The Big Sap: The Big Burl!

There she was. How could I resist
a beautiful burl like this?

During my research I'd discovered a lumber yard and sawmill in Doylestown called Bucks County Hardwoods that sounded like a good place to source out some lumber. Almost everything they have is local, meaning no shipping, etc., which makes it a green operation. I like that. One thing I have decided to do in my woodworking is to use local lumber when at all possible. Plus, I think it's kind of neat to look at a table and say, "you know that walnut came from a tree in Bensalem."

So I decided to head up one Saturday morning to see what they had. I wandered around for a few minutes, heard some machinery going in one of the buildings so I headed in, where I met the owner, John. I told him I was interested in just taking a look around. John was a really nice guy. We got to talking about politics and seemed to have similar thoughts on the subject, which I think may have played a part in the deal I was going to get on this particular day. John gave me a tour of the whole operation. I was really impressed. They're pretty much capable of re-sawing and surfacing anything. They had a large amount of lumber air drying, both dimensional and flitch sawn. Interestingly enough, when I walked up to one boule stack of walnut, John said, "oh, that's the Nakashima stuff. That's all reserved." I told John I was familiar with their work and he said, "Mira comes here every now and then. She gets first crack at everything we bring in and reserves stuff." That was a bit of a letdown to hear. Would I get anything worthwhile if it's been gone through?

We headed into a large storage barn and John showed me their current flitch sawn boards. As I walked around, a few distinct large slabs caught my eye. I thought I knew what they were but being a newbie at this I wasn't 100% certain. "Ummm.. is that redwood burl?" I was surprised to see it because I at least knew redwood burl mostly came from CA. Sure enough, John said, "A buddy of mine had a lumber business but unfortunately went out of business, so he had this stuff laying around and sold it to me for cheap." One particular slab really drew me to turn it over and have a look. I asked him how much it was, and he looked it up in a little book and said "$120." This was a big slab. It had to be 5' x 3.5' and about 2.5" inches thick. I immediately said I'd take it (thinking that we had yet to have a coffee table in our formal living room). Unfortunately I only had $100 in my wallet, to which John said, "don't worry about it." So I got the slab for $100. I left feeling like I'd hit the lottery for a small fortune. After googling just what a slab like this normally costs, I felt even better. Depending on where I looked, I got it for maybe 1/8 the price.

Sometimes craigslist smiles upon you and you just have to
accept what's coming to you. A light sanding and two coats
of tung oil made the base look amazing.

And then the power of craigslist reared its head. I often scour furniture on craigslist randomly just to see what's out there. My wife and I have made some pretty good scores. I happened to see this cool looking Danish teak table base on there and it was priced at only $35, which seemed great to me. Sure enough, we headed to Philly and checked it out. It needed to be refinished, but otherwise the thing was solid. It's pretty obvious at one point it had a glass top. Me being the woodworker and all, we didn't need a top. So we bought it, not knowing exactly what we were going to do with it. Shortly thereafter my wife said, "could you use that as the base for the redwood burl table?"
Hmmmm... good question. I did some quick measuring and plopped the slab on top of the base. We both looked at each other and nodded in agreement.

I loved the look of butterfly keys
like this and knew my slab was perfect
for adding them to span the gap.

So, it was time to actually get started on the slab. I'd seen some Nakashima pieces that utilized really cool, elongated butterfly keys to span gaps or holes in slabs, so I knew right away that I wanted to see if I could swing that. My only fear was that a screw up in this part of the slab could be disastrous. Also, my experience to this point was only with walnut. I didn't know how redwood burl reacted to machining, sanding, or anything really. I know it was less dense than walnut simply from handling the slab. Maybe I was about to find out how redwood burl reacts to a router?

Shortly in to making the mortises for the keys, I'd really
started to feel comfortable with the process. Maybe
being careful but confident was all it took?

I shaped my keys with the bandsaw and traced out where I wanted them on the slab. Then I started routing. A few minutes into routing the unthinkable happened, a piece of redwood burl flew off the edge of the span where I was routing. It was maybe the size of a half dollar. I picked it up, slightly mortified, and stared at it. When it comes to woodworking, I'd heard "you can almost always hide mistakes" before. So, I thought my only recourse was to try to glue it back in place. Luckily, a little epoxy and a clamp did the trick. Since there's so many lines in the grain anyway, you can't see where the piece broke off in the finished table.

The little keys seemed like a
nice touch and I liked the placement.

There were a few other spots in the slab that I thought could use something... both areas had small cracks that had formed; nothing major, but I thought maybe adding smaller butterfly keys to those areas might look cool as well as serve a purpose. So I made some small keys and got to it.
After the keys were in, it was just a matter of routing some small notches on the underside that would sit on the base, then sanding and finishing the slab. I did some experimenting with the finish and finally settled upon something that I liked. I'd seen far too many redwood burl tables with a bazillion coats of poly on them. I knew I didn't want that, but I also wanted the grain to really pop in the light. What I settled on was a combination of a clear gel varnish and single coat of satin poly. I am really pleased with how the table came out. I even considered selling it, but I decided since it was only my second woodworking project, I should hold onto it.

The two keys, sanded flush.

I recently was speaking with a local restauranteur who also happens to be a collector of art and antiques and we got into a discussion about my woodworking. He told me of his collection of various mid-century pieces and of his affinity for George Nakashima and Isamu Noguchi.
I showed him pictures of this redwood burl table and he said I had, "it." I was humbled and asked what he meant by that and he said "you've got the eye for this. You know just where things should go and what's pleasing to the eye." I was really thrilled to hear this. I mean, being an artist and graphic designer I've always had a sense of spacial relationships etc., but being new at woodworking I'm not 100% confident in my abilities. Hearing this from him made my day.
And so the redwood burl coffee table now lives in our living room. At one point in the afternoons the light comes in our front bay window and the grain just gets set afire. An uncle of mine saw it this past Christmas and told me I could sell it for thousands, but really, seeing it and knowing I made it is enough for me.