Finishing Quandry-Thoughts?

[yabbyman]

Hi all
as a few of you have gathered, I am a babe in the woods when it comes to woodwork mastery and I am in a quandry.
Prior to relocating to Sydney from the Atherton Tablelands in FNQ, I had the good opportunity of picking up 2 beautiful slabs of black bean. (Castanospremum australe) Ideally I would like to utilise the bigger slab as the "master" section of a table top and join on 2 additional heartwood pieces on either side to emphasis the light sapwood. The Master section also has a hole and one crack that goes right through the 50mm depth of the timber. My initial idea was to fill these with transparent potting resin prior to undertaking any work on the surfaces.
This is where my problem goes west and I need to pick you guys brains' to establish which way I should go.
The general consensus is that any joinery work will have movement, therefore a polyurethane high gloss finish is not the answer as it will exacerbate the problem and potentially ruin a great surface.
Therefore I am lead to believe that finishing the table surface with say, Feast Watson Floor Finish with multiple coats to bring up a gloss prior to buffing back.
BUT.... from what I can gather (a little bit of common logic for once) is that this FW finish will not effectively adhere to the resin surface of the holes and crack.
In an ideal world I would just cut the crap square into a one piece rectangle, though I would only get 800mm wide. Too narrow for the purpose. (Errrr)
Which way do you guys think I should go?
I certainly do not want to destroy waste such a beautiful project.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated A

[Harry72]

In a slab like that I wouldnt bother to fill the crack instead make it a highlight, what a few here have done with a problem like that is to make some dovetail keys(like butterfly wings)to stop the crack from going any further.
Do a search in the picture section here on slabs and dovetail keys.

[Master Splinter]

My thoughts on that little project:

How long has the timber been seasoned for? (...can you put off doing anything with it for another year or so if it has only been drying for 1-2 years). Just looking at the shape and size of it makes me worry about further timber movement occuring before it settles down.

I would be very tempted to do a cut and shut on it - remove 50-odd mm straight down the centre with a bandsaw to remove the cracked part. You could be arty and use butterfly keys in a contrasting timber to emphasise rather than hide the fact that this had been done.

Or if you do fill the crack with epoxy, maybe tint the epoxy black (so it looks like a crack and not like a patch job). Epoxy can be sanded/steel wool/buffed to sorta match the gloss level of a finish, but no matter what you do it's not going to be a seamless transition.

For a finish, you should do some samples to see what you can achieve - it sounds like you should have enough spare timber on hand to try at least a few options for a finish.

Personally I dont like making timber look like plastic; if I did, I'd save myself effort and buy a sheet of woodgrain laminex, so I tend to go for oil/wax finishes. These are more forgiving of movement and they can be repaired easily rather than needing a full sand and reseal - with an oil finish, dents and dings add 'character'. (with three kids, that's my excuse anyway.)

[yabbyman]

Master Splinter
The Black Bean has been lying around for a long time. anywhere between 10 + 30 years.
yes, I think that will be the way I go. Decided not to be hung up about a "slab" as such and take 2 slabs and join them into 6 planks, alternating the sap and heartwood to create a nice tonal effect. Been playing around with it and will show my digital prowess soon! removing the probs with cracks and holes. Use Feast Watson finishes. no resin fills. I am going to outsource the joinery as I do not have the tools, nor the space to make it come together. besides the finished size is 1900mm x 1200mm. Not small. Any takers in Sinny willing to get paid to make it come together?
A