Kitchen slab

[alfa]

My first major wood working project: using reclaimed timbers to form a wooden slab for our kitchen.
Joining the timbers was a chore because they were in raw condition with no true side. Most of the work was done with a hand plane.
To accommodate the steel frame, the underside was chiseled and routed out.
Maintaining the original weathering but providing a practical surface to handle two toddlers was the most challenging aspect. Combining white wood filler, varying stains, hand applying polyacrylic and my trusty ETS 125 followed by wet sanding did the trick.

 

[alfa]

More pics...

 

[alfa]

Final pics...

 

[upscale]

Final pics...

Interesting choice for finished use. Guess some would be wondering why you didn't machine joint and plane the timbers (assuming that those tools were available). No matter, it's a nice looking rustic table, self made and I'm sure it will fill your needs for a long time. Must have been heavy as heck.   :

 

[alfa]

There are many, many tools I wish I would of had.
Now I have a larger arsenal of Festools but the Domino 700 would be the tool I wish I had the most.
The slab weighs about 400 lbs but nothing the reclaimed Form Motor Co. steel saw horse can't handle - rated for 20,000 lbs!

 

[Sean7a]

Awesome, love the look!  Exactly what I'd like to have in my kitchen.  Great work, and very cool vision.

 

[farmer]

Very cool.  Did you have a vision for this style of table and then hunt around until you found the proper metal base / reclaimed timbers???  or did you stumble upon the sawhorses and think.... what should I use these awesome things for??  Also, how did you keep the legs from scratching the tile floor?  some rubber or cork pads under there?

I have wanted to make something like that but am waiting until I stumble upon the right sort of metal legs.  I have tried going to a few architectural salvage type places in my area but they charge a high premium on big pieces of industrial looking metal like that. 

--jon

 

[alfa]

Very cool.  Did you have a vision for this style of table and then hunt around until you found the proper metal base / reclaimed timbers???  or did you stumble upon the sawhorses and think.... what should I use these awesome things for??  Also, how did you keep the legs from scratching the tile floor?  some rubber or cork pads under there?

I have wanted to make something like that but am waiting until I stumble upon the right sort of metal legs.  I have tried going to a few architectural salvage type places in my area but they charge a high premium on big pieces of industrial looking metal like that.  

--jon

Thanks for the kind words. The project started with the vision of a warm, inviting robust piece for us to congregate at. I think we were talking about it while watching Game of Thrones on HBO and saw something like that. I found a great site for reclaimed lumber (www.trestlewood.com) and then found a site in NJ that I bought the steel saw horse from (recyclingthepast.com). Both were delivered by freight from Utah and NJ respectively.

As a total novice the real challenge was to maintain the raw look but also make it toddler friendly. The aged gray layer is really thin and then the raw popular pops through with little sanding. Behr makes a pretty diverse semi-transparent stain palette which I used in combination with white wood filler and lots of layers, putty knife work, buffing to cover alot of crevices....

Also I created a "frame" to support the 4-5" thick beams with 5 steel channel 4" shy of the width to be torched/welded into the top crossbeam of the saw horse.

As for the support legs, based on my research and short of not being able to hand rummage, recyclingthepast.com was good to me. Oh yeah, I had also thought of sandblasting it (probably with walnuts) to take off the paint - per Josh at recyclingthepast.com it takes it down to a pewter look. Would of matched the kitchen hardware but after onsite welding of the channel the piece weighed in excess of 200lbs and the orginal paint gave it character.

I learned so much and would do many things things differently but hope this helps.

Here is a better pic of the base.

 

[rmwarren]

Oh, great, recyclingthepast has very cool stuff and is driving distance for me...

Thanks, this should be expensive.  [mad]

 

[Vindingo]

The table looks awesome.  Keeping the green legs was a good idea, it gives it a funky look

Great find on recyclingthepast.com  they aren't too far away, and it looks like it would be a fun place to go pick around for an afternoon. 

 

[farmer]

I have actually visited 'recycling the past' and it is an amazing place.  Definitely worth taking a trip to look around.  I spent an afternoon there just poking around last year.  Lots of very cool stuff... could not identify what many things even were!...  I felt that they were charging a premium as they very well knew how unique most of their items are.  Only fair as they have to go through a lot to acquire it (they had a segment done on them by Dirty Jobs - also worth checking out).  I will try to dig up some pictures from when I visited!

 

[BarBuilder]

Man that table is BEEFY!  [eek] Who are you serving meals to at that table Paul Bunyan?