Some Claro Walnut Slabs

2/28 .. the three slabs with one coat of linseed oil

Close up

2/26 ...Oiling the first of the three slabs earlier this afternoon ... Click the photos to enlarge them ..

In the last year or so, I've had a couple of clients interested in tables made from big slabs of wood and we did make one from a huge claro walnut slab from Goodhope Hardwoods, but I haven't convinced anyone to bite the bullet buy one of my slabs yet. I've had these three in the rough since 2006. People would look at them, hmmm around a little bit, but end up passing. It was, I think, too hard for them to see the potential in those big rough boards in the somewhat dark upstairs of my garage. I even have a picture of a cardboard mockup I made for a potential client on my website. No luck ... This time, I decided I would just go ahead and sand and scrape them up so a potential client can see exactly what they might be getting. I don''t think I'll regret it ... They're looking pretty good.

#2

Butterfly keys for the cracks

A little more sanding and we'll put the oil to it

Slab #2 ... This is what they look like after they go through the widebelt. Sanding out all the roughness on the widebelt would have made them a bit thinner and I think we'll like the 'wavy' texture of 'not perfectly flat' table top just fine

Here's the cardboard mockup I made for an 'almost' client last year

I also found this 32" wide piece of cherry I forgot I had. It's got about 6 and a half good feet in it and then there's some funky stuff at one end. It's also got a little bruise that wll need some creative attention too, but overall, it's got some subtle figure and will eventually make somebody something pretty nice ...

an oak slab trestle table

we just finished this fine white oak slab top trestle table ... the slab itself was cut from very near the center of the tree and it is about 46" wide on one end and 40" wide on the other.  flat as a pancake .. 

click the photos to enlarge them ...

beautiful quartered figure toward the outsides of the slab and interesting edges where insect worked under the bark .. this mist have been one fine tree.

a view from the bottom, before we cut the top to length.  trevor did a great job on this one.

three oak butterflies to control the crack in the end

there was some discussion of light vs dark butterflies and we were able to mock it up 

in photoshop to help the clients decide .. light above ..

dark ones ..

laying out the parts ..

trevor, pegging the top rail joinery

it's headed for sugarbush, in warren, vt, on monday

you all have a great thanksgiving weekend ... after turkey day, we'll be finishing up the move to the new metal shop ..

an expresso finish claro walnut table

ok, here's a big one ... 40 " wide, 12' long, with our standard steel 'shaker' base. this time we did the steel in our new 'rainbow' finish. we purchased this new patina color from our friends at sur-fin chemical company. it's a little fussier and more unpredictable than our regular blackening chemical, but the results are quite striking. browns and blacks with subtle hints of other colors in the right light. looks great with the 'expresso' finish on this table ... .
the expresso finish was a request from the designer, and we had to make a number of samples before we got one we all liked. the finish that we used this time appears 'thinner', and more like an oil finish, and we plan to try it on some of our upcoming natural finish tables.
there was also a request for 'no cracks', which led us to advanced repair technologies 'no shrink, tintable', epoxy filler. after a little experimenting, that new product is also a hit with us. it takes a couple of days to dry really hard, but if we hit it right, we can do it on a friday and flush it up monday ... as seen on this old house
the filled crack after leveling ... trevor loosely fitted some pieces of walnut with similar grain into the largest of the cracks before filling them.
this crack is in one of the other, natural finish tables we're working on and we filled this large crack with smaller pieces of the darkest wood we can find, which was also an effective technique ... more on that table later ...
the slab was too big to get to the cnc upstairs, so trevor routed for the bases by hand with a bearing and a template.
the bottom of the 10' natural table ...
and will in steve holman's spray booth before the final topcoats over the expresso stain ... nice booth ... nice finish ...

Walnut Slab Dining Table

After the table arrived, we got the letter above ... "trumped the house" is a bit of an overstatment, but I think he did like his table ... Click the letter to enlarge it ...

3/3/08

The shippers will be picking up the big walnut slab dining table we have been working on for about a month now on Wednesday morning, and they will be taking it off to it's new home on the Snake river in Idaho, overlooking the Grand Tetons. I'm sorry to see it go. It is truly a one of a kind dining table. So, when it gets there, it will have started as a grafted tree in a walnut orchard in California, where it grew for a hundred years or so, than traveled across the country on a tractor trailer, as a log, to Pennsylvania, where it was sawed into planks, than air and kiln dried for three years before being shipped to Vermont to be made into the table you see below. I figure that's about 6000 miles and over a hundred years ... hope it makes it for at least another hundred ........ Double click the photos for better viewing.


A photographic challenge ... the table is 4' x 10', my finish room/ photo studio is 15' x 22'.

See below for structural details

Close up of the far end

Closer up of the far end

Here's the whole story .... from 2/9/08

We are currently working on a 48" x 10' walnut table made from a single 2 and a 1/2" thick slab of Claro walnut from California via Good Hope hardwoods in Pennsylvania. the design is based on a recycled chestnut table we made previously for another client. The table will have a classic "X" stretcher with a 1.25" solid twisted steel bar connector to reinforce and stiffen the base. The steel will be fabricated in our custom metal shop by my son Sam. The table top will be smoothed and polished using hand tools as it's too wide (49") and too heavy for any sander or planer that I know of locally. In the lower photos, we are in the early stages of the smoothing process and base construction, but hope to ship the table before the end of the month. The photos are posted in reverse order, with the most recent (today) at the top and going back in time to the start of the project. The table now has its base coats and will receive 3 or more polish coats next week before shipping it to Idaho.

In the finish room today ... a little cluttered, but too big for the background paper. Close, but not completely finished.

This photo actually was flipped from the upside down position (see below) and cut out in photoshop to show an uncluttered view of the structure which provides the rigidity to the heavy table top. The one and one quarter inch solid steel is welded to short threaded rods which then pass through and are bolted to the x shaped 'washers' which have previously been bolted to the xs. It's this steel structure that allows the +/- 300 pound top to sit with absolute rigidity on it's somewhat minimal base. It's like bumping into a pool table.

Claro walnut

close up of the slab before starting the finishing ...

In this photo, the assembled base with the twisted steel stretcher is upside down on the shop floor with the slab of the table in the background.

Sam, forging the twisted connector. Actually, it took two shots to get it right. The first time, Sam and his brother, after some discussion, accidentally made the two twists parallel, rather than opposed. Soooooo, they had to reheat the bar and straighten it, reheat it again and twist it in the right direction. Of course they didn't tell me this until after I had told them it looked great. And, really, you'd never know. It's pretty amazing to me that a chunk of inch and a quarter steel can become so flexible with just a little heating.... well, ok, a lot of heating.

The table in the first stages of smoothing with it's mocked up 'X' base. Tevor, the "x guy", aparently admiring his nails.