Two Oval Tables

We finished up two oval dining tables this week. The first, in English elm from Berkshire Products, has been in the shop for a while, after a finish change from natural to a light stain ... It looked great when it left and the client was very happy when it arrived. Click the photos to enlarge them ....
The legs are the same as on the big claro walnut table we made earlier this year, and we will be doing a variation on this base on anther big claro table that we will start this week ... More on that later as we progress ...
Shows the underside .... The metal structure, once the bolts are tightened and it is attached to the top, is surprisingly rigid ... no, make that completely rigid ...
The table below I wrote about in the post new table design, earlier this month. In person, its 60" wide x 86" long presence is very powerful. The top is only four boards from the same walnut log (only without the hardware) that we made the Bethlehem Steel dining table from earlier this year ... Its beautiful lumber ...
The long crosspieces and bolted engineering also made this base extremely rigid
Close up ...
Glue up ... more photos in the earlier post ... the base design and glue up was a very interesting process of discovery ...
While we we working on the dining table, the client added the Bethlehem Steel style console above which she will use to display a Dale Chihuly piece she owns ... Its shown above unfinished, but will be reassembled probably Tuesday ...

Read More..

bloggavacation

My post on July 10 was, believe it or not, my 350th blog post ... a stunning statistic for someone who dreaded completely, and went to great lengths, to avoid writing anything at all throughout 16 years of formal education ... goes to show that you just never know how things are going to turn out. In honor of that 350 number, I decided to take a two week blogging break and do some vacation like stuff with my spare time. The post below is a quick overview. During that time, I acquired a pretty substantial backlog of stuff I want to write about ... I plan to do a little more writing tonight and trickle the other stuff in over the next week or two ... Quick overview below ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
I spent a wonderful long afternoon at The Shelburne Museum .... I had forgotten the depth of utterly fantastic woodworking stuff on display there from tools, to the carousel above (which is a totally amazing display of turn of the century carving and coloring), to a houseful of carved decoys, sneak boxes and punt guns, some great architecture and the restored Lake Champlain steamer ferry, The Ticonderoga. More on that later for sure.
I finished the second of the famous Stieg Larson books and reluctantly cracked the third the day before yesterday ... I read the first one choice back the week after the 4th of July. Im actually surprised Im not reading the third one now except after a thousands pages or so, you actually can stop reading for a minute or two. Im sure Ill be back at it in an hour or so. The one above is 600 pages and I think it took about 4 days. Boy was I tired at work. Avoid these books like the plague if you have anything even remotely important to do ...
I fooled around with a mockup for a hanging, spinning steel sculpture I want to do. The one above is painted 1/4" luan, reddish on one side and reddish/brownish on the other. After several failures, I am awaiting 350 lb test stainless steel large salt water game fish swivels from Cabelas.
And the boys in the shop have been hard at work on an 18 wall unit/fireplace surround/bookcase that well deliver and install next week sometime ... Wills got a different project going on too ...
And I managed to get in a couple of rounds of golf to boot ... above, one of them, a first ever for me, fivesome ... what a hoot ... All for now; more soon ...

Read More..