With a 15' x 15" wide board of sapele, I knew I needed to do something a little different from my traditional style designs. The board has a continuous strip of sapwood that extended the length of the board, ranging from about 2-3" wide. I had the board cut into three managable sections, of equal length. Two of them really looked nice together with the sapwood on the outer edges of each. This gives the top an appearance of a giant slab, but at a fraction of the total cost.
I also wanted to create a natural appearance by keeping the natural shape of the original log, this leaves the long edges with an irregular, yet organic shape. The sapele also has some clear ribboning in the wood grain that should really pop when sanded and finished.
Following some quick joining and squaring off the ends, I glued up the two table top halves with some Gorilla wood glue and a few biscuits to help alignment. I unclamped them about an hour later, scraped off the excess, and began working at the edges to produce a nice natural feeling contour for the edges. A couple of spokeshaves set at heavy and fine cuts really allowed me to keep the edges in their natural state, while smooting out some of the imperfections. A pattern makers rasp also gives a great result, particularly along the edges where it meets the end-grain of the top. I went through a similar process of shaping by hand, the end-grain on both ends.
The top dimensions are 1 1/2" thick x 22-26" wide x 50" long, just slightly oversized from a traditional coffee table. There will be plenty of sanding and finessing of the edges as I get closer to the final product, but I want to see it on top of the base before making any final decisions.
Next post I'll go into some more details on the base for the coffee table. It has a very cool cantilevered design with some massive pieces of contrasting walnut to hold it all together. As I mentioned, this is definitely a design style that breaks with what I am used to, however, it has allowed me to begin looking at some very different styles that are very much influenced by the mid-century furniture design movement, particularly designers like George Nakishima and James Krenov. The internet of course, has proven to be a very helpful guide in some design and dimension decisions so far. Hopefully, this latest venture into new territory for me will be successful and receive an approval from my family as well.