Walnut is probably my favorite wood. It is rich in color and texture, easy to work with, grows domestically and has the right density and strength to serve well in almost every woodworking deployment. So, when Chad showed me the walnut slabs that he brought over to our class I immediately...

After Colm created all the tenons, he attached a clamp to the foot of each leg and staged a few options for leg locations: closer to each other, further apart, etc. After a few trials he settled on the configuration that seemed the most compelling in terms of overall balance – both...

Colm was one of the students at my Peters Valley live edge class and his table stood out both in terms of design and height. On the first day of class, he showed me an impressive looking walnut crotch slab and asked what I thought we could do with it. While...

Live edge boards, like so many other organisms, can also suffer from stress. And while stress in humans can be mitigated with a moderate consumption of alcohol or a visit to the shrink (or both), inner-stresses in wood, which manifests themselves among other ways (cracks or splitting), need a mechanical remedy from...

Last week I showed the first part of Mark’s project that was completed during my live edge class at Peters Valley. This week I will show you how Mark finished building his table. Turning the legs After crosscutting the walnut beam into a portion that matched the approximate length of the legs,...