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!

We all survived Veneer & Cabinetwork!

Last week was the official launch of our Veneer & Cabinetwork, third-level woodworking course! After weeks of building and rebuilding the veneer wall cabinet in order to organize lessons and procedures for the class, we were excited to open the doors on Monday morning to welcome back our eight, lottery-winning alumni. A huge applause goes out to these gents for pioneering the course and persevering through such a complex and challenging project with us. The week was jam-packed and a new experience for all, but there's nothing quite like a Saturday afternoon with a shop full of new and beautiful veneer cabinets ready to find their way home.

The week started with the basic cabinet carcase layout and joinery. As I said in my last post, we had prepped a pre-milled pack of walnut parts for each student during the weeks prior. Students returning to us for a third time are expected to know how to mill and square parts with relative ease, so to save the time, we do some of the dirty work for them. This is in no way a paint-by-number type of course so the parts they received were roughly sized and without any assigned placement in their project. The first task for students was to tackle the layout. They had to consider the grain patterns and color tones of the walnut parts as they decided where each rail, stile, and mullion would live within the cabinet's carcase. Which faces would look best and should be presented toward the front? Which pieces match best to serve as stiles for the cabinet doors? Are there any knots or flaws that should be hidden toward the inside or back of the cabinet? When all elements were considered, students then labeled their parts and moved onto plows (to accept the panels) and joinery. The complexity of the mortise and tenon joints in a project like this one required the bulk of Monday to machine cut, hand cut, and hand fit but, the sides, doors, and face frames came together.

Next, it was onto playing with veneer! Starting with long sheets of highly figured cherry veneer, Jeff cut sets of rough lengths for each student to flip through, book match, and assign to their door, side, and back cabinet panels. The students quickly learned that keeping the stacks of veneer numbered and in order is key to achieving book matching perfection. The goal was to book match the veneer so it looked cohesive all the way around the cabinet while also using matching sets to glue to the inside and outside of each panel so that it appears as the same solid piece of wood through to the inside of the cabinet. Using their assembled door and side framework as guides, they chose which portions of the veneer sheets they wished to see on their panels. From there, they carefully measured, marked, and cut the veneer to fit the MDF substrates for each part.

For the back panel, we needed to join two pieces of veneer together in order to cover it's entire width. To do this, we used a jig which clamped the two sheets of veneer stacked, flat, and tight with only 1/16" of their soon-to-be-joined edges protruding. With a trim router and a fluted pattern-cutting bit, students were able to cut a pair of smooth, straight edges that would create a perfect seam when they were glued to the substrate. When the edges were jointed, we broke out the veneer tape! The veneer pieces were held together tightly as short strips of damp veneer tape were applied like stitches down the length of the joint. The final step was adding one long length of tape down the entire seam to keep everything in place for glue up.

For gluing veneer, we use Titebond Veneer Glue and apply it with small foam rollers to ensure an even spread of glue over the surface of the substrate. One side of the 1/4" MDF substrate was coated with the veneer glue and then the veneer sheet was applied. The opposite side of the substrate was coated in glue, and then the other sheet of veneer for that panel was applied. In between each panel set (veneer-substrate-veneer), we placed a piece of lightly waxed melamine to keep the panels from being glued to one another. When each student's complete stack of door and side panel sets was glued up, they used painters tape in each corner to hold the entire bundle from shifting too much during it's move to the press.

There is more than one way to press veneer and, as is the Lohr School of Woodworking way, we introduced students to more than one method. The first approach we took was bar clamp presses we had made here in the shop. We like this system because it can be recreated by students in their home shops relatively easily as it's just pairs of 3" thick hardwood boards with bar clamps slid through at either end. The clamps are held vertically while a piece of 3/4" plywood (bigger than the size of the panels we were gluing up) was placed between the hardwood clamping boards to create a platform. The stack of panel sets sits on the 3/4" plywood platform while another sheet of thick plywood is placed on top. These two pieces of heavy plywood serve as a caul to disperse the pressure of the clamping boards evenly across the entire surface(s) of the panel sets. By tightening the bar clamps, the top hardwood clamping boards lowered onto the stack and we were able to put immense pressure across the stack.

For the back panels, to ensure the veneer would be pressed flat across the larger substrate surfaces, we took to the vacuum press. As before, each panel set was separated with a lightly waxed melamine sheet (to prevent gluing unwanted things together) and the top melamine piece was sanded to have rounded edges. With a big, heavy, flat piece of melamine coated particle board underneath, the back panel sets were placed into the vacuum bag. The vacuum sucks out all of the atmospheric pressure and air from the bag thus pressing the veneer to the substrates with no chance of bubbles or bumps. Both veneer presses were left for an hour or two to let the glue tack and set before the pressure was removed.

As the week pressed on (see what I did there? Veneer press, time pressing on... no, you're right, that was a bad one), we tackled some more joinery within the cabinet carcase and how to glue it all together. Then, we attached the face frame to the carcase with carefully planned biscuit placement. We mitered and glued some decorative molding for the top of the cabinet and used another set of jigs to make sawtooth shelf supports. The hard parts peaked again toward the end of the week when it was time to hang the doors. The students used their trim routers and some careful layout to cut hinge mortises into the face frame and door edges. When the mortises were successfully cut to fit their hinges perfectly, extreme care was taken to plan how they were to create an even reveal all the way around each door. In some cases, it was just a slight trim here and there using the table saw. In other cases, students took to the router to cut a clean, straight edge at an angle to make a top/bottom edge parallel to the face frame. And, just when they thought it was over, it was time to do the same for the drawers! The runners had to be carefully attached inside the cabinet to hang the drawers in such a way that the reveal around the edges of the drawer front was the same. This is the part when every woodworker smiles to themselves as they know how painstaking it is to tend to the finest, finishing touches of a project like this. Frustrating and time-consuming as it may be, it's the attention to detail that makes or breaks the cabinet you've been working on for 40 hours.



Good news for you, recent grads, Rob & I took the afternoon yesterday to finish up the last little details on our cabinet. Shaping the pulls, drilling their clearance holes, cleaning up the sawtooth shelf supports, drilling the holes for the bullet catches, attaching the top molding, sanding everything down once more, breaking all edges, and applying the boiled linseed oil only took us around 3 hours to do. So, fear not, we are living proof that you can finish it up in little time! Take a few hours, crank some tunes, break out the course guide, and finish up your seriously stunningly-figured cabinet if for no other reason than so you can brag to your friends and impress your family.

After six long, busy days, all eight gentlemen had a nearly-complete veneer wall cabinet sitting proudly upon their bench. Pat yourselves on the back, men, you did a phenomenal job! We were, and continue to be, thoroughly impressed by your ability to keep up with the pace, face any challenges that arose, catch on to techniques, and persevere with laughs and smiles. And now, we're preparing to welcome our very last class of the year- Advanced Joinery 201 folks, we're gettin' ready for ya'!