Gooday all, My most recent project was a Coffee table, 1200mm's by 600mm's, made entirely from salvaged Douglas fir. Its previous life served as my driveway Pergola, but it had become badly waterlogged and rotten. After dismantling the Pergola, I cut out all the rotted pieces, checked it out thoroughly for nails and screws, and then ran all the remaining good pieces through the Jointer (called a Buzzer in Australia) and then the Thicknesser. The coffee table has an inlayed Chessboard, each square being 45mm's by 45mm's which forms a Chessboard of 360mm's by 360mm's. The white squares are English White oak and the dark squares are of dark chocolate brown Peruvian Walnut (a very pleasantly aromatic timber to work with). I'm still very much a novice in woodwork and timber selection, and although I was told that Douglas Fir (called Oregon in Australia),was too soft to make good durable furniture, I went ahead to find out for myself. My advisers were correct, it is extremely soft and every minor bump while handling the timber caused large deep dents in the material. After getting the hang of being less hasty, and more gentle in the way I moved the timber around, I found that I could minimise the number and severity of dents. Nevertheless, I've had to rename my finished product from, a fine coffee table with inlayed chessboard, to a rustic coffee table with inlayed chessboard and pass off the dents and bumps as design features. After a long and tedious sanding, in which I slowly worked up to 800gsm wet&dry sandpaper, I coated my Rustic Coffee Table with 8 coats of a water based polyurethane to give it a high gloss finish. Wow, I love that water based polyurethane, it's a breeze to be able to just wash out the brush under the garden water tap. I do have a photograph available and it is now attached here, but I'm not sure of its usefulness in this forum. Being totally blind myself, it's of absolutely no use to me, other than to post on the notice board at my woodwork clubhouse for visiting sighted guests to exhale ooh's and aah's at. I'd enjoy to learn of other blind woodworkers current projects, or of a favourite past finished project. John Milburn Melbourne Australia.
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