some live edge coffee tables from last august

 sam came back from a jobsite yesterday with some pictures 

of  two coffee tables we made last year, but never photographed 

on site because the house wasn't finished when we delivered them,

two big ones!

this one is claro walnut, about 4 and a half feet wide and 6' long ...

in the background there is a set of stairs that sam made the

steel parts for .. there is a two story piece of glass behind them ...

this one is about the same size with a tricky 'waterfall' end that 

kristian executed flawlessly  .. as i remember, 

the miter cut was over 60" wide ... some other photos of

the tables as we worked on them below ..

after it was cut and glued, the miter was reinforced 

with a piece of 2.5" angle iron

 

before the finish

the other end was supported by a sam made steel trapezoid base.

the claro walnut slab had some nice figure!

always nice to see things in their final homes

a live edge table

 we delivered this interesting live edge table a few weeks ago 

it was made from a bookmatched pair of slabs from berkshire products

the clients decided to use the extra length on the slabs for the base and 

i had some spalted maple on hand from a previous project. 

the table was 8' long, and the slabs were almost 11'

straighteneing and gluing the pair of 20 " wide 

8' slabs was a bit of a wrestling match

but we got it eventually

all in, all done ... the clients were happy and aactually went back to berkshire and 

purchased another slab for their breakfast area ... one good deed leads to another

cool cocktail table

ok, we recently pulled off a surprise birthday present for a friend for his wife.

they live in boston and had a really big gingko tree in their yard when they
bought the house.  over time, it took sick and they called in the local 'gingko experts' who gave them strategies to keep it alive, but eventually, they lost the battle, and had to take it down.
apparently, it was one of the oldest and largest gingkos in boston ..

the tree guys cut a few 'cookies' for the owners and they

 were stacked in the garage for a few years to 'dry' ..

a month or so in the finish room where they actually 'dried'
produced a nice, interesting crack from the center out ..

we added some walnut butterflies and a walnut base
and we were good to go ..

interesting wood .. love the bark!
 'dinosaur skin' according to one viewer

and a nice note from the client below ...

maple slab stuff

this project started out as just a table and i first mentioned it in a post back in january

when it was finished and delivered to a 3rd floor penthouse in the south,

i thought it would be good to have all the picturess in one post .. here goes ..

great figure in these maple slabs, and the client requested steel butterflies!

nice touch!

while the varnish was wet ...

simple steel tube base by sam ...

as you can see in the drawing below,  the butterflies we a little more

involved than usual with threaded rods going all the way through the slab

half inch thick, 3/8ths threaded stainless rods

that was the table .. how we got to build the desk was the first slab 

arrived with a pretty good chunk lost on the way .. no one knows

where it went ... but my supplier got a damage credit and i got a 

break on the price, and the client needed a desk ... win, win, win ...

we still got 90 inches out of it and room for two more steel butterflies

great figure in this one too ...

we went back and forth on the layout for the wire management

and the grommet and the drawer ...

all good in the end

i was making a bench for another client, and mentioned it and we added one of those too ...

in place

in transit .. crane to the the third floor

hot off the press .. claro walnut slab for sale

i've got a new claro walnut slab looking for a home .. it is sort of an unusaul size,
 +/- 30 x 105 .. could be a desk, a librry table, a couple of coffee tables,
a des and a table ... whatever ..

it's got  nice satin finish, and the reflections you see are
because i didn't take the time at the end of a friday to get a good  reflection free shot...
 also, i am willing to cut it for the right person

nice figure and color variation .. the 'whites', in my experience,

become 'less white' over time .. 

kinda fun while it lasts though

for more claro walnut and live edge pieces,

(181 photos), click this link to a slide show

you have to be logged in to a google account to view them .

a claro walnut slab desk

we put this one all together for the first time today .. 

set up the cardboard and got lucky with the lighting.  i rarely get it this good.

it's been in the works for a while, and now it could be leaving as soon as tomorrow ..

two drawers, some secret compartments and a beautiful piece of claro walnut.

you can follow the process below.

we started with the claro slab that's been on the wall of the finish room for a while,

waiting for exactly the right client to come along ... in the end we 

angled the end cuts in a bit and skipped the horizontal cuts as unnecessary ..

 next up was a 1/8th scale model

with photos from two different angles

we put the cad drawing on the bottom of the model so we could build it accurately

steel parts were next and a full size layout on the bottom of the slab

and sam was slammed with deadlines in the metal shop, so trevor made 

the steel pieces and sam welded them up ..

all together now

except for the secret compartments, which will remain secret, all for now.

possibly some on site photos after the delivery ...