Progress On The Giant Tables

Thats Trevor down there on the end of the table .... about 30 achoice ... Click the picture to enlarge it and see him smiling achoice down there. Hes allowed to smile as this table has been pretty much his baby. He is our CNC man, and I dont think we could build these tables without one. I mean, how would I even make a template for the 1020" (85 foot) radius edge of the table? Beats me .... Below is the assembled top of the 26 x 9 table we have been working on. I have described it in a couple of previous posts here and here ... check them out for the full story ... Let me know what you think
Here we are (again) working on the table. Thats Steve Holman (on the table) below of Holman Studios and his assistant Kevin helping us get it together ...
Were still on the temporary base here, and Steve is working on the real base in his shop just down the road ... Were planning to assemble the whole thing, granite and all, at least once here in my garage before we ship it all to New Jersey, along with its smaller (8x 20) cousin that we started work on yesterday.
Yesterday, we assembled the temporary base for the 20 table in the adjoining bay of my garage and Trevor started cutting the mdf parts for that project ... If I built these all the time, we would definitely need a MUCH bigger shop.
This one is only five four foot wide pieces, but it still takes up half the shop ...
Yesterday, Herb Johnson of Johnson Marble and Granite, of Proctor, Vermont came to get the first five granite templates. Thats his shop above. Herb has done much stone work for me in the past including the marble vanity top in this post, and all of the marble tops on this page here.
Hell do the 10 end pieces with the miters and their neighbors and see how they fit with the rest of the templates and then finish up with the six center pieces. He claims Ive done the hard part by making the templates .... Glad to hear that ....

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The Biggest Table Yet For us 9 x 26

I just cut and pasted the info from the previous post below rather than rewrite the whole introduction ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
Well, so far, for a refreshing change, its been a pretty busy month ... Last week, we finished what I thought at the time was a pretty big claro walnut slab table, 3 x 10. Turns out, its not so big. Well be able to put four of them, with chairs, on one of the tables we are designing and building with my neighbor, Steve Holman of Holman Studios ... The first of two tables in this commission is getting under choice below and will be 26 x 9. Then we have another slightly smaller one to build that will be only 8 x 20. Steves shop is just down the road from ours and we often collaborate on projects like these tables and like this project we did last year.
Heres the cad drawing ... The top is divided into seven sections with a 2" cherry border on the outside edges, around a 24" band of black granite, with veneered curly maple center sections. There will be a bunch of flip up power and data ports in the center sections. As you can see from the drawing, there will be some engineering involved to support the cantilevered stone. The base will break down into about 10 separate boxes for shipping and assembly on site. Weve opted to use 1.5" x 2.5" rectangular steel tubing with 1/4" walls to support the granite. Wed probably prefer to use something taller, like 4", but than we get into a bump your knees issue. We wouldnt want that, for sure. Anychoice, weve done a couple of tests and we think it will be ok. Well know more when we get the actual steel from Melansons next week. We cant cut the steep angles easily with either of our saws.
The steel has to be cut on a 67.5 degree angle like the timberstrand in the temporary working base above that we set up in the drivechoice ... Its hard to see, but the lengths of the steel pieces follow the curve of the table top. Thats the base for half of the table you see above ...
Trevor and Sam sitting at the end section ... you can see about half of the 44.5" wide second section in this photo too ... Its seven feet across the narrow end where they are sitting and curves out to 9 in the middle ...
Here weve assembled two of the middle sections on the table saws to check Trevors routing for the Norse connectors and some plywood butterflies well use to level the surfaces of the table where they butt together ...
There are a lot of operations to get this thing into shape ... Plus, only one section is less then 8 so we have to index the pieces, cut one end, and then shift them 18" to cut the other end on the cnc. That, actually, worked really slick.
Heres the view of the boys from the halfchoice point ... The raised sections are templates for the granite cutter ... This is the drawing for the second table in the commission, a somewhat smaller 8 x 20, 5 piece table ... same deal, different dimensions ...

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