Thread: Help out a nervous first timer

Yes the ring cracks are a bit of a problem. You could still slab it, but then cut it into planks, to relieve the stresses. A Lucas would be perfect. You were always going to be gluing up to get the width you wanted anyway.

As for using the stump for legs, it's fine, but your stump looks a bit short given you have to level the roots.

Yeah I'm hoping the boards that I may end up with will still be suitable. The stump as it is at the moment from 'end to end' would be almost 1500mm. i did do some measuring from where I thought I'd end up after trimming roots and what not and that left me with just under a meter. I was working off a table height of 700-750mm so I should have some play there. I wanted to leave plenty considering I can't be sure how much root matter I'll have to remove

Originally Posted by JackAttack

. . . . . . any input would be greatly appreciated. If you think it's absolutely bonkers, more than happy for people to play the antagonist in this little story to push my to something more realistic

You said any input so here goes.
Don't use the stump.
Theres a 99% probability it will look awful and based on the root bases I've seen in stores, a 0.9% chance it will look worse
Stumps get in the way of people's feet and chairs cant be tucked in around the table
It will weigh a heap making it a B- to move and you will need a lot more than 6 people to move it. It's not just the weight - the shape makes it awkward to move and nothing short of a forklift can really move that sort of thing
Finishing such a large rough surface is problematic.
I only know 3 people that have done this and all three said they did the wrong thing.
I'm not saying it can't be done but the probability of a newbie pulling off a natural edge table is low, let alone a natural support.

Make some drawings to scale to see what size legs you need but seeing as there is a lot of timber in that log, get Sidgi to mill you up some 4 x 4, 5 x 5 and 6 x 6 pieces for legs and mock up a few sides to see what it looks like with different size legs.

You do realise you will need to let it dry for a long time (years) before you can use the timber?

Originally Posted by BobL

You said any input so here goes.

I certainly did Fair point about the shape of it being awkward, was assuming once the construction of this bad boy commenced that I'd be need to come up with some dolly like device to move the stump (more work I know). I figure the stumps not useful for anything else so it's an idea. As you said, this is years away (and yes I hadn't counted on starting this project for around 2 years, maybe more. So by then, I will have hopefully graduated past newbie), so in those years I may come up with something better.

I didn't think there'd be enough timber in there to get sawn legs out of it, that was what originally had me thinking of the stump. However as I've said, never done this before so my maths could be well and truly off.

I've had a long think and done a lot of reading (i know, reading ain't doing) and I've surmised this is going to be a huge mother of a job. If you were to do the maths on how much time will go into it and effort then it's probably not worth it considering there'll be no money involved at all, but that tree was always something special at our place and my whole family lived there for 20 years so it seems just wrong to let it sit there and rot away.

I do appreciate the feedback though BobL, those kind of responses help ensure I do the right thing with it.

It's definitely worth doing.
A couple of my bench tops in my shed are milled from a tree I planted nearly 4 decades and eventually had to have cut down.
I get great enjoyment out of these every time I go into my shed.
They are located just a few metres from where the tree grew outside the shed.

Ahh see that's beautiful! That's what it's all about in my humble opinion. Really I want to make sure I get these things drying correctly and then I'll basically wait until my skill level is up to it. Let's assume that I do the stump thing, I'm really looked for the dried hardwood look of silver/grey to contrast with the red (I think it's a red ironbark, I'd love it to be grey, just prefer the look of it). As far as trying to achieve that, do I need to actually leave it out in full weather? My obvious concern with this is it degrading too much. I was planning on end sealer it to try and reduce the cracking, not that it matters too much because it won't be seen, but structurally obviously it's important and although I allowed for removal I can't go too crazy

It's good that you want to utilize your tree and with Al to mill it he will be able to get the best out of it for your table, however, trees being the things they are you can't always tell what you are able to get out of it until you start cutting it up, given the length and diameter I would reckon there's enough timber for a table, during/after milling you need to be ready with a place out of the sun for stacking to dry, many threads on this in the small milling forum and it's a good time of year to be cutting it up for air drying, when dry being an Ironbark puts it into the hard to work category, not impossible tho but certainly not easy.

For your stump.....maybe slice it in half, hollow out the middle of each half and place near the ends, give enough leg room tho, you could also cut it into 1/4's and have a 1/4 of stump at each corner and then do some more traditional rails, if I remember correctly James May did something similar with a pool table.



Pete

Originally Posted by pjt

It's good that you want to utilize your tree and with Al to mill it he will be able to get the best out of it for your table, however, trees being the things they are you can't always tell what you are able to get out of it until you start cutting it up, given the length and diameter I would reckon there's enough timber for a table, during/after milling you need to be ready with a place out of the sun for stacking to dry, many threads on this in the small milling forum and it's a good time of year to be cutting it up for air drying, when dry being an Ironbark puts it into the hard to work category, not impossible tho but certainly not easy.

For your stump.....maybe slice it in half, hollow out the middle of each half and place near the ends, give enough leg room tho, you could also cut it into 1/4's and have a 1/4 of stump at each corner and then do some more traditional rails, if I remember correctly James May did something similar with a pool table.

Pete

Yep Al certainly sounds like the right man for the job. My Pop and now my Uncle always said that "You never know what you've got until you've cut it". With that in mind, I'm ready for the fact that I could be rather disappointed, but I'm hopeful I've been reading up on drying for a few weeks now, sounds like it can be rather easy to bugger up, but if you follow the basic steps it sounds rather logical.

Hadn't thought of hollowing out the stump, would certainly shed some weight. Don't mind the quartering idea either, would be a different way again and would make the frame very do able. When I first thought of halving the stump I thought putting some sort of bracing in to stabilise would be a good idea. From the feedback so far, sounds like a frame is a must

To clarify something else- I'm counting on milling the slabs at around 50mm in order to get 40mm finished. Does this sound right? Too much? Not enough?

5mm to machine off both faces would normally be considered adequate given quality cutting and stacking and not too much movement in drying, so you should be right.

Originally Posted by JackAttack

Yep Al certainly sounds like the right man for the job. My Pop and now my Uncle always said that "You never know what you've got until you've cut it". With that in mind, I'm ready for the fact that I could be rather disappointed, but I'm hopeful I've been reading up on drying for a few weeks now, sounds like it can be rather easy to bugger up, but if you follow the basic steps it sounds rather logical.

Hadn't thought of hollowing out the stump, would certainly shed some weight. Don't mind the quartering idea either, would be a different way again and would make the frame very do able. When I first thought of halving the stump I thought putting some sort of bracing in to stabilise would be a good idea. From the feedback so far, sounds like a frame is a must

The rails give an attachment point to each leg and then the rails provide attachment via buttons for the top, if the buttons are done correctly this then allows for normal timber movement throughout the seasons while keeping the top flat.

Originally Posted by pjt

The rails give an attachment point to each leg and then the rails provide attachment via buttons for the top, if the buttons are done correctly this then allows for normal timber movement throughout the seasons while keeping the top flat.

Buttons look to be a good solution. Would they be the only way the frame is attached to the top? Just thinking about moving the top and how strong they'd be in that scenario (rolling top onto it's side etc)