My friend Elaine used to carve wood and stone, and she ran a gallery for many years. She is retired now and is now gradually getting rid of all her stuff. A little while ago she found a piece of burr elm and asked me to turn it into a table. "Do what you like with it".
So I did, but not before it had a couple of good doses of <del>woodwork</del> woodworm fluid...
I imported that photo into SketchUp and used it to model the understructure. The legs were easy, the primary tapers cut on the tablesaw
The mortices were routed on my new super-duper Ultimate Router Mortising Jig.
Then the seconday bevels were planed by hand. The result is a leg that is rectangular at the top and octagonal at the toe.
I forgot to take photos of the tenoning, but this is my Ultimate Tablesaw Tenon Jig on another job.
The lengths and angles were taken straight off the printed drawing, so that the pieces go together like this:
Actually, when I did the first assembly, it was clear that that short rail was way too short, so I did actually replace it with a longer one. Sketchup shpws you a lot, but it's not the same as seeing it in the flesh, is it?
Slots were dominoed for buttons
The M&Ts were glued up with a shaped pad over the sharp point and then screwed together, the screw holes plugged with bog oak.
There was not very much work to do to the top, but there was some. It had to be planed flat, for a start. I used a blade at a high cutting angle. A Bevel Up plane is great for this, as you can change the cutting angle just by honing the blade a bit steeper.
One side of it had a long bevel, almost down to a feather edge, and at knee height, I figured I would not be very popular if ladies were snagging their hosiery on it. Plus that area was nowhere near as pretty as the rest of the board. So Elaine and I had a conflab and decided, between us, to reshape it. A step was routed out
and the bevel made a lot more blunt. There was also a step on the opposite side to give a bit of balance. It has worked supremely well.
The top has had about 8 or 10 coats of a rubbing oil/varnish mixture and I think it looks fantastic. I rather hope that she doesn't, so I can buy the board off her