Rosewood Coffee Table

Furniture makers will come across an outstanding piece or parcel of wood and store or cart it around for years with the notion that one day they will put it to good use.  This piece of wood belonged to a dear friend.  It had been in this state of expectancy for over thirty years.  Now, he was selling up.  Family was grown and gone.  The old stone farmhouse and twenty three acres were more than they could cope with.  The decision was bittersweet but the right one.

One weekend, I went to help sell the contents of his workshop.  Hand tools, machine tools, wood and knick knacks, everything.  Towards the end the afternoon, I looked at this thick chunk of wood.  It had seen better times.  One end said that it had stood in water for a while.  The sawn surface had so much grime on it, there was no telling the species.  The live edges and the shape indicated the crotch of a tree.  I bought it; wasn’t cheap; was heavy; no idea what I might do with it.  It laid around the workshop for a few weeks.  Determined to do something with it, I didn’t add it to the collection of stuff I’ve been carting…don’t want to think about that.

It was better than three inches thick.  Enough to slice it through the center, open it up and see what was in there.  It was a piece of rosewood that one would be hard pressed to find today.  Gluing the two pieces end to end with some half inch steel rods epoxied into grooves made for a permanent connection.  Removing an appropriate amount of sapwood, shaping the ends and chamfering the underside to leave a quarter inch thick edge produced a board of wood which showed the hand of nature.  Presented with the problem, of turning such a board of wood into a table, my furniture design instinct tells me to get out of the way.  There is nothing to add.  In reality, what can you do so that you encroach the least?  My response,  silver leaf covered blocks.