Update on the Recycled Chestnut Table

11/30/09 ... We recently went back to visit this table and do some remedial work on a new light fixture that hangs over it now ... Lookin good if I do say so myself ....

home stretch ... delivery Friday ....

hand applying the varnish finish

Update on the new custom dining table coming up here. This post is getting to be a long one, but tomorrow we're ready to start the finishing ... Click the photos to enlarge them ..

Will glued up the base yesterday. First, he put the first coat of water stain on so he could sand the legs on the lathe before gluing them up. The runners went on today and it was kind of interesting. Because of the 30" inside dimension of the aprons we couldn't use our normal 2.5" high extension runners so we ordered some extra section, short, 2" high ones from Moin Hardware. These folks are very knowedgeable and when I described my problem, she suggested I use a set with extra length which is kind of counterintuitive I admit, but she explained that the sections would not then be fully extended and thus more rigid, and, with the extra sections, we could add a center leg if we needed it to one of the non moving sections.

There are no aprons becuase we wanted to be able to push the arm chairs under so we have added thin stiffeners to prevent warping.

Jeremy is putting all the screws in the runners before....

Trevor does the 'dancing (or meditating) on the table' test...impressively, negligible, very slight sag .... it should hold the turkey OK ...

As is usual with recycled wood, we had a crack or two to stablize with butterfly keys

glued up the panels yesterday ... 1/23

Scraped and cut them to shape today (funky late afternoon color above)

Pins and leaf cuts Monday

The legs and the lumber .... 1/22 ... The two on the left are hand turned and sanded and the two on the right are as they come off the Vega duplicator if both the cutter and the operator are nice and sharp.

Will, cleaning up the turnings by hand

1/15 New custom dining table coming up here. We finalized the designs early last week and the wood arrived today from my friends at Appalachian Woods "a premier provider of reclaimed antique lumber" in Stuarts Draft, Virginia, and, I might add, especially speedy on this order ... I have been getting recycled chestnut from them off and on for several years now and this latest load did not disappoint ... We just got it today and haven't milled any of it yet, but it appears bright and clean with just the 'right' amount of worminess. It's stacked in the finish room to acclimate for a while until we finish the projects were working on ... won't be long though before we get started on it ...

The table is a 64" diameter expanding round with leaves and it's loosely based on a rectangular expanding farm style table we made for another client a few years ago ....