# One way to flatten a very large slab of wood.



## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)




----------



## mnld (Jun 4, 2013)

That's a pretty sweet slab! What's it for?


----------



## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

Its going to be a desk top. 
It's Elm. Never worked with Elm before. Should look nice with a clear coat on it. 

Here is the off fall all sanded and detailed to use as a sample.


----------



## Eaglei (Aug 1, 2012)

Would love to keep that as a live edge . Beautiful slab .


----------



## Tom Struble (Mar 2, 2007)

what's the other way?


----------



## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

We are keeping both live edges. Concave against the wall to create the cord drop area. The sample is the sample edge as well. A little draw knife work on the sharp edge is all I'm doing. 

Tom, the other way is how you would do it.


----------



## Morning Wood (Jan 12, 2008)

Quick, install that thing before it becomes unflat.


----------



## superseal (Feb 4, 2009)

Elm is is one of the most beautiful table top choices.

My island in the kitchen is going to be elm, soon as I get around to it.


----------



## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

That's cheating.:whistling


----------



## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

Leo G said:


> That's cheating.:whistling



I paid the price for it. 

To do this I created a "route" on a 5 inch thick material, told it to "pocket". The pocket choice basically creates the code to remove all the material within the route. Easy enough. 

Then I just offset the Z axis at the machine by the depth I want to take for the next pass and run the same program. This is a setting at the machine that adds a number to every Z command that is in the program. In this case I just kept placing successive negative numbers to the Z for each pass. This is much easier than going back to the office and creating a new program for each pass and I could control the depth for the first and last pass easily. At the end, I had the Z offset by 3/4". 

The danger is if you forget to zero out that offset and run another program. 

Yes, yes I did just that. 

Ran a fly cutting program to clean up the spoils board. The spoils board was about 1/4 inch thick. Fly utter bit was told to go a full 3/4" deeper than that. It got ugly real fast. Ate a circle in the top and limited out the machine. Still don't know if I knocked it out of alignment. We will see tomorrow. 

Pretty much sucked the fun out of a Friday afternoon  

They say your memory is the first to go. I can't remember what is second.


----------



## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

Usually it's the memory that's 2nd to go. And viagra can't help that.


----------



## Morning Wood (Jan 12, 2008)

Ouch man.


----------

