Green Gate Guest House: The big timber bar.

Back when there was still snow on the ground, I milled a huge white pine log into slabs using the Alaskan chainsaw mill. The tree has quite a history- it grew for decades next to the mess hall at a youth 4-H camp a few miles from our property. Eventually, the 3' diameter tree was encroaching on the building so much that it had to be removed. Since it would be just plain wrong to turn it into firewood, I consider it my obligation to come up with more noble uses for the big timber.

I had a couple of the slabs kiln dried, and set out to build a bar top using the largest of the pieces. Unfortunately, there was some rot on one end which couldn't be cut off because I needed the full length of the slab. So I decided to cut out the punky area and put an inlay in its place.

I traced an outline around the rotted area and cut it out freehand using a router. the faces of the slab were planed and sanded smooth.

Inside the barn, I built a pair of support brackets using salvaged barn timbers.

After finishing the slab with Ecoprocote Eco-Tuff Clearcoat, it was set in place and screwed in place from underneath.

In the cut out area, I inserted an inlay using pieces of the Eccorok countertop I had left over from the kitchen countertop project.

NICE WORK! ... Monte