A tale of two Pines

**IanW** · 17th June 2019, 05:33 PM

This is a story of how two trees meet and became a table.

The first tree was a very large, old-growth Hoop Pine (Auracaria cunninghamii), which grew I know not where, but probably along the coastal ranges somewhere north of Brisbane. Huge Hoop pines were once common along the ranges & in the riverine rainforests of S.E. Qld, but were somewhat over-utilised after European settlement, to the point that few large trees remain in the wild, and even fewer that are ever likely to be milled. There are scattered trees peeking above the canopy in their old haunts, in fact, there are several good-sized specimens along the creek behind our property, standing proud above the River Oaks: 1 A cunninghamiia.jpg

But they are a very long way from yielding planks like these: 2 Top pieces.jpg

The tree those planks came from was quite likely a stout adolescent when Cook sailed past, but sometime circa 1960, it became a mighty mill log, yielding 2 ft. wide boards that ultimately became laboratory bench-tops in the (then) new veterinary school on the St. Lucia campus. As a student in the late 60s, I’d sat at some of these benches for various practical classes, but hadn’t taken all that much notice of them at the time, not that I’d have seen much anyway, under thick protective coats of black paint or dark varnish.

As fate had it, I returned to a faculty position at my alma mater early in the new millennium, not long before it was decided to refurbish several of the old laboratories. The original wooden benchtops were deemed no longer fit for purpose & unceremoniously ripped out. And I mean unceremoniously! The demolition crew obviously had no eye for rare treasures, & used some pretty brutal methods to get things apart. A colleague & I managed to liberate a couple of intact tops before they got there & rescued a few more not-too-damaged boards from the skip. I ended up with several like those in the pic, each a single board about 2.2M long, by 590mm wide and 32mm thick. They were carefully stored away to await a project where I could honour their past and keep them as close to intact as possible.

The provenance of the second tree of the story, a Pinus radiata, I know precisely. It stood 750mm from the southwest corner of our house & was just a stripling in comparison with the Hoop Pine that provided those large boards; about 25 metres tall and 750mm diameter at the base. It was probably planted in the 1950s or very early 60s when our property was still farmland. In 1997, it suffered the indignity of having a house plonked beside it. 3 Pine beside house.jpg

The tree showed its displeasure at this state of affairs by constantly clogging the gutters with shed needles & cones, & during a particularly violent storm, hurled a large branch at the offending building, which bent some guttering, but fortunately missed doing any serious damage. But such a clear escalation of the conflict was bound to provoke retaliation & it was decided that there tree was gonna hafta go. We contacted several tree loppers, but none seemed keen to take the job, none ever came back with a quote!

It was pretty straight & well balanced as trees go, & I’ve cut down enough trees in my time that had this one been in the middle of a paddock, I would have taken bets that I could drop it within two feet of any point you cared to nominate. But given its position & the fact that our insurance doesn’t expressly cover DIY tree removal, you can appreciate I was a bit nervous about sinking the chainsaw into it!
So I conscripted an old friend who lists mountain-climbing amongst his many skills, & with his help, we removed & safely lowered all of the larger branches hanging over the house side. The cunning plan was to provide my own insurance by having all the weight on the side we wanted it to fall towards. Thankfully, it landed within 2 degrees of the aiming-point (phew!!): 4.jpg

P. radiata is usually not a wood to rave about, in S.E. Qld, it tends to be quite resinous, so my original intention was to hire a monster mulcher & chip it, for convenient disposal (& as payback for its gutter-clogging crimes!). But as I started slicing it up into manageble chunks, I saw it was quite a clean tree with plenty of good, clear wood. It seemed like vandalism to trash it, so I relented & got out my rip chain & slabbing rail & went to work: 5 1st cut.jpg

A few hours later there were some goodly piles of slabs & billets: 7 slabs b.jpg 6 slabs a.jpg

When you’ve got a pile of wood, uses for it seem to come along regularly, and as it dried, I began working my way through the stack until eventually, there were just 3 big chunks from the base log left. Even well-dried they were hefty brutes, so unsurprisingly, I’d avoided them as long as possible! The log had also been lying on the ground for a couple of months before being milled, due to other commitments, and it developed some blue-stain for a metre or so in from the ends.

Recently, I had a request from within the family for a large dining table, and it seemed the perfect use for both the Hoop Pine planks & the last of the radiata had presented. They could certainly fill the ‘large’ part of the request. The brief for this table could be summed up as “space to sit 10 people & nothing fancy”. No Georgian curves or fluted legs, thank you.

A basic refectory-style table was agreed on as fitting the bill, the old Hoop was almost the perfect size for a ten-place top, & the radiata would make a solid & suitably heavy base. Normally, I would shy away from a ‘two-tone” mix, but in this case, I thought it might work well. No fancy joinery would be required, the main challenge will be dealing with very large baulks of timber.

The first task was to get those 3 large chunks of radiata into manageabIe pieces. They were all far too large for any of my machinery, so nothing for it but to drag out the Kellogs-powered gear & get stuck in. I started with the widest & heaviest slab, which was a bit over 90mm thick, up to 500 wide, and 2M long. This is going to provide the two end ‘legs’. I roughly flattened each end with scrub & jack planes so I could get a quick check with winding sticks: 8 main slab.jpg

These indicated a slight twist, but by cutting off the two ‘leg’ lengths (~700mm), I reduced the amount of work needed to get a flat face on each. They still had me grunting to lift them onto the bench; mature radiata is amongst the heavyweights of the Pinus group. Then following the typical sequence of scrub, jack, & jointer planes, I flattened a face & squared one edge on each piece: 9 flattening face.jpg

Now, here comes the scary part, these bits are over 90mm thick, but I wanted them to be 65mm, so about 25mm had to come off. My bandsaw can handle 300mm depth of cut, which was way short of the mark, so nought for it but to drag out my old Disston 5-3tpi thumbhole & go to it. This is like sending a boy on a man’s errand, as my old pot used to say, the Disston is not designed for that depth of cut, so I was prepared for some slow going. To help keep the saw on track, I ran a shallow kerf along the cut lines & flipped the board around every 250-300 strokes: 10 splitting leg slab.jpg

I got about 250mm into the first slab & thought I was working much harder than I should be, even for such a deep cut. I checked the teeth, which felt a bit dull, so I gave them a quick touch-up, which improved matters a little. I pressed on & eventually finished both cuts (with a long coffee-break in between!). Now I had my legs plus two good, box-sized boards as a bonus: 11 leg split.jpg

Dealing with the other two bits was a bit easier. These are going to provide the centre stretcher, two top stretchers & the top & bottom rails of the ‘legs’. The first plank I tackled averaged about 170mm deep, which is a bit more in the range the Disston was meant to handle, enough of the saw would be exposed on each stroke to clear itself properly. I spat on my hands, & started sawing again: 12 core slab.jpg

About 400mm into the first cut, I was sure things weren’t right, so I took a proper look at my saw. I’m ashamed to admit, although I’ve had this saw for several years, and sharpened it at least twice, I obviously hadn’t looked at it too critically before. The teeth appeared in unusually good shape when it came into my possession, & I just assumed they were ‘right’ without bothering to check. But when compared with a protractor, I was surprised to find the rake angles had slipped to something like 12 degrees, no wonder it was cutting slowly! So I spent some time re-forming the teeth to my preferred 5-7 degrees rake, which was no small job on such whopper fangs. And what a difference that made! The size of the sawdust grains doubled & so did the cutting speed. Don’t know why I hadn’t spotted those laid-back teeth before this! Pretty soon I had both boards split into two: 13 both core bits ripped.jpg

This got me some boards I could lift reasonably comfortably, and feed to the jointer/thicknesser & bandsaw that had been standing idly by while I sweated away with the Disston. Bandsaws eat 75mm thick pine with great zeal, so cutting out the rails was a much easier task: 14 powered help.jpg

Eventually, all of the pieces for the undercarriage were faced, jointed & thicknessed. The pile of parts doesn’t look very impressive sitting on saw horses, but I assure you, there’s a substantial amount of wood there, and some equally substantial joints to be cut.

Mature P. radiata can have a density of close to .7, and I reckon this stuff is getting up there – it will give this table a low centre of gravity & good stability. 15 all bits roughed out.jpg

**IanW** · 17th June 2019, 05:47 PM

As mentioned, this will be a refectory style table with two leg assemblies be joined by two top stretchers which will also serve as ‘aprons’ for attaching the top. They will be tenoned into the top rails, and a single lower stretcher will pierce the leg pieces & be retained by ‘tusk’ wedges. Only the top & bottom rails will be fixed permanently to the legs, the stretchers will all be demountable so the table can be easily pulled apart when it comes time to move it. I think it will be a lot easier to manage in pieces!

After the various parts were trimmed to size, I marked out & cut a 25mm thick tenon on each end of the leg pieces, which were then reduced to 3 ‘split’ tenons, each approximately 80mmwide: 16 cutting tenons.jpg 17 cutting tenons.jpg

Now it’s time to put a few of those electrons being manufactured up on my roof to good use. I used a hollow-chisel mortiser to chop out the leg mortises. This is one machine I almost enjoy using – it’s easy to set up, accurate, quiet, & quick. I reckon I had all 12 through-mortises done in less than a quarter of the time it would’ve taken me to chop them out manually. 18 Mortising feet.jpg

To take the stubs between the main tenons, I needed to chop out a 15mm deep groove between each mortise. I tried cutting down the sides with a small back saw, but couldn’t get it into the restricted space, so I cast about for inspiration. It came in the form of an odd-shaped scrap of 0.020” saw plate that was too short to use for any normal saw, but enough to yield a short, curved blade. So I tidied up the curve & toothed it. I had an old handle I’d taken off some saw or other, for reasons long forgotten, and even a short length of slotted brass lying around, perfect for a partial spine. In an hour or less, I had this odd-looking little saw: 19 tight place saw.jpg

It worked exactly as intended (a bit to my surprise) & I was easily able to saw 15mm down the sides & knock out the waste. A couple of minutes work on each one & the rails were ready to fit to the legs: 20 mortises ready.jpg

After some minor adjusting here & there, all of the bits went together nicely: 21 Leg dry fit.jpg

With that part attended to, I chopped out the through-mortises for the lower stretcher, cut the tenons on the stretcher itself, & made the tapered mortises for the tusks. Now I could do a dry assembly to check the measurements for the top stretchers, and cut & fit them into mortises in the top rail: 21a Dry fit 2.jpg

Before glue-up, the leg sections were smoothed & readied. If you need any convincing that radiata can be a dense wood, look at these shavings off a card scraper! There are few softwoods that scrape as well as this! 22 scraping.jpg

After glueing up the leg assemblies, I assembled the base to make sure all was well.
All good, but it’s getting darned heavy! The blue-stain has formed quite a prominent pattern on this leg, as you can see: 23 Base assembled.jpg

Finally, it was time to turn to the top. The two large planks were trimmed to an even width and the edges carefully jointed & slightly ‘sprung’. There were deep grooves along the backs of the top faces, where a stainless steel strip had been inlaid to cover the rear fixing screws. The dismantling crew had simply jemmied the strip off, tearing out the screws holding it in place and causing jagged, splintered holes. There was just too much ‘character’ there for a dining table, and it would have taken many hours of planing to get the boards levelled, so I decided to turn them over & make what had been the bottom sides the top. Both planks were otherwise remarkably straight, & free of twist or cupping, so after a bit of finessing of the edges with my #7, they went together seamlessly: 24 Top glued.jpg

With the glue dry, it was time for more exercise. The Hoop planed nicely, but my ageing back was not happy about leaning over to reach the centre! I cleaned up what had been the top sides of the benches first. It just needed to be level and free of the thick original varnish, so I finished it with a #4 smoother which left a surface adequate fr the ‘down’ side, but certainly not perfect. 25 Planing underside.jpg

From the top, I plugged the screw holes and a few other scars, then planed it flat. This side was the easier of the two to dress. 26 Top rough planed.jpg

You may not think a smoother the size of a block plane would be much use on a broadacre table top, but there were a couple of dips in the surface, which must have been caused by drawers (or something in the drawers) rubbing back & forth over several decades. A #4 sailed over them but my new little infill, skewed a bit, handled these very happily: 27 Little smoother.jpg

One plank had a fine split in the middle of one end, running about 250mm into the board. It seemed to be pretty stable, & I could probably have left it, but I opted for a bit of insurance in the form of a 20mm deep butterfly key to hold it closed: 28 Butterfly key.jpg

Not the best inletting job I’ve ever done, the Hoop crumbled a bit when I was chiselling it out, so the edges aren’t water-tight, but the key fitted snugly, and the crack remained tightly closed when I let the cross-clamp off next morning. It’s doing its job, but if it had been a visible key, I would have routed it out & done it again, but no one is likely to ever see it, so I decided it was wiser to leave well-enough alone.

With the top planed and the edges rounded over, I hand-sanded to 240 grit, then applied two coats of a ‘satin’ varnish, sanded back between coats (sufficient, I hope, to resist red wine spills long enough to get the dish-cloth), and that’s that – ready for delivery (I will wipe that dust off before then…..) 29 Top finished.jpg

The table was duly delivered & put in place on the weekend. It sits comfortably in its allotted alcove, and the blue-stain was voted a decorative touch rather than a defect. 30 Done & dusted.jpg

It was immediately put to use; the fire was lit, some rather good food was assembled, and a very pleasant meal ensued, enhanced by convivial company, a glowing fire and a pleasant drop or two of a well-aged beverage. The sweat & toil of breaking down those great billets of radiata quickly became a dim memory…..

**LanceC** · 17th June 2019, 09:33 PM

That's a great story Ian, and I'm immensely impressed by your sawing efforts. Everything else is amazing, but that sawing. Wow.

I was also highly impressed with your ability to produce a saw on demand like that. When I first saw the picture and you stated describing making the saw, my initial response was "Surely not, no way". But there you go, you knocked up a saw in the same time I'd take to make a 45 deg template for my shooting board!

Thanks for providing source material for the rest of us to aspire to.

Lance

**WoodyOwen** · 17th June 2019, 10:33 PM

I too am in awe of your handsawing skill and persistence, i would upgrade the fuel to Sustain with honey and cream! It is also great to see use of both recycled and unfashionable timbers.

Owen

**LanceC** · 17th June 2019, 10:41 PM

Deleted duplicate post.

**orraloon** · 17th June 2019, 11:21 PM

Epic bit of sawing there. My arms feel heavy just looking at that.
The blue stain kind of suits the design.
Regards
John

**Fergiz01** · 18th June 2019, 12:37 AM

What a satisfying conclusion to the story. Lovely table Ian.

**tony_A** · 18th June 2019, 09:32 AM

The table has come up a treat Ian, thanks for taking the effort to post. Radiata is generally a boring timber but the blue really sets it off.
Spaulted radiata sounds much better than blue stain.

Tony

**IanW** · 18th June 2019, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by tony_A

.....Spaulted radiata sounds much better than blue stain.....

Must remember that for the future, Tony, thanks!

Yes, it's all a matter of how you look at it, one man's 'defect' is another's 'feature'. I always smiled when I saw that ad that used to be on the back of woody mags a few years back, flogging exceptionally gum-veined Tasmanian Gum. "Natural Feature Grade", they called it, which some genius in the ad department decided to abbreviate to "NFG". I reckon it was NFG, alright.....

Cheers,

**IanW** · 18th June 2019, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by LanceC

...... I'm immensely impressed by your sawing efforts......

Lance, I was put on the end of a crosscut saw by my father when I was about 9 or 10. I used to think my arms were going to fall off sometimes, but they didn't, and I think it done me good..

It does take a bit of sweat, but a good old saw (properly sharpened!) makes it easier than you might think.

Originally Posted by LanceC

...... I was also highly impressed with your ability to produce a saw on demand like that. When I first saw the picture and you stated describing making the saw, my initial response was "Surely not, no way". But there you go, you knocked up a saw in the same time I'd take to make a 45 deg template for my shooting board!...

That was pure serendipity. I had the bits kicking about, and really all I had to do was shape the plate a bit more neatly, cut some teeth and drill a couple of holes in it.

When I made my first couple of saws, I shied away from cutting teeth & took my blank plate to a saw-sharpening place & paid $10 each to have them cut for me. After a bit, I got enough confidence to have a go at doing it myself, and was surprised at how easy it is - it took far less time than I expected. Luckily, I was still working with decent files made in Aus., at the time - it's a bit more challenging with poor-quality files!

As to why I didn't just chisel those bits out, I tried, but radiata can be a cow of a wood to chop cleanly, because of the extreme difference between the soft early-wood & the glass-hard late-wood. Two of my pieces also had very swirly grain from knots that added to the difficulty. The first bit I tried to chisel out wanted to split off in entirely the wrong direction! Sawing the 'cheeks' turned a cow of a job into a doddle.

And yes, any excuse for a diversion will do me, it's a bit of a hazard for a retiree. This little saw worked so well, & who knows? It takes up very little space in my saw till, & I'm bound to find another use for it, someday!

**aldav** · 18th June 2019, 10:47 AM

A ripping story Ian. Glad you survived to tell it.

The table is very pleasing indeed, the type of thing that will be passed down for generations.

**Luke Maddux** · 18th June 2019, 05:11 PM

Fantastic work, Ian. The contrasting colors work perfectly, and I really like the shape of the trestle (if it's still called a trestle when it's that shape?). A very happy customer I would imagine.

i recently had the pleasure of working with some old growth material after working with a very sub par specimen of the same species (Douglas Fir aka Oregon). It's not even playing the same sport... I probably made 2km of Hoop Pine into beekeeping boxes and I can assure you it didn't look a thing like that!

Anyway, great work and great story. I must admit I do like ironic the twist that you couldn't make it through the project without building a Saw!

Looking forward to the next one.

Cheers,
Luke

**IanW** · 18th June 2019, 06:38 PM

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

I probably made 2km of Hoop Pine into beekeeping boxes and I can assure you it didn't look a thing like that!....

Luke, young Hoop is really pale, & what you used was likely plantation wood, less than 80 years old. It does develop a bit of colour with age, but not as deep as the the mature stuff. Old growth Hoop reminds me of eastern white Pine (P. strobus), which the New Englanders call 'punkin pine' for the deep orangy colour it takes on as it ages. It was really satisfying using such large single boards, and comforting to think they should stay stable. After sitting for over 50 years as bench tops, I hope they have finished with any squirming they wanted to do by now...

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

....... I must admit I do like ironic the twist that you couldn't make it through the project without building a Saw! ....

'Twas just one of those spur-of-the moment things. It only happened because I had that otherwise useless scrap of plate and a spare handle, plus a dash of curiosity. It does need a little bit of refinement when I get time to fiddle with it some more. The rake of the teeth over the front curve is a bit too forward. I judged it by eye as I cut the teeth, lining up the file guide to an imaginary tangent at each point as I went along. I think, because you rotate the saw as you push it forward, it creates an effective rake angle that is much more 'forward', if that makes sense. In any case, the saw is a bit too aggressive over the curve, which is what does most of the work. I'll back them off a few degrees, sometime, and see how it goes....

I thought you might comment on the little 'bun' smoother - that's been a real revelation to me, that one. I saw a very similar plane in a book many years ago, and thought they were more of a toy than a work-a-day plane. I recently noticed that Konrad Sauer makes some similar-sized examples, so I'm in good company. I've definitely changed my tune since making its predecessor a year or two back! I'm even revising my opinion of Stanley's #1 - maybe it really is meant to be a serious tool...

Cheers,

**jw2373** · 18th June 2019, 06:55 PM

Wow Ian, that re-sawing looked exhausting! A good way to test the limits of the saw and probably the limits of lactic acid pumping through those arms!

Great result and I’ll bet your glad to have all that extra room in the shed now.

**Tonyz** · 18th June 2019, 07:39 PM

Loved the story Ian, felt physically sick with all the hard elbow grease but that looks stunning.

I really like the blue tinges in the pine.

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