The rosewood dining table was built by gluing together 85 separate pieces of solid African rosewood (Padauk) using a steel re-enforced method of assembly. In August of 1978 I drove up to Tennessee with my old friend/employer, John Hilley, to purchase the padauk from Jim Mcnutt an exotic wood salesman. I purchased the rosewood for less than $2.00 per square ft. I was able to choose from many planks that were stored at the bottom of a large stack of lumber. Jim was a little hesitant to give up the planks I chose because they were book match stacked right from the padauk log, over 1″ thick by 17″ wide and 12 ft in length. After several months had passed I finally started the construction of the rosewood table. I started out by first gluing some preliminary laminations to check and see what moisture content I had to deal with not really trusting the fact that the wood had been stored in an outdoor covered shack for years. It seemed to have just the proper moisture content and very good stability so I began milling and processing the rosewood. After the first gluing stage was completed I could already see it that I had set myself up for a very tedious construction process. In about 40 hours the table was done. I took it to my apartment complex, barely getting it up the stair case and then setting it down into my very small dining room space. That night I began the brush on the first coat of a thinned down clear varathane. Five days and four or five coats later the table was finally finished. Incidentally, a few of the left over pieces of padauk were used in the construction of another piece that I had built later that year, which I have previously posted as the “Zig Zag table”.

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