Cicip Working

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Thats Trevor down there on the end of the table .... about 30 away ... Click the picture to enlarge it and see him smiling away 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 ....

we trucked our new slabs to berkshire products last week to ahve them sanded. many hundreds of dollars later, we can really see what they will be like ... theyre not numbered the same as before, but you get the idea ... i think ill let them speak for themselves ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
theres a fine desk in here i think
aka, the goat faced slab
#5 in the photos below ... not bad ...
really not bad at all ...
funky one ...and below is the original post ...
well, this one looks like its going to be a beauty. the next time you see it, it will be more obvious, but i can tell you now that this piece of timber is pretty spectacular. its slab #2 above. true, its got some minor issues, but ooh lah lah, it looks like there is some fantastic stuff hidden in that roughness. it will make a great coffee or center table, and its available to be transformed and delivered soon to you. lots of other claro walnut ideas to consider in this recent post. click the photos below to enlarge them.
i purchased these 4 new smaller slabs from my supplier, goodhope hardwoods, while shopping for the piece above that i purchased for a new client in new york city. its going to be a 10 foot dining table. its hard to see here, but its covered in curly figure from one end to the other .. i hope to start working it up later this week.

3/26 .. less hard to see now

crazy !!
i also purchased these three medium sized slabs and it looks like number 3 or #1 will make a really nice desk. a few years back, we made this mango wood desk, and ever since, ive been meaning to do another along those lines as a spec piece. im working with the director of exhibitions at the guilford, vermont welcome center on route 91 and hope to show some pieces there this summer. nothing like a claro walnut desk to grab some eyeballs.
i just realized i forgot to photograph slab #2, but ill get on that tomorrow.
and ive still got this last piece from the previous set. it is literally in two pieces, cracked from end to end, but is hanging on the wall with steel tube stiffeners for now ... i can see a nice curved, end to end set of butterflies, big to small to big again, reconnecting the two pieces into one fine dining table. its about 45 x 90 x 1.375 thick. great figure hiding in there too. its the next one in the log from the one below .. nice ..
in case you are wondering if i robbed a bank to buy this wood, theres an explanation having to do with our recent show at the southern vermont arts center. we had, as ed sullivan used to say, "a really good show" ... it comes down this tuesday.

Will and I are making some progress on the half round tables. Hes not yet made any of these from start to finish and I havent made one personally for quite a long time so were both kind of feeling our way here through whats next and how to go about it. Click the pictures to enlarge them...These posts will be helpful next time ...
Trevor routed a full size template in mdf from our cad drawing and we placed the male section of our glue up forms on the template on the inside of the apron curves. We than struck our angles on the form in pencil and moved the forms to the chop saw where we cut the angles on the bordered aprons.
Next we used parts of the female glue up forms to set up the multirouter to cut the mortises for the loose tenons we use for the joinery. The loose tenons allow us to adjust our angles slightly if necessary for the final fit up.
We clamped the back legs and then checked the fits. next step was to stain and paint and move those parts to the finish room before the final glue up. You can see the haunched loose tenons in the photo below.

While those parts were being finished, Will cut and glued up the pieces to make the inlay blocks (the very last photo in that post) in the drawing above. They were ripped on the tablesaw on an 8 degree angle, cut to length and glued up in the simple jig below.
After the center block was sanding to 3/8ths, Will added the 1/1th" plus shop made walnut veneers for the top and bottom and glued them on in the veneer bag.
The finished inlay blanks are below. theyl be sliced into 1/16th inch strips and inset in to a routed groove sometime in the next post.
We got a nice wide plank from Irion Lumber to make the 20" wide one piece tops and Trevor cut them to shape on the cnc. Hopefully our nex inlay bit will come tomorrow and we can inlay the tops, but in the meantime, will will dovetail the drawers and fit up the drawer fronts .. All for now .. Thanks for sticking with me ...

Were working away pretty steadily on the house restoration project . We finished construction of the wall hung tv cabinet this week; were just waiting for approval of the finish color samples. I think were running slightly ahead of the construction schedule which is always nice. The cabinet below has its challenges though it looks simple now that its done. Its a mix of cherry and curly maple with some small moldings in cherry or walnut around the door panels. The door and end panels are resawn solid curly maple so we like to do the first coat of stain (which is pretty much always the same) before we glue them up. Then we typically get the finished color and first coat of finish on the whole door before we apply the moldings. This process prevents a part of the panel that might be unfinished from showing later as the wood moves from season to season ...

Looks simple ... but, theres actually no real much structure to the cabinet so we had to hang it as its going to hang on the wall to be sure that the doors will hang true.

When we went to the site this week, we took a pattern. There is a channel cut through to the wall behind the cabinet to accomodate the cable box, which is deeper than the cabinet .. We explored the wall behind and found there are two studs that have to be cut and headed off ... not surre about the ebox shown below ... Id like to get that in there somewhere ..

This shows the cut through to the wall and the tv mounting bracket. It a Sanus; a nice one. Very shallow and well made

This picture shows the French hook hanging system ... Two cleats on the cabinet; two on the wall.

The electrician gave us this box on Wednesday and hoped we could get it in the cabinet behind to the tv ... hmmmmm

We finished installing the moldings and painted the front door .. The paint seemed too shiny for an old door to us. The shinier the finish, the better the UV protection, but the more you see each and every pimple and defect ... We turned the final coat over to the painters and it will probably be a compromise satin finish ...

Part of our scope of work is to refresh/refinish the fireplace surround (which Jim has already done), and install a new lighted cabinet in place of the wooodbox/shelf thing thats there now ...

Trevor, exploring the lighting

Figured out .. This stuff is nice. The plastic tracks are easy to install and hold the lights securely. Its easy to cut and join once you study it for a minute ..

Rough wired and installed ..needs a top molding and some final paint

We also made a pair of 3" thick, well insulated, pine doors for the utility room. Sam made the hinges, floor bolts and a nice thumb latch ...

Inside latch details

Fixed door bolts

2" thick pine frames covered with 3/4" t&g pine outside, the spaces filled with 2" foam and 1/4" Baltic bircg glued and screwed to the inside

We also installed a small cabinet in the library under the stairs that go to the attic ...