Here I am, after stalling for almost the ENTIRE DAY, finally crosscutting the piece which will be the top.

My day described in the historical present just because I can: Go to the hardware store, take a walk, I stroll to the convenience store for a snack, I take a walk, I then vacuum the shop, take another walk, just sort of stand there doing nothing and looking ridiculous, what the heck, let's take another walk. One can only do this for so long before he is forced to admit to himself that he's just plain scared and needs to cut the thing. So...

Now its time make this giant thing flat. Here's my router setup to do just that.

A router can get you where you're trying to go in quite a hurry but it also makes a huge mess. I love it.

We're half way there. Just look at this thing!

Taking a break from the flattening, here's an action shot of my hand polishing a finish sample. It's always exciting to see how the wood will look eventually.

The next move is to make all the curved base parts. The top of this table will weigh about 400 pounds. I am confident the base will not just collapse but am unsure of how much it will flex and wobble, so I constructed a mockup of the base i'd like to make. This allows me to see how stable the design is and it also gives me a chance to wrap my head around the joinery before attempting to cut into the real bubinga. Here's the mockup in poplar:

It works. There is a little wiggle but I think the bubinga will be stiffer than the poplar (it certainly is much heavier) so i'm moving forward. Soon i'll post some pictures of the base's construction, me figuring out how to attach it to the top as well as making a shelf to hide up underneath the tabletop.