Santos Rosewood Table - Table Top Finishing Update

We are done cutting this to size and sanding.  Since this is a rare piece we wanted to maintain the largest size as possible, which also meant keeping some imperfections (if you remember back to the design sketch we only had one predetermined dimension, wanting to optimize the proportions given what the top slab would allow).  So I can now say that the top is approximately 16” x 48”. The most obvious is the tear down the middle, but this is what actually makes this unique and adds a lot of character. There are some other minors but again choosing to keep as natural a look as possible.

So this is a new wood for us so we wanted to do a little research to make the best choices for finishing.  Normally we favor a hand rubbed Tung Oil finish for most of our pieces but with woods that are dark we always have a concern about color change with exposure over time to sunlight.  So we found a pre-finish, Watco Teak Oil that looked like it was perfect for this wood.  It provides some UV protection and it sure brought out the color in the wood.  Here is that same sample piece from the last post with the pre-finish applied. 

 This oil needs to be applied liberally so it can penetrate and then set aside to dry for at least 72 hours.  And don’t leave the finish materials, rags, etc around, highly flammable.

After applying the pre-finish, and letting this dry for a week, we started final finishing using our Tung Oil of choice and are starting to build up the finish.  Here is a little preview in processing of the actual top in process.  

Next we are onto starting the base, hard maple legs with the Santos Rosewood inlay to pull the base and top together.

Santos Rosewood New Project - Sofa or Hallway Table

Here is a little preview our next project!  As is the case with most of the items we make it all starts with finding great materials.  We happened to run across this dark grained slab piece while at Owl Hardwood.  Walked by it a few time, didn’t have a species listed and no price (usually that’s not a good sign), so inquired as to what it was and the cost.  Needless to say they told me it was Santos Rosewood.  

This picture is an unfinished edge piece taken off the slab, you see the light color sap wood and whats left of the outer surface and of course the heartwood.

So after a little more questioning I found out that it’s pretty unusual that you get slab pieces intact with this species due to the nature of the way the tree grows (the interior either rots or shrinks or gets torn up in the growing process).  Also this stuff is pricey, on order of $25/board foot.  As a comparison Cherry is $6-8 a board foot.  I finally decided I needed to take this and figure out something to do with it.

Here is a link to the particulars for Santos Rosewood.  One of the most interesting material aspects to this piece is its weight, 54 lbs per cubic foot (this is pretty dense wood).

We have seen many who will use an epoxy fill for the crack region to provide structure and close up the opening.  Me first thought was to build an LED lighting system below as an accent to the piece with some lighting showing thru.  The test cases I tried just didn’t turn out like I thought.  Also decided I didn’t want to fill the crack so I plan on building up some underside wings to give the piece some structure and support the open cracked middle section.  Not exactly sure how this open crack will ‘age’ but I personally like the look.  Can’t wait to share the finishing process so you can see how great this wood looks. 

So I came up with a general design idea (shown below).  I thought a light wood might tie into the live edge of the top would be nice with some inlayed pieces of Rosewood on the base to pull it all together.  Decided that hard maple was going to be used for the base, a nice hardwood without too much busy grain to distract from the top.

  

So many of our designs start this way with a simple layout.  As you can see the design is a floating top.  From this type of view you can see the straps to secure the top that I spoke of previously and the gentle curve in the legs to match the top (which exposes a little bit more of the Rosewood accent near the top of the legs).

Since then I have grabbed another slab piece (not as in good shape as the first) and many pieces of edge stock for accent pieces for future projects.

Stay tunes for updates as we start the process of finishing the Rosewood top piece.