Greg Blundell's table with tropical hardwood railway sleepers

Just thought I'd send in some photos as promised. Well things turned out really well, as mentioned before I was a little disappointed when I cleaned off the railway sleeper with the sap wood on one side to find it had some rot in it, just by chance I got to hacking out the rot and now the table is all oiled it actually looks great and adds a beautiful feature to it.

Its taken a LOT of work to get finished as I dont have a workbench and the railway sleeper I used for the top is solid wood and is very hard and heavy (when cut in half each half weight +/- 98lbs each!!) and difficult to man handle around without a bench. Its taken a lot of work to get it all squared up and level as the railway sleepers had a slight tapered shape and quite a lot of rip marks from the mill saw (I guess typical of cutting hardwood). To get the surface ready for finishing I sanded down from 40 grit, to 80 then 120 on the belt sander, then 120 with a orbital. After all the edges were routered and hand sanded with 180 to clean up anything missed by the sanders etc. All the visable surfaces were then scraped down (didnt have a cabinet scraper so used a new disposable knife blade) to give a really smooth finish before applying one coat of danish oil.

The end result is stunning! When the afternoon sun lands on it its a different colour from every angle. Theres enough wood left over from the sap wood railway sleeper to go towards making a TV stand (trying to find somewhere with steamed peartree boards) and also to make some coasters and candle holders. Will be ordering some more railway sleepers later in the year as have a few ideas penned for some small tables and also we'd like a bench for the garden.
Greg Blundell 

RAILWAY SLEEPERS USED:
New tropical hardwood railway sleepers

RailwaySleepers.com Says..

RailwaySleepers.com supplies new and used hardwood & softwood railway sleepers throughout the UK. Railwaysleepers.com
Thank you so much. You have impeccably documented all stages of your construction with excellent photos, and you have crafted a beautiful looking table from the railway sleepers. It is fascinating how an initial disappointment over an imperfect part of the timber, then becomes a special feature that adds to its uniqueness. Another of our customers makes railway sleeper sculptures, and he often says that it is the individual nature of the wood that more determines the end product, rather than him!