Mesquite & Cherry Sofa Table
A commissioned mesquite and cherry sofa table built around a 72″ Mesquite slab accented with turquoise and copper inlay and secured with functional mahogany bowties. The contrasting natural cherry base follows the curved shape of the slab with bent laminated aprons. A center decorative mesquite medalion is used to break up the length the contoured shelf. The legs, shelf and medalion have terraced edges for accent.
The top is tinted with a light red/brown dye to accent the mesquite figure and finished with multiple coats of satin poly. The cherry base is finished natural with multiple coats of Minwax Antique Oil product.
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Raw mesquite slab, which was trimmed to remove the sap wood that is often host to various species of borer beatles, flattened by hand planing, and shaped to final form.
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Turquoise and copper inlay into a thru-and- thru crack filled with resin and secured with functional, hand cut mahogany bow ties.
Comments
Hi, Beautiful table! I have a question though. Can you please walk me through the inlay? How is it done? Thanks in advance for your help.
Jay, Thanks for the compliment. The inlay process I use is relatively straightforward... level the slab, install bowties, rough sand all to 80 grit, fill the voids up to 1/4" freeboard depth with fiberglass resin. After curing, I lay in a bed of turquoise fines and insert larger turquoise chips, then overfill with dust and fines, brush the overfill so everything is slightly proud of the slab surface and apply thin CA glue to saturate the mix but not necessarily fill remaining voids. After curing, the inlay is amazingly stout and I sand it flush to the slab surface (careful belt and RO) to 80 grit and blow stone & wood dust from inlay. I then overlay the clean inlay proud of the surface with either medium CA glue or clear two-part epoxy, let cure, and finish sand full slab/ inlay flush to 220 grit. I stain the slab at this point and finish with poly. Hope this helps and I'm sure there are several alternatives....good luck.
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