Progress On The Giant Tables

Thats Trevor down there on the end of the table .... about 30 achoice ... Click the picture to enlarge it and see him smiling achoice down there. Hes allowed to smile as this table has been pretty much his baby. He is our CNC man, and I dont think we could build these tables without one. I mean, how would I even make a template for the 1020" (85 foot) radius edge of the table? Beats me .... Below is the assembled top of the 26 x 9 table we have been working on. I have described it in a couple of previous posts here and here ... check them out for the full story ... Let me know what you think
Here we are (again) working on the table. Thats Steve Holman (on the table) below of Holman Studios and his assistant Kevin helping us get it together ...
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 only five four foot wide pieces, but it still takes up half the shop ...
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.
Hell do the 10 end pieces with the miters and their neighbors and see how they fit with the rest of the templates and then finish up with the six center pieces. He claims Ive done the hard part by making the templates .... Glad to hear that ....

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while were on the subject and we only have a couple more outs to go in the world series, here are some photos of the other walnut pedestal table that trevors working on.  final sanding and staining start tomorrow ...
update 11/10

good to go .. its headed to the islands via miami .. wouldnt mind delivering it myself ...

loyal readers might recognize the larger version below from a blog post back in 2010.

that one was quite a bit larger at 60 x 86, but the concept and the execution is pretty much the same.

make the base and top and top of the base ..

determine the height of the pedestal parts and make the patterns.  use the scale model to determine if the patterns are correct.  note that to make the miters meet, we had to add a small straight section to the curve as the top is a different proportionat 40 x 60 .. 2/3, rather than 3/4

trevor made the scale model base parts from 13/16ths poplar and painted them and once they were fitted up, enlarged the design on the cnc and made the full size patterns ...

were going with the dark finish ..

 TWO OUTS IN THE 9TH!  looking good for the sox ... tables looking good too, ready for final sanding and the first coats of stain tomorrow.

seats six good friends .. paper is 11 x 17 .. saw blades are 10"

2 and 2 with two outs.  i think the red sox are gonna win it ... and they just did ... i think ill go jump up and down a  bit ..

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x based tables

we seem to have a theme going here ... lets call it the x based table .  we finished the one above last week and delivered it to the house where we have been working on some other projects since early may.

a little diamond of steel washer by sam

it continues the barn board theme from the vanity we made back in august .. the table is actually made from the same collection of boards that were salvaged from that house.

we started with a pattern we made from our cad drawing, and slowly proceeded ..

added some chamfers

and a center post, also with chamfers ...  this recent barnboard table appears to be the 

eighth in the series, all distinctly different, but with x as the common denominator.

cherry and steel .. more photos here

 claro walnut and steel

 

lots of rebar xs on these ...  blog post here

 a copper top x table ... more info here

steel and white lacquer .. more photos here

reclaimed chestnut and twisted 1.25" steel .. link here

 more rebar xs ... this table is still available for immediate delivery ...

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Kamis, 30 Juni 2016

a dozen big ones

in case you are not familiar with it, the guild of vermont furnituremakers has a blog going also. i hadnt posted anything on the guild blog for a long time as i have been too busy with my own and its summer. i recently wrote the post below there to sum up the run of big tables we have been making in the last few months. i have included the appropriate links to each of our posts with the photos below. at those links, you can see more photos and process comments on each piece.

in the last three months,weve had the opportunity to build a somewhat amazing series of large tables, and, since i have all the photos organized, i thought it might be nice to collect them in one place so here they are ... click the photos to enlarge them ...

this is a 10 footer we delivered to stowe last week. (7/30) it has our standard shaker style steel base that we offer in natural steel, the blackened finish above, and a rainbow finish, which is kind of unpredictable, but generally bronzy in color.

this is a view of the base routed into and bolted to the bottom of the slab top ... we have the steel pieces waterjet cut from 1.5" plate steel and then we drill, tap, grind, polish and finish them ...

and here is a desk with a secret compartment and our new trapezoid steel base with a natural finish in 1.5 x 3" tubing ... 44 x 66 x 29 high.

cool view from the end ..

and a secret compartment, accessed using this folding brass, sam made, tool in its own secret compartment.  currently its on view and for sale at the art and industries show in housatonic, mass.

this 40" x 12 table went to the chicago area about 3 weeks ago (4 or 5 weeks by now) and also arrived at its destination last week.

it had a new for us, expresso finish, which was expertly top coated with magnamax lacquer by steve holman of holman studios, another guild of vermont furniture makers member.
heres one that went to london this past spring ... we crated it up with the legs disassembled and arranged flat on the bottom of the crate and shipped it via truck to an international agent in new york city. it arrived about 20 days later and costs only a little more than it would cost to have shipped it to say, seattle. pretty amazing ...

and this one we made for our show at the southern vermont art center back in february. it sold
at the show and is now happy in its new home in guildford, connecticut.

this was an unusal one that we made back in may. the slab was split completely into two pieces when we bought it with the slab for our show, above, so we got a deal on it ... will and trevor stitched it back together with about 20 butterflies, most on the top, some on the bottom ... good as new .. this table has a base with polished 5/8ths" rebar, a funky new thing we have been fooling with. its currently with six chairs trolling for clients at the vermont visitors center in guilford on route 91. no takers yet.

this is what the slabs look like when we buy them on the internet ... the client gets to see them (sort of) before we buy them ... #3 here is currently in the shop being turned into a 9 table, headed to the boston area next week now that it too is finished.

so far, so good

ok .. all finished now ... we had to move it to the garage so we could finish and photograph the 60" wide slab detailed below. i was pleasantly surprised by what a good photo studio the garage can be ...

i was able to sit on almost the top step of the stairs to the upstairs of the garage and shoot down on the table top. something ive not been able to do anywhere else. its a nice perspective that also minimizes the reflections ...

and now, the widest one yet ... +/- 63" wide in the rough, cut to 60 x 96 ...

the boys are at it here with the 3.5" makita power planers ... its a noisy, tedious job ..

and here it is, in my garage ( the shop is kind of crowded right now) on the mocked up trapezoid base ... it has to be all finished and on its choice to aspen at the end of next week (8/14) ... its gonna be tight ...

finished now (8/20)... time for the formal picture later today ...

 probably we should have brought in the professionals to shoot this one.

tough photo ... big table ... little background paper .... hard to get everything in focus ... GREAT piece of wood though ... 60" wide ... amazing

and weve done three coffee tables too with smaller slabs .. i think this one was 38 x 54" ... you can see the other two at this blog post ... and this one

and then, for one of our original claro table customers who came to us back in 2010, we made this unusual (for us) 3 x 11 copper clad table ... the copper is glued to a thick wood base and then nailed on with 15" copper slate nails whose heads jim gently beveled with a drill on the edge sander ... we have a 40 x 60 coffee table version in the shop, awaiting the liver of sulphur patina ...

the base is reclaimed, distressed oak with a gray paint finish

if, after all this, youd like to see more of our claro walnut pieces, heres a final link that will give you access to the whole category and some of the other tables we have made in the past three or four years..

whew! long post ... time for a guinness ...
8/12/2012 .. ahhh, forgot the one below definitely another large table ... 4 x 8

our blog post link here

 set up temporarily in the shop yesterday for a final test run ...

 for the test run, we used a piece of blue felt left over from another project so we can stretch the real camel color felt only once when we install it next week ... and, weve got another pool table coming up next month ... lots of stuff here ... thanks for sticking with me if you made it to the end ...

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