Spalted Maple and Black Walnut Coffee Table

Spalted, Wormy Maple and Black Walnut Coffee Table

A few pictures of a new project.

Dimensions: 22"W x 42"L x 16"H

The base is made from locally recovered black walnut, and the top from a beautiful piece of wormy sugar maple that I cut in my own back yard. The 'arm' of the base is held in place with multiple wedged through tenons made of rock hard sugar maple. The top underwent a treatment of marine epoxy to stabilize every little loose bit that might come off.

Table

Base

The base just after its first coat of oil.

Wedges

A small saw kerf is cut into the end grain of each tenon. A hard maple wedge with double chamfered edges is then driven into the kerf. The result is a joint that is mechanically locked requiring little if any glue.

With Top

The top is a piece of spalted, wormy sugar maple that I culled from a tree many hundreds of years old. The tree was threatening the house and was largely rotten. It is these sorts of trees that I seek to recycle in my woodwork. When sanded and finished, the hardest parts of this very old maple will seem to take on the quality of polished stone. This is a function of maple having no visible pores.

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