a 60 wide slab of claro walnut

well, we got a big one here. its going to aspen when its finished. this is the widest slab of claro walnut we have ever had ... it clocks in at 63" at the wide point ... after we trim it up a bit, it will be about 60" wide at both ends and about 8 long. it will have one of our new trapezoid bases. click the photos to enlarge them....
couple close ups of the rough slab here ... were working on it in my garage as were a little jammed up at the shop at the moment.

heres the cad drawing
will and trevor wheeled it out to the shade by the woodshed yesterday to begin the flattening process. fire up the makitas ...

the slab was astonishingly flat for something so wide ... a tribute to skip and norman at good hope hardwoods and their ability to dry this stuff so we can work it up. its truly amazing. that really is a four foot level there on the right end. the winding sticks are about 45" i think.

time ran out before they could completely smooth the face, but the bottom side is pretty much ready to sand and they should be able to finish this side today ... more later as we progress.

today we finished the rough smoothing of the top of the slab, did some rough sanding and mocked up the base with some 2 x 4s we had from when we picked it up at our friends loading dock.

just like this only in natural finish steel .. all for now

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sheldon slate granville new york

while working on the designs for the custom kitchen we started this week, our client and i went to visit a local slate fabricator, sheldon slate, in middle granville, new york. its about 15 miles up the metawee valley through the corn and over the border ... who knew?

what a place !!! thats a 90" diamond saw blade spinning at about, oh, i dont know, 2000 rpm?, slicing through about a 3 x 4 block of slate, 3/4 of an inch at a time, cutting both choices .... click the photos to enlarge them ..

a view from the side ... were sawing very unusual red slate today ... twice as hard, twice as much breakage, twice as much waste, twice as expensive ...

but oh my, maybe twice as beautiful ... these are pretty big pieces, like 66" x 57", and the rain made them just glow ...

you gotta love the scale of these tools. i think it was about 10 between the uprights on this bandsaw.  our tour guide, gary, told us sometimes the blocks are so heavy they cant pick them up off the huge dump trucks they come in on from the quarry and they just back the truck into the mill, cut em in half right on the truck, then drive it back out and unload ...

the view out the back door there looks over part of the quarry and south to haystack and home ...

and out the other door, the acres of inventory

including a little roof slate, like maybe 500 square or so ..

loved it, and i didnt have my camera for the first half of the tour where we visited the honing/planing/milling section ... more big tools ...
we were there to look at the available colors and give them a heads up that we would need some pretty big counters ... the one on the right will require a piece about 6 wide and 7 long with some angles, sink and faucet holes and a custom made 42 x 21 x 12" deep matching slate sink. the one on the left, about 50" x 100" ... no problem ... just bring your checkbook ... more on the kitchen soon ...
were underchoice, site check today ....

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