Right, assembling the burr oak is a lengthy and quite laborious job but after cutting the scales from the burr on the bandsaw, they were all thicknessed together one by one to give continuity in the thickness across them all.
Starting with a single piece the burr was randomly cut on the fretsaw following the pattern of the burr but also skirting around the edges of the major cracks and fissures which needed replacing. once the first piece was cut it was then laid over another piece of burr that would marry up and fill the missing part of the jigsaw and the two pieces held together with double sided tape.
The two pieces were then cut together on the fretsaw to effectively form the accurate jigsawing of the pieces knowing that they would marry to together when the tape was removed. The photo below shows a couple of cut pieces ready to be glued into the corresponding aperture.
the next picture shows a piece of the burr panel made up in this cut and join manner, you can see the joint lines as at this stage they havn't yet been glued
As the panel enlarges, the pieces are held together with masking tape so that they can still be removed to align another piece to it
Once I was happy with an area, I would then apply some titebond original to the joints and glue them together, the glue was very sparingly applied to prevent it sticking to the board upon which I was assembling it, this was an old melamine faced desk top that I had and had previously waxed to prevent the panel sticking
Slowly this process was done over a period of a few days until the complete panel was made - Unfortunately I do not have any close up pics of cutting on the fretsaw but the pic below shows the clients who commissioned the table doing their bit!
I always like to encourage my clients to have active involvement with the design, construction and on this occasion the clients came and spent a whole day with me in the workshop, helping to align the burr, deciding upon the positioning and even getting hands on with the cutting, gluing and filling.
Hope this clarifies it for you a bit more Marcros