a claro walnut sideboard

final update 6/7 ... ready to go ... click the photos to enlarge them ..

 all in all done ... rolling to north carolina soon ... good job boys ... will on veneers, drawers and finishing, sam on base, and trevor on case work ..

another update 5 29 ... almost ready for finish .. lookin' good

update 5 22

 faces of the drawers  .. inside of the doors

will is working on the faces of the doors and they should be glued up sometime tomorrow.

we're working on a fun one.  we have accumulated a small pile of cutoffs from the 15 or twenty claro walnut tables we've made in the past couple of years and now we've got a use for them.  this client bought our table back in february and it is being used as a desk in a law office down south.  so, next is the credenza and coffee table.  i made the sketch above assuming we would cut the cutoffs up into veneers and use them for the faces of the doors and drawers.  we're just starting that part of the project now, and i hope to have it into some kind of viewable shape by the weekend, when it's vermont open studio again !!!

more on that later.  in the meantime, click the pictures to enlarge them....

case with square pieces of mdf to straighten it up; before we added the back.  there is no face frame, so case stability and the connection to the steel base is paramount. 

here, the assembled case is sitting on a timber strand base mockup to work out the sizes and kinks in that.

and for the top and ends, we got these three incredible 28-30" wide walnut boards from irion lumber.

 

one piece sides about 24" wide and a one piece top, about 25.25" wide

here, we're working out the mdf substrate sizes for the doors and drawer faces.  in the end, trevor cut them back and installed 5/8ths x 5/8ths solid claro edges, which you'll see when the doors and drawers are opened.  it's now on its custom steel base that sam finished last week.

will, slicing up the veneers with out new starrett band saw blades,  mighty sharp!

 a quick mockup of a few of the slices ...

another

inside of the first door ... figuring out the process

ready to glue on ... i think we'll do the last piece of veneer and some butterfly work on the cnc after gluing.

the coffee table is ready to go and patiently waiting ... more later ..

a claro walnut slab desk (with a secret compartment)

well, here they come ... first project in a group of six claro walnut slab pieces that will be finished in the next two weeks ... we have this desk, a 12' table, a 10' table, a coffee table and a small bench, all with steel bases of one form or another ... this desk is about 42 x 66 and is sporting a new dan/sam welded steel base with our natural finish ... the slab wasn't big enough to be a dining table, though now it could seat 6, even with the bases close to the ends .. the metal at the floor is actually kind of cool when you are sitting at the end. click the photos to enlarge them ...

the base is a pair of 1.5 x 3" rectangular tube trapezoids with vertical aprons. it was sam's brainstorm to weld the long aprons vertically rather than on the 10 degree angle, which allowed us to more easily construct the drawer box.
without the desk attached

top view .. this desk is one of the walnut slabs from back in february. we can't wait for customers to come along forever ... actually, this piece is for a show we're in that is opening in housatonic, massachusetts on the 24th. more on that later.

one 24" drawer centered on the 45" apron.

and, one of our favorite things, the secret compartment ... push down on one end of the pencil tray and lift it out ...

to expose the folding brass 'tool' sam made to hook onto the small drawer at the back of the case.

the tool unfolded ...

hooking onto the compartment ...

ta dahhhh ... 6.5 x 23 by 2" deep ... room for lots of stuff ...
here are some of the other projects. some of which will get their own blog post as they are finished. this is a small bench we used to get the color and finish right on the 12' 'expresso' finish slab above it.this is a 10' with a 'rainbow' finish base that will be in stowe on the 31st.
and this is another one for the upcoming show ... a coffee table 45 x 55 x 18 ..
and this 10' table is waiting for the apartment in nyc to be finished ... it's got a blackened steel base and incredible curl ... best slab ever .... all for now