Making Bar Tables from solid oak

I recently began taking work for a finish carpenter based in Brighton.  He has a lot of experience and a complete wood shop, but when I offered to take any "overflow" work, he immediately offered up the task of gluing up six bar room table tops.


These tables were to be 2" thick, 28" square, and made from solid white oak.

Making these tables involved a few "firsts" for me:



A major first was the way the tables were glued up, which stuck me as a good "carpenter's shortcut" which a furniture maker wouldn't dare to do, but which worked admirably and made the whole process a lot faster: having the lumber yard plane both faces of the main boards, then rip the boards into strips as wide as the tables are to be thick, then turning these strips on their sides, so that the planed faces end up being the glue joints.  This eliminates the jointing and planing steps that are usually part of a panel glue-up process.  I found that the yard-planed faces were indeed flat and parallel enough to yield reasonably tight glue lines.

This was also the first time cross-cutting large panels on my new sliding table saw (part of the Robland X31).  The sliding table saw was excellent, delivering straight, burn-free cut lines that need almost no sanding before being stained.  

I have posted a link to all of the pictures of this project, including captions that explain what's in the pics, here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/isaacvw/BarTables?authuser=0&feat=directlink

And here is a link to a video slideshow of the pictures (and captions):
http://youtu.be/4hkeCxOpze0