Live edge curly maple slab coffee table with curved ipe legs
This is a curly maple and ipe coffee table that I just finished making while I had a few days between projects. I had the piece of maple sitting in my shop for the last year or so before I finally had an idea of what to do with it. I’d seen it every time I went into the sustainable wood store where I get a lot of my lumber, for a year or two before I finally decided that it was too beautiful to pass up!
The tree that the slab came from was salvaged from a pulp mill yard where it was on its way to becoming paper. Apparently when the trees are too big to go through any of the local mills they ship them to the pulp mill to get ground up. A local miller down in Rickreall, OR tries to save as many as he can and mills them into slabs and other lumber.
This piece was about 7′ long and only 11″ wide at its widest so it had been hanging around for awhile. I had no idea what to do with it until I realized I could cut it in half and join the two edges to make a perfect sized small coffee table.
I had originally wanted to do trestle style legs with sort of Asian inspired curved bases, but then saw a live edge piece lke this with more a more modern style base where the legs come straight down and join straight across the bottom. After a few days I realized I could have both by curving the legs and the stringer across the bottom.
The legs are salvaged ipe decking offcuts that I resawed to about 1/4″ and bent laminated to get the gentle curve.
The legs are finished with OSMO ployx oil which I really like for a lot of furniture. The top is finished with one coat of Danish oil to bring out the figure and topcoated with a couple coats of Zar gloss polyurethane. I really like the Zar brand because it has a very “soft” look and feel to it, even the gloss, and doesn’t look quite as plastic-y to me.
I’m glad the wood finally spoke up about what it was meant to be – I enjoyed looking at it in its raw form, and even though I’ll probably end up selling it to some clients, I very much enjoy looking at it in its finished form while it’s around!
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Better view of chatoyance - can you imagine this getting ground into pulp and turned into paper?!?!
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close up of legs - fun and challenging to miter the curved pieces together
Comments
I like peice and the wood looks great
Thanks! And I forgot to write in the description that it's Bigleaf (Oregon) maple not Eastern Hard maple. That's where the darker color of the top comes from.
Very nice combination of the slab and the legs. Often the legs look like an after thought, bit in this case it flows well. Nice job!!!!!
Thanks MacGregor - I had that same thought. I figured the top would look good no matter what since it's a beautiful piece of wood, but it took me a long time to figure out how to make the legs feel just as important.
Hipaul, did you cut the curves for the legs from thicker stock or did you use bent lamination. And in the photos it looks like you dovetailed the legs to the top, it that right or just the angle of the photo? Thanks, Dan
I bent laminated the legs.
And dovetailing the legs in would have been fantastic! But they're just dadoed into place. I assembled the whole leg section first and then cut out the dadoes and fine tuned the fit with the legs. I left the legs long until the piece was assembled and then cut them off, leaving them slightly proud and chamfering the edges.
Paul-
Nice work. I love curly/quilted maple from the Willamette Valley. I usually pick mine up from a chap in Brownsville but I think he retired. When he did I dismissed any thought of getting any more larger pieces. I am close to Rickreall but didn't know there was a possible source. Does your source sell to the public?
I encountered a chap camping on top of a sand-strewn maple over on the coast near Beverly Beach after a good storm. I missed it by about five minutes. Big $$$4
TonyM
Normonster - yes, there's some beautiful big leaf maple around the valleys, I've also really been enjoying working with some of the local madrone as well, incredibly beautiful wood and, surprisingly, machines like a dream!
I don't know the name of the miller down in Rickreall, I bought the piece through Sustainable NW Wood in Portland and they get a lot of salvaged slabs from this guy. In case you feel like checking, their website is http://www.snwwood.com - they're super nice folks and Im sure would pass along the name of the guy who they get it from - even though I want more slabs up here, it'd be nice to keep some closer to their origin!!
This is a great design with a terrific marriage of materials and craftsmanship.
Just beautiful!
How has this table held up over the years? Have you had any issue with the legs accommodating the expansion of the maple top? I don't imagine they would crack, but I wondered if a gap between them and the dado forms when the top expands. I have a large slab of ziricote I am wanting to turn into a coffee table, but have been torn on what kind of legs to use. I really like these. My other concern is the dimensions of my slab. It is 5' long, 4" thick, but only 18" wide. I am concerned it will be too long and skinny and am trying to decide if I should cut it in half and make 2 end tables instead.
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