BNSF reclaimed oak sofa table, part 1

26 Tuesday Jan 2016

I stumbled upon some quartersawn red and white oak in 8/4 thickness (2″) on some BNSF railcars. The thick wood is used as dunnage to secure heavy loads to the wooden beds of railcars. I need some heavy (read: expensive) material for a sofa table for my new house and this stuff fit the bill perfectly. Some of the slabs were rotted out and most of them had cracks; the perfect opportunity to experiment with dovetail keys, or “butterflies.”