The Live Edge Brown Oak Burl Pirro Table is donezo!

When I last left you, we had cut tenons across both ends of the live edge brown oak burl slab to fit into the white oak breadboard ends. I know you're all eager to see what happened next so, here we go...

After we used the router to cut a tenon along the entire length of each end of the slab, three 5" long, 1/2" mortises were laid out and cut through the breadboard ends. What good are mortises without tenons though, right? So, three separate tenons were cut (out of the existing tenons along the ends) to fit into the mortises. As you can see in the photo, a short lip is left in between each tenon to fit into the plow cut along the inside edge of the breadboard ends.

Because of the inevitable wood movement of the table top, we can't just glue the breadboards onto the end and call it a day; The joint, or the slab itself, would break and crack in no time. To attach the breadboard end to the table top, we use pins. Pin mortises are cut through the breadboards, it's mortises, the tenons, and out the bottom of the breadboard. The pin mortise in the center tenon is exactly the size of the pin however, the pin mortises through the outer tenons are elongated so that the pins have room to migrate back and forth as the wood expands and contracts across the grain.

Before the breadboard ends are actually attached to the table top, we have to tend to the live edges of the slab. As I have mentioned in past entries, we cannot leave any bark along the edges of furniture because over time the bark will crumble and gradually become dust on your floor or worse yet, it will invite wood boring insects.

To remove the bark, Jeff suited-up to face the harsh winter climates and broke out the sandblaster. The sandblaster does a perfect job of getting into the tight crevasses of the rugged edges. It even aids in beginning the necessary rounding/breaking of the edges and knobs along the edges that we tend to next by hand.

After the sandblasting does as much bark-removal as possible, we move on to the handy Dremel and some old-fashioned hand sanding to do the rest. If there are any large chunks of bark left, we use carving chisels to break them free of the edge. Then, the Dremel does wonders at rounding the sharp (often needle-like) knobs while we hand sand to soften the edges. Our goal, as with all of our furniture, it to make all edges, parts, and surfaces pleasant to touch. All of our furniture is meant to be used as well as admired so, we tend to this type of fine sanding and detail to ensure soft-and-smoothness all around the piece.

When the edges are perfected, we can move on to attaching the breadboard ends. The tenons on the table ends fit tightly through the mortises cut into the breadboard ends, and the pin mortises perfectly align to allow the pins to go through all parts, holding everything in place. The pins have a small kerf cut down through the center of the top half. The kerf allows for a tiny wedge to be driven in to tighten and expand the pin to fill the mortise complete as well as strengthen the joint. The pins are tapped 3/4 of the way in, then glue is applied around the outside of the pin and in the kerf and then tapped nearly all the way in. By doing it that way, we are making sure there is no glue in contact with the tenon, it's merely gluing the pin to the breadboard so the slab is able to move easily. From there, the wedge is put in place and tapped in as much as possible without splitting it.

When the glue in the pins dried, we sand them down to be level with the table and proceed to sand the entire table top (and bottom) with our standard 20, 120, 180, 220 sequence of grits. Then, the top face gets special treatment and is sanded a few more grits up to make it as smooth and soft as possible without polishing the grain so much that it won't accept the oil nicely. And finally it was time to break out the BLO. It's always the most exciting day when we get to wipe on the oil and watch all the color come alive-; As usual, we were not disappointed!

After a week of letting the boiled linseed oil dry, we began the process of applying clear finish. The base, with it's curvy edges and small crevasses, was sprayed with lacquer to ensure all surfaces got even coating. Lacquer is easy to build and rub out to be smooth with a good sheen. The table top however was finished with Waterlox semi-gloss wipe on poly. We used a foam brush to apply several layers of finish to the top, rubbing it out with high grit number sandpaper and 0000 steel wool. When the final layers of finish were applied to the top, it was rubbed out lastly with rottenstone for a satin feel.

When the finish was finished, it was time to call in Eoin O'Neill, the woodworker/teacher and marvelous Lohr Woodworking staff photographer! Eoin spend two days with us, turning our built-in shop cyc wall into a full blown photo studio. Willingly bringing all of his photo gear into a dusty woodshop is reason enough to endlessly thank Eoin but, he also goes above and beyond to document these one-of-a-kind pieces before they depart to settle in their new, permanent homes. For days of setting up stands, adjusting lights, hanging tarps to block windows, moving furniture, laying on floors, and crouching and climbing all over to get just the right shot, we sincerely thank Eoin for being so awesome and even more talented.

And, the results are in: To the right, you will see the first photo of the finished Pirro family dining table! Jeff, Rob, & I are all so proud to have had a collective hand in making this beauty. It pleases us so much that we could make it for the wonderful Pirro family with the last remaining slab from the famous all-burl English Brown Oak log that previously made "Resurrection" and "Frontier". Jeff has aptly dubbed this piece "Griffin" and at the end of last week, it was carefully packed up and toted from Pennsylvania to Connecticut to settle happily in it's new home. A story on the sub-zero temperature delivery will come later this week so check back with me for the final chapter in the tale of the Lohr Woodworking Studio built "Griffin" table!

A new Lohr Woodworking live edge table is in the works!

There's another all-new, all-original Lohr Woodworking live edge table in the works, kids, get excited! The Pirro family needs a dining room table and we're hard at work to make that "need" into a "have". This dining table will be the very last to be made from the famous 300 year old English brown oak burl log that resulted in the "Frontier" and "Resurrection" dining tables.

First things first, we used a router loaded with a bottoming bit and our massive router sled to level and smooth both faces of the slab. When the slab was milled, we brought it up to the shop where it was prepped for void repair. The log that this slab was cut from was covered in burl clusters from top to bottom. Because of this, the grain is highly figured, colorful, and beautiful to look at. The downfall? The slab is completely filled with natural voids, splits, and knots.

In many cases, we would opt to leave the natural flaws as they are (much like George Nakashima) however, in this case, as it will be used as a dining room table, the voids need to be filled for ease of cleaning and to provide a consistently smooth surface. To prevent the epoxy mixtures from draining through the voids, Jeff created a setup that seals the holes from the bottom- it's plastic, carpet padding, and melamine stacks that are screwed to the underside of the slab to create a damming system that conforms to the voids. We can then flip the slab over and fill the voids from the top side while the damming pieces allow the epoxy to pool and fill the spaces until it has time to dry.

This highly figured slab was not your average epoxy void repair job. The size of each void/split/knot and its location with respect to the edges of the slab, determined which kind of epoxy and filler we chose to use.

For the larger bark inclusions and knots, we used some serious chemistry skills (with massive aid from the ever-genius Linda Lohr) to mix up clear EpoxAcast 690 casting epoxy so that the natural bark can be seen through the filled void. The casting dries completely clear and maintains somewhat of a flexible property that allows it to move with the wood as it expands and contracts with changing humidity. Mixing the casting epoxy required some careful weighing, a desiccator vacuum chamber (to remove bubbles before pouring), and a blow torch to rupture any bubbles that collect on the top of the poured casting.

The clusters of smaller splits and voids were filled with a West System epoxy, sawdust, and crushed bark mixture. The sawdust and bark were taken from along the live edges of this slab so the color would remain a natural match. Each batch of epoxy mixture has about 7-12 minutes of open time so to ensure each individual void was filled, one batch was mixed to fill one cluster at a time. For larger voids, we would search for a piece of the natural bark from the same tree to fill the space as best as possible.

Needless to say, filling the voids that covered the entirety of the table top took about a week. When all the voids were filled, whether it was epoxy-and-sawdust or EpoxAcast, it was left to dry for 24 hours. After the damming materials were removed from the bottom of the slab, both faces were smoothed with a belt sander. As you can see from the photo to the left, the filled voids are brought to life and add an exciting element of contrast when they are filled with the natural bark pieces. The base will be made of walnut so the colors match perfectly throughout the entire table.

Now, how to keep such a long, continuous slab from warping and cupping as the humidity levels change throughout the year. The table will be attached to the base which will offer a certain degree of stability but, to ensure the table top stays flat for all time, we will add some breadboard ends.

We used a fence jig that clamps onto the end of the slab from both faces to ensure that the cut is exactly the same on both sides. Then, we used the router with a straight-cutting bit to carefully create a long 1/2" thick tenon across the ends of the slab by cutting down from both faces. The tenons were cut to be longer than the breadboards are wide so that we can make tongues that go all the way through the breadboard ends for strength and to accent the joinery.

The breadboard ends themselves are made of straight-grain, rift sawn white oak to ensure a strong, ever-flat hold on the ends of the slab. There was a 1/2" plow cut along the inside edge of each breadboard to fit perfectly onto the tenon we cut into the ends of the slab.

Meanwhile, brainstorming of the base was underway. As the table will accompany a built-in banquette style seating arrangement, we needed a base that was easy to slide in around and provided leg/foot room from at either end. While searching and sketching up ideas for a simple, curved, trestle-style base, we broke out our Sam Maloof book for inspiration. If you are unfamiliar with Sam Maloof, do yourself a favor and treat your eyes to some of his beautiful woodworking. Ultimately, plans and patterns were decided and drawn up for Jeff's sketch you see to the left.

 

Using the patterns to ensure they were identical, each piece of the base was cut to shape, then joinery for the top rails and the mortise for the trestle was cut into the base ends. From there, the individual pieces were glued together with floating tenons and plenty of epoxy.

The long rail supports that connect the ends, and soon attach the table top, were cut to rest perfectly into the top edge of the base ends. And, already, the base stands on its own. Today, work begins on the trestle itself that will run through the middle of the base ends.

With that, you are officially caught up on our progress on the Pirro Live Edge Brown Oak Burl Dining Table. Taking only a brief hiatus to welcome 2015, we will otherwise be hard at work on this project so look forward to another update soon on how it comes together! Until then, Happy New Year to all! Cheers to a new year, new adventures, and new woodworking projects!