a lot of "reclaimed" wood furnishings. Built my wife a entryway coat rack and bench last year for her birthday.

Poly'll seal it you still want that moisture to escape. You can control the rate of loss with a plastic bag. And depending on your finish, you can always rub it with a boiled linseed oil here and there. Replacing the water with oil can help with that a bit. But that's the main thing with cracking is rate of drying between the open surfaces and the center that's still wet.. Unfortuantly you have the major two things going against you. It's a huge ammount of end grain, and 8" thick.

There's a website www.lumberjocks.com , do some reading over there, great forum.

Good luck, it's definitely worth a round to play with, its fun and rewarding making it yourself!

EDIT: Oh and another thing, when its done drying and you're ready to work the piece, bring it inside for a while, few days. When you're done working on it for the day, bring it back inside. So the 'end product' is used to the enviroment it'll be in (your home). For example if you're doing this in the fall/winter, wet and cold outside. I've had a few pieces I was working on in my shop, turned out great, and a month or so later it starts cracking from the temperature/humidity change.

Scotty Overkill said:

I was told by a guy who does these projects that the best way to do a "round" or "cookie" cut table is to cut it thicker as others have mentioned, and then submerge it in water (local stream or pond, etc.) for a year or more PRIOR to drying it out. Why, I don't know. But even if you do as BD mentioned above, painting or polyurethane both end grains and leave it go for a couple years, it should be OK.

Click to expand...

Scott, I've also heard this but never could figure out why. If anyone knows I'd love to know the reasoning.

So... Did you make the cut?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just left to dry it will check up like crazy, like secveral inches of separation at the perimeter running to the center. Its worth a try with the pond or water trick. I honetly would not worry about the PCB thing. Your not licking it or anything, they need to be concentrated to cause harm. This is the reason fish are a problem. Little fish eat dirt n stuff with it and get a little, big fish eats 50 little fish a day getting all their toxicity then a bigger fish eats one of these a ay and then when it gets to the fish you eat there is a huge toxicity concentration. Same thing with the sediment behind a dam, it settles out there and concentrates.

My point its even if the body of water has PCBs (and honestly here in the south every practically every stream, river and lake has them) and there still perfectly safe (MOST) of them to swim in and even eat certain amounts of fish. But this wood will not "concentrate" the PCBs. Also you will finish the table or you WILL if you use the canal, and this will lock up any contaminants in the wood from escaping. Kind of like encapsulation (painting or drywalling over) Asbestos ceiling tiles is a perfectly acceptable method to deal with them if you are fine with leaving them.

This will look cool, be heavy as hell and i would honestly make about 6 tops annd vary the method of drying cause most will crack.

clemsonfor said:

i would honestly make about 6 tops annd vary the method of drying cause most will crack.

Click to expand...

Good idea. Then again, it's easier said than done (unless you're retired / got time to burn).

I cut out a cookie off a big sugar maple we had in the yard..not 50" but probably 36" Kept it in the garage to dry out and from the center out it had a pie shaped crack in it. This was all before we burned for heat and I saved for whatever...busted it up and put it in my avalon insert last year and got afew hours out of it. Ended up being worth something to me.

btw: some serious chunks of wood.

You may want to use SketchUp to allow your wife to see what the end result would look like. What she's asking for defies the golden dimensions of furniture design. Excellent resource: "A Guide to Good Design - Fine Woodworking"

Got a friend that makes hardwood bats as a hobby. He takes the wood and wraps it in burlap and buries it for a year. I suppose it works as he has some beautiful bats.