Live Edge Picnic Tables

In the Summer and Fall of 2020, I built a set of live edge picnic tables for our backyard. This was a project my Mom had wanted to do for awhile, and the pandemic gave us plenty of time and bandwidth to make it happen. The wood is Poplar and sourced from Western North Carolina. The thinner bench sections had been kiln dried whereas the large table surfaces had not. 

The frames are made from I-beams and the wood is attached to the frames with bolts and internally tapped set screws. The metal was finished with clear coat and the Poplar originally was finished with 5 coats of spar urethane. Every summer/fall, the tables are refinished and have shown some moderate splitting at the ends, though the frames seem to prevent any impactful splitting. Eventually I would like to add a brass dovetail to prevent future checking and splitting in the table tops.