My hardwood dealer had an 11" wide board of 4/4 Black Walnut with an interesting figure and sap wood combination that was perfect for the job. I cut the board into thirds and slip matched two of those pieces to create the 22" wide table. The third piece left me enough stock to make the breadboard ends.

I set up a straight edge and used a cross cut back saw to establish the edge and then used a chisel to pop off the waste. Final clean up of the tennon was done with a router plane and a shoulder plane.

A coping saw made short work of establishing the three tennons on each side.

The breadboard ends were mortised, drilled for draw boring, and then pegged with shop made Walnut dowels.

Everything was cleaned up with a smoothing plane and card scraper.

No sanding needed.

General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Satin Top Coat.

It's like magic every time.

I applied two coats to the bottom of the piece and a total of five coats to the top. 24 hours between coats and a light sanding with 400 grit paper each time.

The last coat was thinned by about 50% with mineral spirits and applied very lightly. After that coat had 24 hours to dry I went over everything with 0000 steel wool to get rid of any dust nibs.

I attached it to the base with four 1" wood screws.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below, and I'll be happy to answer.

-Tim