The Woodshop Shed

Platters with a history

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


Finished these 6 oak platters about 2 weeks ago, mostly pre-pandemic. My brother gave me some wood from a table that was in basement of the family home when we kids grew up. Best I can tell the table was left there by my grandparents when they retired and my parents took over the farm. There were some leaves and other top boards and a couple of pedestals in pieces. Not in great shape. This spent a year in my shop while I was looking for a good use. No clue yet about pedestal parts, but decided to turn me and my 5 siblings platters from the top boards.Cut them up into usable size pieces jointed edges as needed and glued up 6 blanks. Reverse side looked like the original table had some hand planning.
My planer struggled to flatten one side and remove the old finish (put in new knives after this task). Located centers, marked out circumference for platter and mount. Roughed out each platter on band saw.
Used a combination of double sided tape and hot glue to mount a blank to a waste block. This worked great holding the blank while turning and made release to turn backside easy.
Turning this dry old oak was challenging. Easy to get tear out. Filled some worm holes and rotted spots with T88 epoxy tinted black after masking off the area.
Used the extended cole jaws to finish the bottom of each platter.
Two coats of sanding sealer and 3 coats of polyurethane finished the job off. Wish I had looked at the wood better before glue up. You can see some mismatched wood grain.

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