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Our best friends have asked me to build an outdoor table for their backyard and so away we go. It will be 66"X40" at 32" high. I decided to use Jatoba due to its amazing resilience to the elements and fairly reasonable cost. I don't like working with it but it is pretty much bullet proof as an outdoor wood. I spent the day cutting to length and milling the top slats to size. Now it's plane it all down on the planer.
Paul

WTH are you getting ypur raw materials?

Oh and what is jatoba?

Most hardwood suppliers have Jatoba or Brazilian Cherrie. Its a very dense hardwood from South America that is used mostly for decking. It's pretty reasonable on pricing and an excellent wood for outdoor use. Somewhat hard to deal with on the hardness issue but worth the effort. Similar to teak but at half the cost.
Paul

Thats got to be the flattest and straightest lumber I have seen in a while ,,

nice!!

Busy day today. I got all the wood ripped to dimensions and started gluing up the panels and legs. I decided to glue up the table top in 11 3/8 panels which will fit though the planer and then join them together in pairs at 22" and then run them through the surface sander and then finally join the two halves together. That will leave me with only one final glue joint to sand by hand. Hopefully it will turn out flat with no divits. I also started gluing up the legs which unfortunately had to be made of four pieces of 4/4. The hardwood supplier only stocks 4/4 here. They had 16/4 in LA but I wasn't up for the drive. Jatoba is great for outdoor furniture but it is really difficult to work with. Leather gloves at all times. It is so hard that the sawn edges are like razor blades. Makes for beautiful furniture though. Also my 520 fence and double tilt up grade arrived today. Those will have to wait a while.
Paul

Gluing the legs up
Paul

The adage is "you cannot have too many clamps".



However thee does come close!

Looking good, Paul. I have worked with Jatoba quite a bit. A little bit difficult to work with before you get it milled down but I find it to be a very stable dense wood that provides a nice color contrast to white hard maple in many of my projects. It is very dense and heavy. That table is going to weigh a ton.

Yes weight was a consideration but it makes for great outdoor furniture that is very stable. It also retains its color well over the years.
Paul

Back in the shop today. Got the table top completed and the legs shaped and the tenons cut.
Paul