How does one find the center of a lathe faceplate? First, make sure the tail stock shaft is concentric with the spindle. Then fill the threaded bore in the faceplate with epoxy (after coating the threads with wax so the epoxy can be removed later). The epoxy pour shouldn't be deep enough to interfere with the spindle, mine was only about 5/16" deep. Once the epoxy has cured, chuck the faceplate on the lathe and use a Jacobs chuck in the tail stock to drill a centered hole in the epoxy. This worked pretty well for me.
Blue Tape, Round and Round
All of the edge veneers are applied. This step made possible with the support of blue tape.
Dressing Up an Edge with Veneer
Here I'm applying the small veneers to the table edge. It's kind of slow going, but requires really precise fitting of all 18 pieces of edge veneer. Just the kind of thing I enjoy.
Furnituremaker's Notebook
With the solid edging glued to the substrate, I made the top round with a router and circle-cutting jig. Next up: gluing the veneers to the table edges.
Furnituremaker's Notebook
Picking back up on the table project. The top veneers (from a few posts back) are applied over a substrate of Baltic birch plywood. Here I'm gluing the solid maple edging to the substrate. Everything is splined to ease this process as well as for strength.