another post and beam pool table

this is what a set of pool table supplies looks like when it arrives here at our shop ... well, its actually not alchoices quite this beat up, but we have had a couple sets of slate arrive in more than one piece ... better luck this time.  no lost pieces; no broken slate.  click the photos to enlarge them, though youll have to bear with me as i learn adobe lightroom.  my ancient photoshop 7 program stopped working with the last windows upgrade .. i am NOT happy about that.  image/adjust/autolevels .. i am really missing that one.

roughed out rails and cushion wood and cushions above

 

 miracle of miracles .. it is to be exactly like the one above that we made and 

installed about this time last year.

were even using the same drawing, materials, and cutlist.

 here we go .. the new guy chris, finished the slate support frame last thursday ..

 

 and here he is beginning the assembly of the base

 all together last friday ..

 and today we added the slate frame and the slates below

 as of the end of the day today, we had the rubber cushions glued on to the poplar, and 

tomorrow well get them bolted to the slate and add the curly maple rails ...

i love a pool table project ..

and just sos you know were not loafing, weve got some other stuff going on in the shop too .. 

a 12 cherry chest of drawers above, with bookcases and ebony and quartered cherry details

and this 9 curly maple trestle dining table with an inlay.  trevors got that one in the finish room now.

more on those projects later ..
for more pool table posts, click on this link

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11/19/2012 ...  will is coming along now on the next pool table, our third this year.  so far, except for a little input from me on sorting and selecting the wood, hes pretty much done the whole thing himself.  this afternoon, after finishing the blinds, he started taking it apart to begin the finishing process.  click the photos to enlarge them.

this new table is roughly based on this one from about 2005  ... website link here

and this one from 2009 ... blog post link to that table here
we started the process with a pile of kiln dried, reclaimed hemlock timbers from  our friend jef harris at vintage log and lumber in alderson, west virginia.  weve been buying timbers and planks from jef for, i dont know, 6 or 7 years now?  he usually has what we need at a fair price, kiln dried and hardware free.  weve bought mostly chestnut, but also some reclaimed oak and miscellaneous other stuff, like this hemlock.

reclaimed lumber alchoices has its particular challenges, but this batch gave us what we needed without much of a fight.

we emailed jef our cad drawing and cut list, and he got the wood together and sent it on a truck, right to our door.

after two sets of broken slate for the previous table, we went with a new suppler, kurt schmidt, of a. e. schmidt company in st. louis, a long time manufacturer and supplier of quality pool room products.

here will secures the steel that holds the legs and rails together and assures that any seasonal shrinkage in the lumber takes place below the leveled surface of the slate support.

when the rough frame is assembled, the slate support frame is screwed to the base and the slate added to mark out the pocket cuts on the slate support.

about this time, we finalized the finish treatment with the client, and confirmed that the sights (decorative and functional inlays in the rails that divide the playing surface into 4 and 8 parts) would be green abalone diamonds.  in this case, the table is a standard 8 footer and the playing surface is 44 x 88, making the sights 11" on center from the centers of the long and short sides.  the clients house is a new post and beam structure, so he chose the lighter of the finishes on the left.

will cut the diamond shaped green abalone inlays on the cnc.  they are available commercially, but usually only in laminated abalone, so we prefer to cut our own from hand selected, solid green abalone blanks from stewart-macdonald, a luthier supply house.

 the rubber cushions are glued to the poplar subrails, and the rails themselves, in this case, natural cherry, are then ready to cut to length and drilled for the pocket ears.

we covered drilling for the pockets in several of our other pool table posts, including the most recent one here.   will is coming down the home stretch now.  the first coat of finish is on the bottoms of the cherry rails, and tomorrow he will take the table completely apart and sand and finish the rough beams ... felt the rails and rack em up ... more later ...
other pool table posts are here ...
august, 2012
november, 2012
december, 2008
pool tables and card tables on our website
12/6/2012 ... ready to go ... well be installing this one in stowe, vt next week ... onsite pictures then ...

 natural cherry rails with green abalone sights (diamonds)

camel simonis felt ...

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road trip pool table installation

 will and i took a nice road trip today to sugarbush ski area in warren, to install the reclaimed post and beam pool table we finished last week.  it was a beautiful, sunny two hour drive, over brandon gap in the national forest, and up route 100 to warren, vermont. 

 the house had an easy, back door access and the installation went off without a hitch.  heres a link to a video of the table in action, with me missing some easy shots so you can see how the cushions work.  ha ha ... im liking the video thing as you can now see a little bit how the table plays and sounds.  i think i will try to do some other videos on a couple of the local tables we have built over the years.

we installed this table on a polished concrete floor that was absolutely, 100 %, perfectly level.  never saw anything like it before.  it was a welcome change from the last table we installed, where the floor was about 1/2" out of level from one end to the other. 

 

 it was a very nice, lower level room with great light, easy access and the tv was already installed.

 

 after truing up the edges of the slates with very thin index card shims, will bondoed the cracks before we stretched the felt.

 a little pocket trimming and some leather liners ...

 and it was time to rack em up.    

we had a couple of job site labs to help us out and keep us company ... good dogs...

the cue rack installation was easy ..

the house was beautiful and almost finished

 there was no snow, but the mountain looked steep and challenging, and they were trying ... all the guns were blowing snow, but it still looked pretty thin.  one of the carpenters said theyre grooming the same four inches for the last two weeks.

 on both legs of the trip, we passed the very scenic moss glen falls, around granville, on route 100.

 

sunset coming down brandon gap the other choice ... home by 5:00 ...

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and to all a good night ...

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amaryllises

on my choice to the cookie jar last night, i was struck by a stunning plant that kit had placed on the kitchen counter yesterday ... i marveled at it during dinner though the full drama didnt hit me until the house was darker and the lighting was more dramatic ... its one of 3 or 4 amarllyis bulbs that a friend gave her a few years back ... she dutifully puts them in the dark once a year and they dutifully respond by doing what you see here in the photo above ... occasionally we will even get one with four large blooms at the same time ... click the photos to enlarge them

8 24 .. ok ... now we have three of the four blooms open

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Senin, 26 September 2016

First cook on the Grilla Pellet Smoker

This is my brand new pellet grill called "Grilla" and manufactured by Fahrenheit Technologies.  This thing will cook all the choice from 140 degrees to 550 degrees.  In actual practice, these temps will vary with different fuels and ambient temperatures.  I also have a "Louisiana Grill Whole Hog" pellet smoker so I am looking forward to comparing them.

Here is a link to the Grilla.

 http://mygrilla.com/

 

Here we are in my little outdoor kitchen, on the nicest day so far this spring, getting warmed up and using American Hickory pellets made by Bear Mountain.

When you choose the "smoke" setting, there are 16 different levels of smoke to choose from. Today is going to be a low and slow cook.

This hopper will hold a full 20 lb bag of pellets so you can do a lot of cooking without having to worry about running out of fuel.

 

My dry rub is equal parts course ground black pepper and dark chili powder with lesser parts (measured by eyeball only) of onion powder, granulated garlic, dried sweet basil, Cayenne pepper, ground ginger and kosher salt.

 

Lets stir it up and hammer these pork spare ribs with some spicy flavor.

 

I like to season both sides of pretty much everything I cook.

Our smoker is up to 200 degrees so the ribs go in. We will be cooking at around 225 degrees for most of the cook. 

After 5 hours these babies are falling off the bone tender and not dried out.

My conclusions?This machine is 2 or 3 steps above any pellet grills Ive been around. It gets up to temperature very quickly.  I turned it and my Louisiana Grill both on at the same time, set on high.  10 minutes later the LA Grill was up to 150 degrees and Grilla was up to 450 degrees.  Also the LA Grill will not get as hot as advertised, but Grilla does.  The ribs we cooked today at 225 degrees for 5 hours came out ridiculously good.  I caught my wife (Little miss "I dont like ribs") in the kitchen chowing down on one of these smoky succulent ribs. In all fairness, I havent cooked with every brand out there but I have enough friends and relatives using pellet grills to get a good idea of what some of the more popular brands will and wont do.Thanks for stopping by my blog! Happy cooking!

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