Welcome New Readers !

sometime around the end or beginning of the month

i often look at my 'stats', a feature of blogger that tracks your

traffic and shows some of the sources of it ... 

recently i have noticed some surprising trends ...

currently over 2,500,000 page views !

and already on the 13th of this month we have had

more traffic than all of last month, which was likely

my biggest month ever ...

so, thanks for reading, and since there are almost a thousand

posts, below i give you links to some of my favorites  ...

leave a comment or drop me an email if you like .
 

below is a post from January, 2023 

titled a 'few of my favorites'.

 

 conveniently listed on the home page of my blog

are, according to blogger, my 'popular posts' ...

 the one at the top of that list has been viewed 

more than 35,000 times, which does make it 'popular',

at least in my book.

below i list not my 'popular posts', but some of my 'favorite posts'.

ones that feature projects that i enjoyed writing about,

and/or feature projects that i am proud of.

here we go .... lots to read here ...

'all the pretty pool tables'

at the time i was writing this post i was also reading

a cormac mccarthy book titled 'all the pretty horses'.

hence the post title, which explains what that post is about ..

the duck bed

i could go on and on about this one, 

and in the duck bed link above, i do ...

 

'chance to be a hero'

this was a rather miraculous repair if i do say so myself ...

we were able to get all the veneer pieces back to flat 

without disturbing the original finish ..

 

some libraries we have built

at least 6 of them there ... one of them took

nearly a year from cutting the trees to installing it

on the upper east side in new york city ...

some big projects there ...

 

all claro, all the time

about a dozen live edge tables in the blog post at that link

and about 45 more at this link

 

algebra and geometry in the workplace

 
a real, deep, head scratcher here ..

create the supports for a conical ceiling ... 

here are the 'plans' from the architect

Ensure Slope Matches Side Wall Angle for Conical Ceiling'

at 2 and 1/16th x 12

and there is always the onsite variable where

the concrete wall on the right is maybe on 2 and 3/16ths x 12

instead of the required 2 and 1/16th x 12, which in

7' adds up!  crazy stuff !

 
a 1/8th" to the foot scale model ...

and your basic algebra here ...

and in 2010 we collaborated with a 

friend to build two rather large conference tables

at 20' x 8', this is the 'small one'

'small' because this one is 26' x 9'

about 2' of granite hangs out over the base pieces
we cnc'd and joined the knockdown parts, 

we did the steel that supports the granite

 and did the wood borders around the granite pieces ...

our friend steve did the finishing and onsite assembly.

                                                                             the crow bar  ... below

i think this will do it for today ... 

more 'favorites' to come sometime ...

and a few more favorites at this link

 

and there are literally thousands of photos in the 'slide shows' 

a couple of pool tables

this started out to be the definitive pool table post, but after finishing these up 

last week, i'm going to take a break before i do the serious detailed writing, which will

be mostly so we remember exactly how the steps to make one of these next time ..

these are our 4th and 5th editions of the pool table above that we originally designed and sent to chicago in november of 2012 .. here's a link ..

surprisingly, as i look back at the blog post for that table, we started it with two 

shipments of broken sets of slate.  this time, we had two broken sets also, 

only they happened in the same shipment, so we lost a lot less time ...

all but the first version of this table have been 8 foot tables, so i had my cad drawing ready to go ..

unfortuantely, they are milled as sets so you can't mix and match them,

but we were able to get started while waiting for the replacements.

a shout out here for my supplier, ae schmidt billiards in st. louis

for being so understanding and quick to ship out the new sets.

sam cut the parts and polished them up

pretty cool to do two of these at the same time .. we almost got efficient about it ...

stack em up  ...

fitting up the rails

 with the black simonis felt

with the simonis olive felt

and then we had the cue rack too ...

and a couple close ups of the rails ...

another steel and walnut pool table

i'm working on a definitive pool table blog post here ..
will finish the words later ...

      

new steel and wlanut pool table

ok .. we've gopt another steel and wlanut pool table going here .. same as the one below from 2012, only an 8 footer instead of a full size 9 foot table .. it's going to be just as cool though .  

click the photos to enlarge them

we added an adjustable feature to the leg as the last building was not as level as some ...

lots of parts with angles

sam took all the measurements and angles from the cad drawing above and trevor whipped up some welding jigs for him on the cnc

end jig

long side

here's a photo of the original that we sent to chicago in 2012

we assembled the base as soon as sam had it welded up.  we'll do the patina on the steel after the rail and cushion work are completed .. even after at least 15 tables, we occasionally refer to a fine woodworking article by paul bowman from 1989.

this client requested steel diamond sights to go with the base .. i started with some 1/8 by 1/2" steel and made a jig to cut the diamonds on a 45 degree angle .. it was fussy, but once i go tthe set up, it was easy to make the ones i needed, plus an extra set for next time.

chris and trevor worked on the rails and diamond inlays this week .. we're awaiting the arrival of the custom pockets, which could hold us up for a week or so .. we'll see

that gave us some time to work on the cue rack, and all it needs now is some final sanding and staining and some patina on the steel parts .. 

so more photos as we progress .. there is quite a long blog post on the first table, and this one will be more or less the same ... we like pool tables ... here's a link to some others we've made over the years and lots of links to other blog posts at the end of that post as well as in the category heading to the right called

custom pool tables

i'm a pool player and we always enjoy a new challenge ...

the table was finished before the builder ...