Top with Single Board Top

From the beginning of this project we knew that we were going to use a single board top. Thankfully we have the capability to handle boards of this width. Our 24-inch Wadkin Planer came in handy in planing the top to its finished thickness of 1 and 1/4 inches. It is impressive seeing a board that size rolling through the planer.

Infeed Side of the Planer

Planer Outfeed

With newly sharpened knives in the cutter-head there was very little tear out. I was able to use the newly acquired 37-inch Performax sander, in the back of this picture, to clean up the top.

After cutting the board to finished length and laying it on top of the carcass (the first photo), the need for a chamfer on the bottom face of the top to help lighten the look of the piece was obvious.

Starting the chamfer along the length was relatively easy on the table saw, but the ends would have to be chamfered by hand. So out came the corrugated Stanley #8 jointer plane for the ends and the Lie Nielson #4 smoother to finish off all the surfaces.

Hand Chamfering the Ends

Hand Chamfering

In this photo you can see the lines that I plan to chamfer to on both edges.

And here is the finished product.

Chamfer Finished

The results are well worth the effort, and it was an effort to remove all that material.

This project is nearing completion, but there are many more challenges ahead. More on the finishing of this piece later.

-CB-