Dovetable #2

This thick ash slab was cut in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 2012 as part of the “Heartwood Lumber Restoration Project,” which milled trees around the village that had been killed by the emerald ash borer. The slab, which came from a tree on the campus of Antioch College, was 3” thick, had one live edge, and numerous borer holes, and it had warped significantly during storage. So the challenge in this project was making a piece of furniture that would highlight the massiveness and history of the wood, embracing its defects.

I have always admired dovetails as the strongest and most elegant joinery of two perpendicular boards, and I think it a shame that they are usually hidden in the sides of a well-built drawer. Using them here not only elevates this method of joinery but retains most of the features of the board with no additional wood or hardware. The difficulty with this piece revolved around the word perpendicular. There was not a straight edge or flat surface anywhere on this board, so it took a considerable amount of “interpolation” to mark and cut the dovetails for an illusion of perpendicularity. The result is a bench-sized table that looks and sits flat on the floor, but closer examination with ruler and square reveals no true straight, flat or perpendicular lines to be found.