Recently I’ve been making a very large table for a new shop opening soon on Broadway Market in east London. The brief was for a table 3.2m by 1.2m. Initially they wanted it made from scaffold boards, but we discussed materials and decided to go with reclaimed Pitch Pine.

To finish the table top, I went old school, using hand planes. It’s been a while since I’ve taken on finishing a table this way and it was a very satisfying process…. Now for some woodwork geek-out….

First thing to do was to sharpen up all 5 of the blades for my Stanley No. 6 plane on an oil stone to razor sharpness and to sharpen the blades for my block planes.

I made diagonal strokes across the top to take off any high spots, making the top as flat as possible, using the Stanley plane. Then I made long strokes with the grain with the block plane set very fine.

I used wire wool to rub the surface using ’00’ grade. This process takes off any wood fibres sticking up and provides a gentle polishing of the surface.

Nearing the end, I chose to oil the top with ‘Osmo oil‘. A lovely natural oil. (Nearly) finally, after 24hrs, I further polished the table with ‘0000’ wire wool and oil again.

This process I will repeat another 4 times to build up a generous coating of the top over a few weeks.

After doing all that, I created a custom made steel table frame.