From Bonfire to Furniture

Rob-GB

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Nov 7, 2009
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Late last summer I rescued some boards of American Black Walnut (ABW) that had been leftover from a job, by a client of mine. They were discarding a fair bit of surplus flooring via a blooming great bonfire  [eek]
All of it was tongued and grooved and of various lengths which I initially thought might be useful in making some jigs or workshop fittings, so it got set aside until I got a reminder that I had promised to make a couple of small tables for "her indoors". [big grin]
A few years ago I made a chessboard from scraps of ABW and Maple and had wanted to make a table to support it but time and materials to hand had stalled the project...so I came up with this solution last week.

Chess%20Table%20and%20sides%201_zpsin8ho05h.jpg


A table with a drawer for the chess board and two side tables that can be used as game piece placing and refreshments/side tables for the sofa.
I turned two Maple Pawns to act as drawer pulls.

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The side tables also nest under the chess board apron
Chess%20Table%20and%20sides%203_zpsiajfvuhe.jpg


After sawing both the tongue and grooved sides off the boards I was left with 93mm so the aprons are 90mm and the legs are each cut from one board width: I.E. I cut the legs slightly over length then ripped that piece in half before resawing them with a 45° bevel with the TS55 in my CMS which gave a clean enough cut to glue them to form legs using masking tape to clamp them.
Legs were joined to the aprons with two 6x30 dominoes at each joint.

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Drawer box was from some 10mm thick Wenge and jointed with 4mm Dominoes with a 6mm ABW bottom (ripped from the 16mm stock I was left with after planing the grooves and name stamp out of the flooring boards underside.

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Chess pieces are from a UK company and seem to fit in well. The rail under the drawer is cut from the same piece as the drawer face so that the grain lines up pretty well. I used Liberon Finishing Oil on this project and expect the tables and chess board base to mellow over time to match the ABW of the older chess board.
I hate to see good timber wasted and think this is a good use of rescued materials.
Hope you like it and thanks for looking in.
Rob.

 
Awesome - I processed about 300 ft2 of Walnut flooring from a friends kitchen a while back.  I'm using it to build a rolling hand tool cart that will top out just below bench level.  This is encouraging.
 
Rob, That is a really nice looking project.  It's great that you were able to used discards to make something of such beauty!

Thanks for sharing!

Mike A.
 
Thanks guys, I really get a kick out making stuff by re-purposing wood as some of my other posts have shown and I have done very little woodwork over the last year due to playing with diggers and drainage and lime plastering/concreting. So this project was good for my soul  [big grin].

Rob.
 
Black walnut into a bonfire.  [eek] some folks just don't have a clue. Well done!
 
Aye, Paul. I thought the same thing. To be honest: i've never worked with walnut, cos it's so expensive over here. And special order and what not. But it's a good thing that people are more aware nowadays and reclaim instead of just throw away.
 
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