island countertop installed

Matt McGrane over at Tiny Shop Woodworks asked about the finish for the sapele countertop...Couple months ago i asked the guys at MacBeath what to use for countertops and they pointed me to this food-safe treatment called "The Good Stuff". It is a gel that you smear on, then wipe off. it's hard to go wrong and you can build layers slowly until desired protection. since i wont be cutting directly on the countertop. 3 coats seems to give good protection against water and I feel safe putting a beverage with condensation on it without rings forming immediately. Although truth is I don't really care about that kind of wear/tear on the kitchen. Rings, dings, and dents, that's all kind of what happens in a "user" kitchen.

the island countertop is clenched to the lower cabinets using some tiedown buttons that fit into 1/4" grooves i built into the rails when I was milling them up. I think I was lazy here. Instead of weak grooves just 1/4" thick running the length of the rail, I should have placed them deeper and not run them all the length of the board. I did it this way because I was milling grooves for the 1/4" panels and just kept my router setup the way it was. Well if these blow out i know how to fix it, and I can do that if need be.

island countertop in sapele 2'x8'

Earthsource Lumber in west Oakland had a *this much* flatsawn 4/4 sapele, warped and wowed. Sad to hear they will be going out of business next month. THey were an oasis of magnificent odd lot timber, just down Addeline street from me.

well i needed to make a kitchen island countertop, roughly 8' long and 2' deep, supported by two lower cabinet bases. The idea would be similar to how i made the passthrough countertop for the kitchen/dining room threshold. Take the flatsawn, rip to 1,7/8" wide strips, laminate, breadboard end, presto.

I make sure each board is ripped and laminated sequentially so that the grain on the side looks consistent. You end up with swooshes consistent with one another this way

I did a multi-stage lamination for a couple reasons. First to avoid the glue skinning over by the time i would have taken to glue up the entire piece. But also because I wanted to joint/plane each component board in my 12" capacity jointer/planer. once the pieces were thicknessed, I did a final glue-up of the two sides for the final assembly.

I neglected to show the joinery going on here, but it's a garden variety breadboard end, with a stub tenon going the entire width, and 3 1,1/2" tongues going deeper into the end so that they can accept a draw-bore peg.

I used a scraper plane and a card scraper to smooth most the tear-out from my planer. I also used a ROS using 100grit followed by 120grit.

Finish is called "THe Good Stuff", which is a food friendly wood countertop preparation. It feels pretty tough and builds nicely. 3 coats is all i want.

Imagine this slab being placed on the two lower cabinet units in the middle of the floor here