I’m very late with posting this. It was 114 degrees in the shop, so didn’t spend much time taking photos. This all took place on Father’s Day 2016.
For the top, I picked up a couple of 6’ planks of cedar fencing from the Orange Store. No idea what kind of cedar, but the wood was cheap enough and I managed to find two pieces that were straight grained and had good stretches that were clean and knot-free. They’ve been sitting in the garage for several months, so they are nice and dry. I picked out the cleanest section of about 15” long that I could find and cut that area out of one of these fencing boards. Then resawed it into two, bookmatched pieces.
These pieces I thicknessed with hand planes and joined by hinging them with tape.
I didn’t do a great job of thicknessing them evenly. Areas along the edges are much thinner than the areas nearer the middle. My intent is to center the template a bit to avoid these thinner areas. Also, my understanding is that the edges should be slightly thinner than the middle anyway, so I’ve chosen not to worry about it too much.
I jointed the edges using a Rogers Miter Planer that I picked up at an auction. It did a great job. I attempted to joint the back pieces as well, but had less success. The pieces kept slipping as I ran the plane across the edges. I’ll need a better system for gripping the work to the miter planer before getting the back pieces jointed.
I sanded some areas where there was a bit of tear-out from planing and generally cleaned the top up a bit.
Below is a view of the sides in the mould with the newly joined top behind them.
