We delivered the trestle table the weekend before Christmas ... It fit right in and replaced a table we had built in 2001 or so .. Their previous table was narrower and shorter and has been moved to their new guest house ...
The chairs are by Nakashima Studios and lower than my typical chairs .... The new table is 28" high instead of our typical 29.5" ...Original post below ...
11/18/2010 ......... Were working on a new trestle table design ,,,, The trestle is one of my favorite forms .. it can be light and airy or substantial and weighty ... In the end, the base of this one has a kind of bridgy feeling ... it seems to be on eof my influences lately ... I like the tapered verticals and it was fun figuring out how to make them efficiently and accurately. If it looks a little low, it is. The clients Nakashima dining chairs are only 16.5" to the top of the seat .. We dropped the table about 1.25".... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
We glued up the top from three beautiful 16-18" wide 8/4 planks from Irion Lumber ... Spectacular grain below ... Cant wait to see them finished...
Theyll have one of our aged cherry finishes when were through ...
After lucking into an 18 " wide 16/4 plank, (again from Irions) we next had to figure out how to make the tapered solid verticals. The jig above consists of a carrier with half the total taper for the first shim and them twice the total taper for the multiple passes. We had to add the sacrificial ply rails to allow the planer to pull the wood through and engage the tapered cuts smoothly ... We tapered the ends after we tapered the 18" wide thickness.
One in, one out of the jig right before the last pass.
We made a full size drawing below and added the plinths and skids above ... In the photo above there is also a mini stretcher that we made to check the final angle cuts on that ... We hit it pretty much right on using the angle from the cad drawing ,,,
The finished verticals and the full size layout ...
Will got it all together Friday and we put the top on to check it out ... We have literally no room in the shop to set it down on the floor right now with the 16 big island in the works .... Maybe later this week ... We cant deliver it until Christmas so theres no real rush ... More later as we progress ...
We have done extensive work for these clients including the small room library featured in my Libraries We Have Built post (5th and 6th photos down). Here Jim is checking out a ship model case we built about 8 or 9 years ago ... Its a fantastic model with extraordinary detail ... the story is my clients father was a specialist in arthritis and cured the model maker enough that he made this model in appreciation ... It is spectacular ...
A reader sent me an email looking for information on carving the pine cones on the bed in the post above ... I looked back and found that that was one topic I hadnt really covered in depth .... I think this was Wills first time carving them but fortunately I had saved a half carved sample cone with the layout lines shown so all he had to do was make the turning, steal the layout from the sample, find the right gouge and carve achoice everything that didnt look like a pine cone ... This time we actually took some pictures too ... It helps if you can find a nice fresh one in the woods that is just about to open to get the top right ... I think its too late to find one of those this year ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
The top photo shows the horizontal and vertical divisions ... youll have to find (or buy) the right sweep chisel in your carving tool collection and then match the number of lines and divisions to the size/height of your cone and chisel .. Outline first as shown above in the top photo and photo above,
Then hollow out inside the outlines, getting smaller as you approach the top ... This is a learn by doing detail and no quantity of words will substitute for some trial and error here ... Have at it !!
Same deal for the spirals except the layout for those is shown in the original bed posts .
In this picture, you can just see a little of how the top of the cone is resolved to appear slightly open.
