Milling Frustration

Well, coming to a close with the pedestals I started to have some troubles in honing. I have been using a Norton 1000 Grit stone and a King that is about 6000 G. Well I always felt I had to put more effort into getting a nice polished edge than many of my classmates, but now I couldn't even get what I was getting before. I'm not the most patient of people to be doing this kind of work but I have VERY little patients for things that aren't working as they "should" be.
My King stone had a crack and the dumb base was flexing. Norton stones however don't have bases which is actually a good thing!
After reaching my wits end I went out and got a Norton 8000 G stone. What a difference it makes!!! I had no idea getting that final polish could be so easy! Maybe "training" on the poorer stone for a couple years helped but I do not suggest putting yourself through that mess.
Seriously spend the extra $40-$50 and get the Norton off the bat. Save yourself from suffering and make honing more enjoyable!
The King stone promptly made it's way to the garbage. heh.


In more frustrations... Oak Milling... So like I said I ended up getting White Oak from the main local hardwood seller. The mainly supply to cabinet shops and other "industrious" operations.
So this 8/4 was kiln dried and my guess would be that it was dried as fast as possible to meet with "industrial demand". I had found one great looking plank (in terms of potential yield). When I plotted the parts out before cutting into it I though I'd be able to get the whole table out of this one 8/4 plank minus 2 long pieces. Turns out I was wrong. Above was to be a frame member and a stretcher. Even though I cut with about an extra 1/8" in thickness in both pieces I could not use either for their intended purpose!
In addition to the stress the wood had I kept finding "surprises" throughout both "rift" planks I had.


This is a nasty one! I had set aside an "in case" off-cut about 40" long. After my discovery tension in the wood I went to this to get to more pieces out of. Turns out this gaping crack was hiding waiting for me to find it. It started about 3" on one side of the off-cut to about 4" from the end! I had basically cut this shooting crack out of the plank without seeing any evidence of its existence!!


Oh sweet. That's a BIG knot to be hiding inside a 2"! There was a small visible bend to the grain on the outside, I though I might find a little dot of a knot...


The cracks kept coming out to party...
There's a whole bunch more but you can get the idea.


After working a number of short days taking a little material off here and there then letting it settle, repeating the process and again. I'm getting close to final dimensions... not quite though.
Two Coffee tables. One in White Oak and one in Kwila. I wish I had more Kwila. I know there is one part I'm not overly happy with. I did the best I could with what I have though, and money is tight. Not to mention there's no way for me to color match any other material coming my way and Kwila has a pretty wide range of tone.


Speaking of lumber coming my way.... Look what I got!!! This is 44 b/f of steamed Swiss Pear coming from Gilmer Wood Co in Portland Or. The two thinner planks are a match from a flitch and the shorter wide one is a quartered flitch 15" - 16" wide, all 10/4" thick!!!
Pear isn't cheap and neither is shipping it from Portland but it should be more than enough for my next project... FINALLY I'm not calling it too close. I wish I had bigger machines though. I hate the idea of ripping and joining back together pieces! >:( Not that I can't do it or that it takes a heck of a lot of time but I feel confined and it kind of "violates" my "religion" ha.