Workers Of Wood

Years ago I had aquired a couple of confrence table tops from the remodel of an office. They were 72"X32"X1-1/4"thick bolted together end wise. they had been setting around my shop and I was going to make a work bench top out of them. The tops were Particle board with white oak laminate both sides. My son was setting up a home office at the time and wanted a couple of desks so I offered to make them with these tops.
the sheet of 3/4" birch I bought from the lumber yard to make the drawer cabinet and the end supports/back out of had the wildest grain I have ever seen. And when I finished it with clear urethane it was really wild.
Herb
The last pic was before finish, the rest were with finish.

I love the character...

That was probably yhe best sheet of plywood in the stack. Has an interesting look to it.

That's pretty wild looking alright. Years ago if you bought birch plywood the birch was US or Canadian. These days I'm not so sure. Russia has lots and Finland too. Maybe China has some in their northern part. About 35 years ago I was logging a right of way in a steep narrow valley alongside a creek and there was some of the nicest quality birch growing there. So I stacked up about a logging truck load between the nicer ones and some D fir I needed to build my house with and had it hauled to a neighbor with a sawmill. I got at least 2000 bd ft of birch out it.

All the dark areas in mine are in the heartwood. The only way you'd get that kind of pattern like in Herb's pictures would be if the lathe was dipping in and out of that heartwood area. It doesn't look like it was doing that from the pictures. I'd love to see some boards cut from the same logs they peeled to see what they looked like. Every so often in mine I did get areas like the bright spots in the bottom picture. Maybe those were where a knot was going to grow and it didn't happen. Birch does occasionally have some pattern to it but it's white on white so it doesn't stand out much.

Yeowser...that is some grain effect...BEEEUTIFULLL...! ! !

Stick486 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 07, 2022 4:48 am I love the character...

The desk is pretty great too1

Wow I really like that look . Great work Herb