Ahhh .. Waterjetting .... Another highpoint in technological innovation for me .... Heres a short excerpt below from the fascinating Wikipedia entry describing their history and applications ... Cutting food? Hmmm... wonder what thats about ... Click the pictures to enlarge them.Materials commonly cut with a water jet include rubber, foam, plastics, composites, stone, tile, metals, food, paper and much more. Materials that cannot be cut with a water jet are tempered glass, diamonds and certain ceramics.[4]
Water jet cuts are not typically limited by the thickness of the material, and are capable of cutting materials over eighteen inches (45 cm) thick. The penetrating power of these tools has led to the exploration of their use as anti-tank weapons but, due to their short range and the advent of composite armour, research was discontinued. Anti tank weapon ... Whod a thunk it?
Matt Santwire of A L Melanson in Rutland at the controls. Importing the files that we created in Dorset, emailed to him, which he then toolpathed at the computer in his office and then sent to the computer you see here that controls the cutting ... Thats a lot of computing, trust me ... The machines surface is actually flooded and the material is under water when it is cut. Since there is no force the material is held in place usually just by gravity on the supporting bars you see in the top photo.
Findng home, the starting point for the computer file ...
These are the parts of the ducks which will be inlaid in the finished kingsize bed we are working on a couple posts below. Looks like it was easy when its done ... Wasnt ... All the little bridges were drilled out and the tabs sanded or filed off on the edge sander...
Other products we have made with the waterjet ... our aluminum windsors ... the back is springy like an old lawn chair ...
The base for the claro walnut table we just finished ...
1.5" thick cold rolled plate steel ... Tough stuff ... Took an incredibly long time to polish it ... cant imagine cutting it any other choice ...
This is the first sample center inlay we made on our first trip to Maelansons. We discovered that the cuts are ever so slightly tapered as the jet spreads out slightly once it penetrates the surface, so we cut all the inlays upside down. That was a handy feature when we fitted them into the routed pockets on the headboard as they tightened up as they went in.
First sample of the center ducks in aluminum, back side ... You can see from the cad drawing that the image has been flipped ... good trick ...
Into the finished headboard sometime next week .... The polishing and fitting of the individual inlays and metal parts was done by Trevor, Will and Sam, coloring of the finished inlays was by Sam. Jim lent a hand in the early stages ... A total team effort for sure ...
Trevor cut the pockets for the inlays using our cnc, using a 1/16th" bit and a 1/32nd" bit for the final pass on the outline ... Amazing .... Stain color looks a little funky here because of the light .. Its going to be real nice I think when its all done ...
Unbelievable figure and color
Looking from the end after the shellac ..
We used a sidelight to find any big chipouts that needed final scraping and sanding
Even without the finish, sanded to 320, it had a good shine
Heres Sam polishing the 1.5" thick steel legs... Tough stuff ...
All done ...
A close up in process, before the final, final polish ... We went for a shiny but not mirror finish and the sealing oil in the photo above really brought it up nicely.
Will and I are making some progress on the half round tables. Hes not yet made any of these from start to finish and I havent made one personally for quite a long time so were both kind of feeling our choice here through whats next and how to go about it. Click the pictures to enlarge them...These posts will be helpful next time ...
Trevor routed a full size template in mdf from our cad drawing and we placed the male section of our glue up forms on the template on the inside of the apron curves. We than struck our angles on the form in pencil and moved the forms to the chop saw where we cut the angles on the bordered aprons.
Next we used parts of the female glue up forms to set up the multirouter to cut the mortises for the loose tenons we use for the joinery. The loose tenons allow us to adjust our angles slightly if necessary for the final fit up.
We clamped the back legs and then checked the fits. next step was to stain and paint and move those parts to the finish room before the final glue up. You can see the haunched loose tenons in the photo below.
While those parts were being finished, Will cut and glued up the pieces to make the inlay blocks (the very last photo in that post) in the drawing above. They were ripped on the tablesaw on an 8 degree angle, cut to length and glued up in the simple jig below.
After the center block was sanding to 3/8ths, Will added the 1/1th" plus shop made walnut veneers for the top and bottom and glued them on in the veneer bag.
The finished inlay blanks are below. theyl be sliced into 1/16th inch strips and inset in to a routed groove sometime in the next post.
We got a nice wide plank from Irion Lumber to make the 20" wide one piece tops and Trevor cut them to shape on the cnc. Hopefully our nex inlay bit will come tomorrow and we can inlay the tops, but in the meantime, will will dovetail the drawers and fit up the drawer fronts .. All for now .. Thanks for sticking with me ...
Here we are (again) working 
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 
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.
Shopping
Youd think this would be Mr. Luckys ride, but it belonged to another visitor
we had crowds like this several times, both days ....
they parked on the lawn and up the hill
Checked out the progress on Wills banjo building
Just a few of Pennys colorings
sold my sculpture
and my coffee table
and Mr. Lucky checked out with his new hat ....
And we assembled the table as we went out the door Friday afternoon ...
9/16
Were making progress on the big Claro walnut slab table I described in the two most recent posts below. We should have it upright on the base tomorrow and ready for the finish next week. It looks like it will be a beautiful piece ... The slab has some pretty interesting and incredible color and grain variations and we like the new base design that the customers encouraged us to create ... It is going to be a heavy one though ... Hope they have a good floor system ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
The top is butterflied and scraped relatively smooth. Well assemble the base and complete work on the bottom of the table and hopefully have it upright for the weekend ...
The chairs will be leaving in the morning to get their Danish cord seats at Sandy Sherman Chair Caning in Brookline, Vermont ... Its our first effort with the Danish cord and Im looking forward to seeing how it works how ...
We started the day with a couple hours of drilling and tapping ...
and a test assembly before we finish sanding and varnishing on the bottom tomorrow... all for now ...
