saddle up

oh the thought of not seeing that slab
an edifice anchoring my flimsy garage wall
but the time had come, as it always does

to cut

a hundred pounds of walnut balanced on my sawbench
the fifteen pound offcut would have to be supported as well so a stack of kitty litter buckets and a filler of pine were enlisted

nice, dry, no binding, no warping all the stress perfectly removed
it cut like butter

I wrestled the remaining slab back against the work bench
and clamped the block back down

in disbelief I ripped an inch and a half from each side
and I arrived at a blank

no flattening, no jointing, no glue up, no sapwood
no seams

but PLENTY of grain reversal


the sawbench seemed the perfect height to start the saddling

a few misguided attempts to use the adze, then I got the rhythm

some further refinement with a chairmaker's plane
and a few passes from a round scraper

not bad for a couple hours work

Please remember, this piece is the original scrap, there's plenty of wood here to do all three, this piece just screamed for attention.
I'll be filling these voids with epoxy, and then smoothing the whole shebang
if it doesn't look good I can always plane the top back to flat and start over
this slab is about a half an inch thicker than the one used for the previous chair
so I've got some wiggle room