Extraordinary Blackbutt from Boutique Timbers

[FenceFurniture]

During the recent faFF Tour flatty and I called in to Boutique Timbers to pu some Blackbutt boards I had earmarked the previous week. There were some very encouraging curls of grain on the sides of the boards.

Yesterday, NCArcher came around to help me joint and thickness 3 of these big boys (2m long, 200x50mm). We were not quite prepared for what we started to see.

Beautiful quilting. Every face of every board. (11 metres all up)

436136 .... 436135

I couldn't help myself, and had to sand this board up to get a preview of my new dining room table.

436137 .... 436138

Nice bit of worm hole that looks a bit like Bird's Eye.

I was saying to NCA that the quilting looks like one of those Chinese dogs with all the loose skin (https://www.google.com/search?q=sharpei+puppy&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=CFsX2x5Gvta-EM%253A%252C_Udte90pNYt5nM%252C_&usg=__0W6GinexfW6soPXW8JoZL8XpP1Q%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiA_abQhKjbAhWFNJQKHRDFBeIQ_h0I_wEwGA#imgrc=CFsX2x5Gvta-EM:). (imagine seeing that in the mirror!)

So after we dressed them they are about 42-44mm thick so I'm thinking that resawing them in half to 18-20mm thick boards is the go. They are too thick for a table as they are (weight), and I really don't want to just send 15mm of the board thickness into the dust collector.......

We may have a go at that at Chris Parks' place on Saturday.

Even using a segmented head thicky/jointer with new edges on the cutters, some of the tearout was appalling! More like a Dugout, especially from the edges - there were holes 8-10mm deep! I fixed three of those edges today by running a track saw down them. The tabletop will definitely have to go through a thickness sander, but I suspect it will be a knockout! Two of these boards either side of a 225mm Sydney Blue Gum board for some colour contrast.


A big shout of thanks to NCA for his help (it was pretty hard yakka actually) :2tsup:

Big thanks also to Mal & Greg Ward for helping me select such stunning timber!

And fletty for driving the trailer around. And Shanesmith80 for providing said trailer. :D

[groeneaj]

That figure is ridiculous!!
If you want to drum sand the boards before you glue up the table top, you know where I live.

[Enfield Guy]

Can you resaw into 2 or 3 mm veneers? You should get a lot more square metres of effect.

[qwertyu]

what type of sandpaper do you use?

[FenceFurniture]

J�öst from Germany.

[woodPixel]

It's very rude showing off like that 😍😍😍

[truckjohn]

Beautiful beautiful stuff. I am glad to see you were able to get your hands on the stuff.

[FenceFurniture]

Two of these boards either side of a 225mm Sydney Blue Gum board for some colour contrast.The nearly-visual image I have for the table is, or has been so far, a couple of BB boards and a Sydney Blue Gum board (also from Boutique).

These pics only shows 3 BB boards (coz I've only done 3 so far), but you get the idea.

436204 it changes as you move.436205


436203


Then, as one tends to do on a super-sunny Autumn day, I got to thinking......

Now despite what you may think, good things have been known to come out of such a process....on occasion. :D
Sometimes.
Alright, once, a few years ago.

What follows may or may be another one.

I have any amount of skinned back fence palings, and many of them have a character that I really like. I also like asymmetry very much .EVERY photography student learnt asymmetry via Arnold Newman's iconic portrait of Igor Stravinsky (https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+photo+of+stravinsky&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=NyqLloxnoMSRHM%253A%252C-L_xntE1eM2h2M%252C_&usg=__ZravzRaAEKJziEGbMygrvyV7XzQ%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0s7H__qnbAhULgrwKHRS7A8YQ9QEILzAD#imgrc=NyqLloxnoMSRHM:) - that is a killer pic - Newman would have known as he looked through the viewfinder that it was going to be world famous.

I would have to slightly alter the width of the BB boards to get the right balance (so that there were two blonde bands of different widths. The Blue Gum is currently 220mm wide (9½") and can be reduced.

Then, still using a similar layout shown above, have a thinner and darker band separating two blond boards. About 1/3 the width of one BB board.

Like (from left to right), and for a table 1 metre wide (which allows for stuff running down the middle to serve from)
Blackbutt about 190mm wide
Sydney Blue 220 wide
Two BB cut to butterfly 190x2
Palings strip 70 wide
Blackbutt about 140mm wide

The butterfly boards could like quite speccy.

The palings strip could be a design of edge up strips

436206

or a series of faces to make up the length.

436207


Even two palings laminated together are really strong, so 4-5 will be very solid indeed.


Thoughts or opinions, anyone?