Spalted Maple Slab Coffee Table

Ok, so after lurking on wood working blogs for close to 3 years, I've decided to take the plunge and start my own blog based on my own projects. Not really sure yet how this is going to work out to be honest, we'll see. With a young family, (2 year old and 9 month old), free time is precious and generally I like to use whatever I have to be working in the shop as opposed to blogging, but I'd also like to try and document my progress to share with others so I'll give it a go.

At some point I'll try and give the shop tour, intro to how I came into wood working (actually that is simple - my Dad is the reason I work wood) and my basic interests, but for now, I'd like to just describe my current project.

I'm really just starting to get into buying wood from hardwood suppliers in rough-cut form as I purchased a jointer and planar a few years back. I'd been wanting to build a "live-edge" slab coffee table for some time, so a few months ago, I was at Timeless Materials near my work in Waterloo, ON and came across a 10/4, spalted maple slap that they had salvaged. Seemed like a good candidate for a coffee table so I took the plunge and bought it.

So here it is after I had spent a some time flattening the top with my jack plane. I think it is going to be pretty sweet. So the next challenge was what to do with the legs. I've never done anything like this before so I did some digging on the web, looked at some Nakashima-like stuff, looked through some magazines, and eventually found this table on Deconet.

I was really struggling to figure out how four legs would work with the odd-shape of the slab, but when I saw this, I knew three legs was the way to go. This would also eliminate any rocking that might occur with four legs if the slab started to move over time. So I then started to play around in sketch-up with some leg ideas. Really wanted some funky curved legs, but realized they would just end up competing with the top, and considering I wanted to keep the project reasonably manageable, I decided to go for some straight lines. This is what I came up with:

So, I think I like it and my wife liked them too, so I had a winner. Now to figure out how to build the legs, which I am going to make out of walnut. Speaking of walnut, I found a fellow about an hour from me who has a lot of walnut (flitch cut, live edge and dimensioned) that he sources locally, so I took a trip out and bought all I could fit in and on my Jetta (yes, about 80 board feet of 8/4, in a Jetta. That car never ceases to amaze me, but next time I'll bring a trailer.)

So as I mentioned, I am a blog lurker... there, I said it, my conscious is clear. Some of the blogs I follow are from current and past students of the Inside Passage. One such fellow, Ian Godfrey and another, Nick Nelson are two guys whose work I really admire. Ian Godfrey likes to use bridal joints on a lot of the legs in pieces he makes. So I think I'd like to give that a try. I mocked up a leg out of 2x4 and took a look at how it would work out. (To do this I made full-scale drawings, a technique strongly recommended by both Nick and Ian.) Here is the getto-mock-up. (Yes, that is a cat-litter box.)

So, I worked out how to do the bridal joint for tapered members at a non 90-degree angle. I must confess I was kind happy to pull that off. For the actual legs, I'm thinking of a sculpted inside corner, to have a curved transition from the vertical to horizontal portion of the leg, not convinced this is the way to go yet, but I am going to mill up an extra leg out of my walnut to play with this a bit. Speaking of that, here are the leg blanks:

Well, thats about it for now. Next step is to start playing with the legs. Going to shoot for bridal joints, sculpted inside corner and pillowed outside face. Stay tuned.....