On Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at 10:04:33 AM UTC-4, Jim wrote:
First, let me thank everybody for the input on the wood type I seem to using for this project. Probably southern yellow pine.

I have the 3 boards (~12x84x1.5)ready for glue up. I am not using breadboard ends. My plan is to either use biscuits or some kind of spline for greater strength and alignment. I'm not quite sure here so any input would be appreciated.

I also plan to put boards across the bottom of the top, about every 2 feet or so. Probably overkill, but I do want this to last a long time.

The final product should look sort of like this:

http://www.mortisetenon.com/assets/i...ning-table.jpg

Well, the project is moving along well, should be done and delivered this weekend. Turns out the top is so ungodly heavy I don't think I need to attach it at all, just have guide boards that fit inside the frame. So the top finished great, the base, not so much. Not terrible considering it will be a rustic look and may in fact be great once all together. That being said this is a picture that sort of shows my concern:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xfj...ew?usp=sharing

The wood for the base is Doug Fir and I did use Charles Neil's prep before finishing with MinWax oil based stain. But it still has parts that look to me to be a lot lighter then others. In particular the cross pieces between the legs on the bottom. The won't go darker even if I apply more stain. Maybe I'm being anal as I'm not used to this "rustic" look. I'm going to cover it all with a satin finish poly for protection, would it make sense to maybe use a darker color polyshade on the light parts to blend them or won't that work? I think I'll put the whole thing together just to see how it looks before I decide.

Oh,I thought this was cool, the cross piece in the bottom has pegs that come out of the tenons, and the pieces with the mortises it goes through are on aluminum guide pins in the legs so they come out as well. This way, with the top off, one could "walk" it through a narrow door.

The link in my original post contains all the pics so far. Thanks again for all the advice.