Cicip Working

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 ....

ok, the top one arrived in florida on tuesday, just in time for turkey day.  the curly one above has been hanging around the shop since may, waiting for the clients home remodel to be finished.  that one will leave for brooklyn on tuesday.  it was first pictured in this post  back on may 28th and now soon it will be on its way.  click the photos to enlarge them.

the top table started with this monster slab, about 11 long and 3+ inches thick.  we learned a few tricks on this one.  it was a heavy one ....
one trick we learned was to build a really substantial and well made cart with serious casters.  once we slid it off the workbench and stood it up on the cart. it was a piece of cake to get it out the shop door, on a ramp into the back of the truck, and into steves shop for the matte finish that the client requested.

the client selected our trapedzoid base, and sam cut the parts and welded them up in our metal shop.
later, after polishing, the base was blackened with our normal blackening patina and sealed with a low lustre lacquer.
there were a couple cracks we had to butterfly and one or two random small defects that we just left as is.


there was one sort of large (+/- 3/8ths") bolt in the slab that we drilled a bit and pounded a bit until it was below the surface enough to fill it so it looked like some of the other knots in the area.  pretty good in the end.
i got a wonderful email from the client wednesday and i think ill use his comment as our new business motto .... better than i expected ... can you ask for more than that?

This weekend we finished upholstering our old Ikea Lack tables into skirted upholstered ottomans.


As you can see, they were in rough shape. This was the first piece of furniture that I painted before I did some research. This is proof that using the right paint and good techniques are important! See this post and this post for some tips that Ive picked up along the way.

Back to upholstering! Ive wanted to do this project for a long time, since we moved the desk into the guest room. That spot in our bedroom has been begging for something! Once we built the credenza and moved the printers off of the lack tables, it was definitely time!

I found two of these shower curtains at TJ Maxx for $14.99 and thought that they would be perfect for the ottomans. At 72x72, $14.99 is a great price for 2 yards of fabric (at a larger width than normal too!)


Heres how we did it:


The table was placed on the foam, and cut out with a sharp knife. Davids knife of choice is the filet knife since it is sharp and gives a straight cut. This is by far the easiest and most accurate way that weve found to cut foam.


The fabric was centered on the top so that the pattern was even, thick batting was placed underneath (you want the kind that you cant see straight through, so it isnt too stretchy). These were cut to size and stapled in place. We stapled in the center on all four sides first (pulling enough to round the corner, but not too hard because we still wanted it square), and then stapled the rest of the way to the corners, pulling down evenly as we went.

Heres how we did the corners:


the excess batting was cut off