Thread: Tallowood Slab Dining Table

Gordo78 asked
so many questions regarding the sanding/finishing? and probably some real dumb ones, here goes:
1. how wet do you make it when you "wet" the slab to raise the fibres -- wet as in spilled glass of water wet -- use distilled or demineralised water to prevent tannin staining and wet

2. sanding sealer???? -- probably no, but I'm thinking of an oil finish

3. "marine grade, heat resistant polyurethane"????? -- oil?

4. it's be through a thickneser (planned), so what grade sand paper do i start at? -- I'd start with a raking light, a rag well wetted with metho or turps and look for ripples from the sander, if you can't see any, sand a small area by hand starting at 120grit and going through 180 to 240 grit then check again. If you see ripples, then I'd start at 80 and work my way up to arround 400 before applying the finish.
I'd stop on the underside at 180, but I'd apply the same number of finish coats to both sides

Made a outside door from tallow a while back, I know how your back feels... I still have 2 cube left from a forum buy up that must be shifted soon

You will chew through a lot of sand paper the waxiness clogs it up, power sanding it with oil would be possible(no clogging).
Tallow finishes well with a card scraper if you follow the grain, follow up with the finer sanding grits with oil after(something like Organoil).
Epoxy fill the small cracks and butterfly keys in the large cracks would look pretty speccy

Originally Posted by ian

Gordo78 asked
so many questions regarding the sanding/finishing? and probably some real dumb ones, here goes:
1. how wet do you make it when you "wet" the slab to raise the fibres -- wet as in spilled glass of water wet -- use distilled or demineralised water to prevent tannin staining and wet

2. sanding sealer???? -- probably no, but I'm thinking of an oil finish

3. "marine grade, heat resistant polyurethane"????? -- oil?

4. it's be through a thickneser (planned), so what grade sand paper do i start at? -- I'd start with a raking light, a rag well wetted with metho or turps and look for ripples from the sander, if you can't see any, sand a small area by hand starting at 120grit and going through 180 to 240 grit then check again. If you see ripples, then I'd start at 80 and work my way up to arround 400 before applying the finish.
I'd stop on the underside at 180, but I'd apply the same number of finish coats to both sides

Thanks.

Does wetting the slab effect the seasoned quality of it or make it susceptible to warping etc?

do i need to use a sanding sealer between sanding grits? I've never even heard of Sanding Sealer before?

I got the idea of using "marine grade, heat resistant polyurethane" from a website that put 4 coats on a slab kitchen bench top. any opinions on this would be appreciated.

My inexperience is showing, i don't know what a raking light is. I might play it safe and start at 80.

Does wetting the slab effect the seasoned quality of it or make it susceptible to warping etc? -- if you wiped up a spilled glass of water the surface of the slab would still be wet and the grain raised, but under the surface would remain dry. "Spilled glass of water" was the best description I could come up with to describe wet

do i need to use a sanding sealer between sanding grits? NO
I've never even heard of Sanding Sealer before?

I got the idea of using "marine grade, heat resistant polyurethane" from a website that put 4 coats on a slab kitchen bench top. any opinions on this would be appreciated.-- if you always use place mats the top will be insulated from anything hot and hence wont need extreme protection. Unlike a kitchen bench, there shouldn't be any need to put hot pots and pans onto a table top

My inexperience is showing, i don't know what a raking light is. -- one that shines across the surface rather than down onto the surface. Makes it easier to see imperfections
I might play it safe and start at 80. -- after thicknessing, the top probably has a series of fine ripples in it. If you don't remove these, they will show through the finish. I would normally remove these with a very sharp finely set smoothing plane, but I gather from an earlier post you don't have one. Don't start with paper any coarser than you need, it just makes more work to remove the scratch marks.

well i bought the sander from Norwest tools online. You should see some action on this page now overr the next couple of weeks. I went with a Makita BO6030 Random Orbit Sander 150mm. Fingers crossed it should do the trick. as for a finish, i'm leaning towards the two part wattyl with resin to fill the borer holes and a crack in one end.

still waiting for the sander. I spoke with the sand paper man today and he is going to hook me up with a variety of sanding pads once my sander has arrived.

getting closer.....

wahoo!! sander has arrived

The bottom has had a 1st pass at 80 Grit. It's looking pretty good to me. I'm looking fwd to getting another couple of grits done on the bottom so i can varnish it and get an idea of how it's going to look from the top.

The sander is working out great. quiet, easy on the hands, quick.

looking pretty good from here

what are you planning on to manage the split?

Ditto .Going to show some nice grain.

Nice

that's not a split, that's a feature
I'd try a butterfly key or two in a suitably contrasty timber.

this pic is the bottom and the split is a lot smaller on the top. yep, it's feature, not a split

I don't want to spoil the on the top with any butterflies, so am simply going to resin fill it and finish over it.

Any comments on whether i need to put a brace on the split on the bottom????

I'd be inclined to stitch the bottom face with a butterfly key or two.
The resin on the top surface is really only to stop stuff getting caught in the split

Have to agree with Ian. Be a shame to have that split open up after all your hard work.May never happen, but I like to err on the side of caution.