big piece of claro walnut

well i think you'd have to agree that this is a pretty big piece of walnut ...  17.5' x 66" ..

it's certainly the biggest piece i have ever had anywhere near my shop ... 

somewhat unfortunately, it's actually too big for the client's room and we have to cut it to 

13'6" x 53", which we did when it arrived last week at my friend noel dydo's shop.  

he had to get it out of the truck with a lull and a forklift ... 622 pounds.

on our end, we had to do some thinking about how we would manage it once it arrived here.

after working on this table last spring, i realized that it was going to be difficult to work on it in the actual shop and that we would have to move to my garage, where we built the 26' x 9' and the 20' x 8' tables a few years back. 

here it is last thursday at my friend's shop

first step, cut one end ... blow this one up and note the D9 in the background ... 

serious earth moving equipment at noel's shop .

here we're preparing to add the rotating feature to this slab ... at about 450-500 pounds, we had to rethink how we were going to flip it .. sam made two 24" pieces of 5" channel with a 1 and 3/8ths" pin going through it.  we drilled and tapped the ends for 3/8th" bolts to clamp the metal pieces to the slab with wood shims. in this photo, i am wearing my special matching stihl sneakers while i cut 'a little' off the width of the slab so it is the right size for the room.  way down at the other end, it's still 66" wide and about 40" too long.  we'll get to that in a minute ... 

well, here we are, ready for the local lumber company to send their sheetrock truck to move it to my garage .. too big for the shop with the other stuff that's going on in there now. you can see a little piece of pipe in the top of the tarpezoid, which the greased pin fits into.  we let sam have the honor of the first flip today, which he was able to do by himself almost with one hand.  should of had this rig about 7 or 8 years ago.

flipping videos to follow soon.
videos of flipping the slab at this link    

here's another video .. you remove one of the side ties and flip it halfway, and then you have to replace it and remove the opposite tie piece and replace that once the slab is horizontal ... we could remove both tie pieces, but hey, the ends are on wheels and we wouldn't want to drop it, would we?

 

 crazy figured !!

did a little rough smoothing and alcohol splashing on what will most likely be the bottom of the slab.

 

all in all done and in miami .. hard to photograph, but with a little photoshopping ...

you can get the idea ... big piece of wood!