Brazilian Rosewood dining table top

[jacko9]

I finally got the finished look I wanted on this Dining room table top.  The wood is Brazilian Rosewood 72" x 46" x 3/4".  The original boards were "field cut" and at a nominal 4/4 it was extremely difficult finishing the stock up to 3/4" but after getting one clear side, I took a skim cut on the opposite face and used my Domino 500 to join the boards together referenced off the good face which minimized the amount of material removal to get a flat top.  I used my ETS 150/3 worked from 100 to 320 grit.  The finish is super blonde shellac which I mixed very thin ~.5# cut with alcohol for two coats wiped on and used 4/0 steel wool to flatted out the nips.  I then used General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Oil & Urethane Varnish Semi-Gloss thinned 25% for the first coat wiped on with soft cotton cloth.  Followed with a second coat thinned 10% and a topcoat at full strength.  The base is a leg and apron made from Indonesian Rosewood which I constructed with my Domino XL700 and finished with shellac.  I'll post the final assembly pictures after the top hardens for a while.

Jack

 

[Jesse Cloud]

Sweet!  You did a great job of matching boards for a smooth grain transition?  How many boards are in it?  How long will it need to cure?

 

[jacko9]

There are 6 boards one of which I had to rip in half and rejoin because of the initial rough cut.  General Finishes says that full cure is about a week in ideal conditions but, my shop is not heated so I might wait two weeks.  I forgot to mention that I used my Festool Triton jigsaw to cut the edge profiles.

Jack

 

[wow]

That is flat-out gorgeous! You must be very proud of how it turned out - and justifiably so. Thanks for posting it!

 

[Wooden Skye]

Fantastic!!

 

[JJ Wavra]

Great looking top! May I ask where you purchased the Brazilian Rosewood?
Jeff

 

[jacko9]

Great looking top! May I ask where you purchased the Brazilian Rosewood?
Jeff

Ahh, this was a purchase of over 35 years ago with quite a story.  My wife and I moved to the San Francisco area in 1969 and we were looking at a Brazilian Rosewood Dining room set in the San Francisco North Beach area that was beautiful but, the priced was the same as the down payment on our new house.  So, after buying the house instead I started woodworking.  I found this wood advertised in the Mendocino Woodworkers newsletter when I was a member there and purchased my full savings at that point to get 4/4 and 8/4 rough lumber.  Work and family prevented me from doing much with it until recently and now my wife is very pleased [big grin]

Jack

 

[tbellemare]

Beautiful, Jack!

Tom

 

[Cort]

Stunning!

 

[tjbnwi]

Very nice.

Tom

 

[CharlesWilson]

That is gorgeous!

As for the cure, you have waited a long while to use this (almost) priceless wood, give it at least a third week. In this case, more is better.

Charles

 

[JJ Wavra]

Great looking top! May I ask where you purchased the Brazilian Rosewood?
Jeff

Ahh, this was a purchase of over 35 years ago with quite a story.  My wife and I moved to the San Francisco area in 1969 and we were looking at a Brazilian Rosewood Dining room set in the San Francisco North Beach area that was beautiful but, the priced was the same as the down payment on our new house.  So, after buying the house instead I started woodworking.  I found this wood advertised in the Mendocino Woodworkers newsletter when I was a member there and purchased my full savings at that point to get 4/4 and 8/4 rough lumber.  Work and family prevented me from doing much with it until recently and now my wife is very pleased [big grin]

Great story behind this table.  I know you can not import the wood anymore so I was curious.  It has even become a big deal for musicians playing on older instruments when they go through customs.
Jeff

Jack

 

[bruegf]

That is beautiful!...  I love Br Rosewood, I have several pieces of furniture from it as well as a fireplace mantle.  My dad and I bought a bunch around 40 years ago and I still have quite a bit of veneer left. 

The last time I looked, enough rosewood to build an acoustic guitar back, sides, and fretboard went for around $1000.

Fred

 

[Slappy]

did you have any issues  / problems milling that stuff   ?  ?
I hear it's hard on the planners / jointers .

I plan a few projects with Panamanian &/or Honduran  Rosewood in the future .  

I do know that some people are really sensitive to the various species of 'Dalbergia'
that includes Brazilian  , Panamanian , Honduran  Rosewoods & others

 

[tiralie]

 I used my ETS 150/3 worked from 100 to 320 grit.  The finish is super blonde shellac which I mixed very thin ~.5# cut with alcohol for two coats wiped on and used 4/0 steel wool to flatted out the nips.  I then used General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Oil & Urethane Varnish Semi-Gloss thinned 25% for the first coat wiped on with soft cotton cloth.  Followed with a second coat thinned 10% and a topcoat at full strength.

Jack
Top looks great! I really like the slight curve on the ends.
That's an interesting finish recipe, is something you have used before or saw somewhere?
Tim

 

[jacko9]

did you have any issues  / problems milling that stuff   ?  ?
I hear it's hard on the planners / jointers .

I plan a few projects with Panamanian &/or Honduran  Rosewood in the future .  

I do know that some people are really sensitive to the various species of 'Dalbergia'
that includes Brazilian  , Panamanian , Honduran  Rosewoods & others

I have carbide knives on my Jointer and Planer so, I didn't have any trouble cutting the material at all.  Before I started building this project I did two things that made a big difference; I installed an Oneida V-3000 dust control system in my shop and I installed the Byrd Shelix Carbide cutting head on my planer.  Using my Festool; Domino, 150/3 sander and my Triton Jigsaw all helped immensely.

Jack

 

[jacko9]

 I used my ETS 150/3 worked from 100 to 320 grit.  The finish is super blonde shellac which I mixed very thin ~.5# cut with alcohol for two coats wiped on and used 4/0 steel wool to flatted out the nips.  I then used General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Oil & Urethane Varnish Semi-Gloss thinned 25% for the first coat wiped on with soft cotton cloth.  Followed with a second coat thinned 10% and a topcoat at full strength.

Jack
Top looks great! I really like the slight curve on the ends.
That's an interesting finish recipe, is something you have used before or saw somewhere?
Tim

Tim,

I have built a few other pieces of Rosewood Furniture and have had problems with the rosewood oils bleeding out into the finish retarding the cure so I now use a thin wipe on Shellac whenever I do oily woods.

I wanted to be able to have the durability of varnish and others tables that I have built using wipe on poly didn't give me the protection for moisture or abrasion that I felt was needed.

I think If you Google "Finishing Oily Woods" you'll find others that have similar issues finishing these kinds of woods.

Jack

 

[Slappy]

did you have any issues  / problems milling that stuff   ?  ?
I hear it's hard on the planners / jointers .

I plan a few projects with Panamanian &/or Honduran  Rosewood in the future .  

I do know that some people are really sensitive to the various species of 'Dalbergia'
that includes Brazilian  , Panamanian , Honduran  Rosewoods & others

I have carbide knives on my Jointer and Planer so, I didn't have any trouble cutting the material at all.  Before I started building this project I did two things that made a big difference; I installed an Oneida V-3000 dust control system in my shop and I installed the Byrd Shelix Carbide cutting head on my planer.  Using my Festool; Domino, 150/3 sander and my Triton Jigsaw all helped immensely.

Jack

how did you do the glue up ?  Epoxy ?  TiteBond III ?  

 

[jacko9]

did you have any issues  / problems milling that stuff   ?  ?
I hear it's hard on the planners / jointers .

I plan a few projects with Panamanian &/or Honduran  Rosewood in the future .  

I do know that some people are really sensitive to the various species of 'Dalbergia'
that includes Brazilian  , Panamanian , Honduran  Rosewoods & others

I have carbide knives on my Jointer and Planer so, I didn't have any trouble cutting the material at all.  Before I started building this project I did two things that made a big difference; I installed an Oneida V-3000 dust control system in my shop and I installed the Byrd Shelix Carbide cutting head on my planer.  Using my Festool; Domino, 150/3 sander and my Triton Jigsaw all helped immensely.

Jack

how did you do the glue up ?  Epoxy ?  TiteBond III ?  

I used Titebond III.  I made up some half lap samples to test the glue and tried West Systems Epoxy and Titebond III let them cure for several days and then broke the joints apart.  The Titebond fracture was more of a wood overload failure whereas the epoxy joint mostly failed along the joint line.  I used the same procedure for each glue sample; sanded, cleaned with acetone, applied glue/epoxy to both sides of the joint and clamped for two days.  The samples were 2x1 pieces of rosewood 8" long glued in a 90 degree half lap joint.  When tested I clamped one half of the joint in my vice and used my mallet with greater and greater force until the joint broke (and it took a lot of force for both of the joints to break.  I repeated the test twice.  When I glued up the 72" lengths of wood the glue line looks solid without any appearance of gaps.

Jack

 

[leer]

Jack,

Really beautiful table top.  I have a huge piece of Brazilian Rosewood I bought in LA area about 35 years ago.  Sadly, I didn't buy enough to make a table!  I've never really been able to decide what to use it for.  I'll have to get more serious about plans for it, after seeing your table top.  .