Scott exposes his ideas to a galoot check (sensible fella ) 

I LIKE Ed’s suggestion by the way, but as I read, it was about a 1/4 inch of
each timber.  A very tangible statement, rather than a refined whiff of
elegance, which says ‘I can do this’ rather than being in your face.    Whatever
- you need a great, french polished top that has some real depth to bring out
the timbers.

As for the making,   I hear you saying that you are building up a solid top, so
glue up the end grain ends to the walnut, use a continuous tongue at each end,
or glue in a loose tongue more like, and have a single, solid slab,  then run
your stopped groove and loose tongue on the sides and glue those in.  - You
attended to the rebates and glued in sections as you went of course,  Mitre the
corners of the stringing inlay.

Myself - I’d maybe go for thinning down the edges all the way to a half inch or
so - maybe using a large moulding plane so there is a curve away from the edge.
Always looks elegant when the edges are thin.

The tear out though - you have a tricky time of.  To maximise the appearance,
you want a sliced, off the blade finish, but to remove tear out you feel an
abrasive may be needed.

If you have some test pieces, use them to check your techique.  essentially,
super sharp plane blades and a high ange, a very high angle, are the way to go,
then cabinet scrapers.  If you are not accustomed to using them, do plenty of
practice first, and again, especially practice resharpening.

And, if all else fails,  reach for the coarse abrasive, and be prepared to go
over the entire surface with several grits.  If you shoudl decide to go the
highly polished route, then you wont want to see dished in areas where you
abraded out a section of tear out.  Try hard to avoid fillers.  Check out the
use of pumice as well as/instead of sawdust/shellac mix.

Sounds a good project.   I always feel envious of all your American Walnut.


Richard Wilson
a Galoot in Northumbria