Making a tabletop from a slab of beech

A couple of years ago I was asked by a friend to go and see one of his neighbours who had a tree cut down in their front yard. 
It was a massive blood beech and he asked me if I could use the tree for the sawmill. I really wanted to, but there was no way that I could move it if I bought it, so I respectfully declined, telling him my reasons to do so. Instead he offered if we could make a trade. He would get the trunk of the tree moved to my place and then I should make a table out of it for him, and I could keep the rest of the wood.

I agreed knowing that it would not be a lucrative deal, but what the heck,  I like making tables, and it was some serious wood to get delivered to my door. 

So a week or so later he had a truck with a crane coming and picking it up and dropping it of at my place.

I milled the largest part of the trunk and stacked it. I had informed him that it would take around 2 years for it to dry enough for me to start making anything out of it, and he was cool with that.

Last fall well before my dad got ill, I decided that I might as well get to it and build a Barnsley hayrake table for him. He had told me that I could make a table that I would seem fit and the material was just perfect for that.

Before starting out, Mette (smarter than me) suggested that it might be a good idea to call and ask them again if they had any requests in the size of the table. I thought it was a stupid idea but did as she suggested, and the guy and his wife were really happy to hear from me and were really interested.

I showed them the slab and the discussion started. It is always interesting when people suddenly realize that they can decide on height length finish etc. 

They asked if I could make the slab wider which I told them would be a shame since it would be impossible to hide, a bit more discussion and they agreed to think about the length of the table.

 A few days later they called back and the man said that his wife and the kids wanted a metal undercarriage, and he was the only one that wanted a hayrake system, so since he was outnumbered they just wanted me to make the slab ready for a tabletop. 

I was glad that they didn't try to make me feel obliged to make a set of metal lags since I normally dislike those on slabs. A lot of people seem to think that a table is just the tabletop, and then it doesn't matter what kind of legs or undercarriage is on it. I see it a bit differently.

The good thing was that it removed at least half of the work that I needed to do.

I started flattening the back first, using a jointer with a scrub iron. Then the slab was flipped over, and I did a little bit of work on the top.

It was Friday, and Gustav had invited a couple of friends over to have a couple of beers which was ok with us since they were going to sit in the man cave and wouldn't be disturbing us.

I told them that they could go through the workshop instead of waking up the horses constantly, but I kind of got to regret that part. 

Someone who I guess had a little bit too much to drink obviously wanted to show one of his friends that he knew what different tools were for. (Gustav did not witness it, other wise he would have stopped it all)

So the next morning when I wanted to start flattening the top a bit more I noticed a couple of holes, and surprisingly next to the holes were my awl.. He had first hacked it straight in probably 3/8" and then he had done the same plus wiggled it around to make the hole larger. Needles to say I got furious.

I tried to put some water on the marks and see if they would close a bit, but the problem was that they were in a low spot of the tabletop already. 

I calmed down a bit for probably 20 seconds (the time it took me to plane a couple of strokes more).

Then I could see that the same kid had wanted to try Gustav's batterypowered circular saw!

And he had chosen to do that with a 1.5" deep cut sort of 1.25" into the side of the tabletop. I was speechless at that point. I called Gustav and he was of course as sorry as he could be, and I tried not to blame him, but I was angry. But I knew that I could cover it up so it wouldn't be a deal breaker, just a pain in the neck.

As soon as everything was relatively flat, I installed breadboard ends. That was especially important in the wide end since it was a Y shaped trunk, and there wasn't much point in flattening it if those pieces could move independently from each other.

A lot more of flattening, and it was time to install some butterflies too, those were made out of elm since it is what they had wanted.

There were a few places where there were rotten knots and those places received a piece of elm too, as did the circular saw mishap.

Some sanding and I treated the oil with a linseed oil/varnish blend thinned a bit with some turpentine.

The slab ended up looking really good, so I might have to make one for myself at some point.

106" long, about 40" down to 28" wide, 2" thick

The dark spot on the edge left in the picture is where the saw cut was made.

Before finishing.

Using my recently acquired Ohio 08 jointer

Removing the bulk of the material with a router.

live edges and a breadboard end

Still a bit of work left.

Installing butterflies