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Showing posts with label round dining table. Show all posts
Showing posts with label round dining table. Show all posts

Sunday, January 22, 2012

a round expanding walnut dining table

a round expanding walnut dining table

all done ... 1/23/12 .. off to new york city in the morning ... great project with local designer amy thebault ... a little hard to photograph, but you get the idea ... nice walnut; crotch figure inlay in the center of the top, continuing on to the leaves ... pretty wild, and we love it ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
with the 2-22" leaves ... 64 x 108 when fully extended ...
with the leaves in ..
center inlay ... photos below are 'in process' ... all for now ...

i see i have been a little lazy here with my writing at the start of the new year ... all those holidays i guess and getting organized again now that they are over ... had some people out sick ... on and on, you know ... anyway, we did start an interesting table this week. it's american black walnut; it's round; 64" in diameter, with two 22" leaves and some fancy crotch walnut inlay in the center. it looks like it's going to be a nice one. click the photos to enlarge them ...
the general idea came from one of my designer clients, amy thebault, of thebault design, inc. down the road a piece in manchester depot. we added or touches and changed a few things and now it's starting to take shape. we started, as usual, with some irion lumber walnut. nice big wide boards makes our life easy. after we glued up the halves, trevor cut them to shape and routed for the inlays. i have some video footage somewhere of that and i'll try to get it up here soon.
he also cut the slightly darker peruvian walnut borders and set them in before fitting up the shop made veneer inlays.
again with the nails for the first step. if you've been reading for a while, you've seen all this before ...
below though is the after cuts from trevors cutting of the main blanks that we then resawed into the .1" thick veneers.
he thought he had it all planned out so that all the triangles would be the same or half of that same triangle but ...
he didn't ... design aliens invaded his programming and caused a malfunction. luckily he discovered it before he cut all of the leaf inlays and there was no harm done, except to his pride.
we glued them all into the table pieces in the veneer bag, and then, for a special treat we took them a mile down the road to our neighbor steve holman's shop and ran them through his brandy newly refurbished sandingmaster 37" wide, wide belt sander ... a wonderful experience ...
that saved some planing and scraping time ... it's nice to have a new machine on the block.
here it is, on the base with the runners, but without the aprons, which are finished but for some reason, didn't make the photo ..
interesting design, but not a lot of structure for when the leaves are in so we're planning to add either some 'aprons' which will run from 'leg' to 'leg' and stiffen the structure somewhat, or add some drop down legs for when the table is fully expended.
we'll know more what we have to do once the base is final sanded and glued up and everything is firmly attached. 108" is a big table on a +/- 40" x 40" base ... stay tuned ... more later this week ...

Friday, February 22, 2008

A Round Expanding Table

A Round Expanding Table

4/7/08 ... We finished this one up a few weeks ago but it's not leaving for a minute and I just got around to taking the pictures and adjusting the photo images. Great project. As usual, more complicated and more pieces than I thought, but a still a great project, nonetheless ..... Click to view ... Story below ...



The finished table in the closed position


With the four 18" leaves

Underview showing the concealed leg and the runners ...

2/22/08 We started the design work for this project back around Thanksgiving and we're now well on the way to wrappng it up. It will sit in the formal parlor of a fine, vintage 1840's, Philadelphia townhouse. The photos are posted from conceptual work through the present in reverse order with the most recent at the top. Double click the photos for better viewing. The table is built using figured mahogany and will have black painted details and ebony and burl inlays. It will be a 39" round in the closed position and will open to 112" to seat 10-12 comfortably.

3/15/08
We were about to apply the final coats of finish to the table top when I realized I HAD FORGOTTEN THE ABALONE TRIANGLE INLAYS !! It was kind of nerve wracking inlaying them into the nearly finished top, but they came out fine and are definitely a nice, eye catching addition to the overall design ...

INlaying the triangles process....
Outline

Rough rout with 1/16th" bit
photos above show the marking, routing and hand fitting inlay process

3/9/08 ... Close up of the top with the completed edge inlay, ready for final stain on the mahogany.

In this picture, the pieces have been firstcoated with stain and the inlays have been masked off in preparation for the final color on the mahogany. You can see the finish sample of the final color in the foreground and the black apron details nested within the leaves. the other black column details and moldings are in thefar background. All of a sudden it dawns on me that there are A LOT of pieces in this table.

Inlaying the edge detail.

Showing the length of each piece of edge inlay.

2/27/08 We're now working on the burl center inlay for the main table and for the leaves. The small half circles we can glue to the table with clamps , but the leaves will go in a vacuum bag press so the the larger area (11 x 18) can be clamped with more consistent pressure.

Fitting up the pie shaped pieces of the center inlay.

Clamping the fitted inlay to the table.

Fitting up the inlay for the leaves 2/27

The table as it is today 2/22 with a photoshopped on apron and painted molding detail

My son Will, rough bending the inlay pieces for the circlular ebony inlays with a shop made 'hot pipe'. He could, with just the hot pipe and careful control of the heat, bend the kiln dried ebony, or most any other thin wood, into a radius slightly larger than the pipe itself. We learned this technique from the guitar makers catalog, how to books, and a little experimenting. The .35" burl line is cut, not bent.

A close up of the inlay process. This is actually the third step, as each layer is glued in, one piece at a time, using the nails to temporarily force the pieces into place until the glue dries. The blocks for the edge inlay are in the backgroound.

End view of the whole table with the triple outer inlay border (ebony/burl/ebony) set.

The table in the open position, without its center leg

The split pedestal with its center leg and shop fabricated column locking mechanism

Gluing up the tapered column

Checking the column piece cutting jig with an mdf mockup


Sketches of possible inlay designs...First table, top left is the one we're building.

The parlor with the proposed table photoshopped in

The parlor patiently awaiting its table