Wood Working project plan

I received a response from D.S. Orr yesterday regarding his inclusion in my posts about "The Saw That Never Was". In it, he made some very good points regarding his belief the saws primary usage is a flooring saw. Whether or not he swayed me to his way of thinking is a topic for my next post as this one is dedicated to apologizing to him for my rather disrespectful wording in the previous posts.

In retrospect, the wording I used regarding Mr. Orr was very disrespectful and the fact that I got so wound up in my quest to find the use the saw was originally designed for is no excuse for doing so. I was focused on the statements Mr. Orr made regarding the saw as they related to the discussion at hand and did not consider at all the person who made them. Having reread what I wrote, I realized that I had committed a common error in judgement that I have often criticized others for.

As it turns out, Mr. Orr is both male, and someone whose opinions and thoughts about all things to do with vintage tools is highly regarding in collectors and dealer circles alike.

I would like to sincerely apologize to Mr. Orr and assure him that I meant no disrespect. Realizing now how quickly words can become ill-mannered, especially when written unintentionally, has raised my guard to try and not commit a similar infraction in the future.

I also need to apologize to Lee Valley Tools as, because Google did not come back with any hits under Mr. Orrs name, I thought their article could quite possibly be written by one of their employees using a pseudonym, a questionable practice, ethics wise, that I have seen other companies do with this sort of thing in the past. I should have known that if any company was held to the highest of business ethics, it would be Lee Valley Tools.

Again, my sincerest apologies to Mr. Orr and Lee Valley Tools.

Peace,

Mitchell

a while back, we worked with our neighbor, steve holman, on two large conference tables, one 9 x 26 and one 8 x 20. we had to set them up in my garage as neither of our shops was large enough to hold them ... this fall he got a commissions to build two more smaller tables, a 16 footer and a 14 footer. those both fit in his shop and were simpler in design, but we still helped by cutting the table and base pieces on our cnc.

one of the other parts of this project was a fantastic reception desk, designed by steve and paul molinelli, that was full of curves and different levels and was pretty complex as you can see from the photo above. click the pictures to enlarge them ...
so, how did we get from there to here ... it was easy for us. all we had to do was the full size templates, curved plates, and bending forms ... steve and his crew did the rest. im sure it could have been done without the cnc, but you would have needed some pretty big french curves to lay out the full size pieces. and then, the small adjustments ... it would have taken some time and some really intense bandsaw work ...
we started by scanning the scale drawing actual size and then drawing over it in our cad programfrom there, trevor imported that into the cnc router program and he added the elevation sections shown above ... next step was the 1/4 scale model you saw in the photo at the top. trevor constructed it by stacking layers of mdf of the proper thickness to correspond with the section drawings at each slice.from there it was a simple matter for him scale it up to full size ... (increase; proportional) and then cut the full size patterns, counters to be veneered and their curved solid wood edges, and the plates from which steve and his crew created the curved walls and curved laminating forms.here are the walls, unskinned ...
in some cases they were covered in wacky wood and veneer panels made with the curved forms, and in some cases, vertical siding of 5/8th" thick solid lumber
next paul carved the car element (this project went to an automotive company) and added the hood element from, i think, a 1937 ford or chevy ... cool ...
and then there was the other part to the project; the two conference tables. one 14 long, and one 16 long ...
this one is makore veneer and cherry. after i did the cad drawings, trevor programmed and cut the vertical elements of the base and the outriggers, the horizontal elements that receive the cross bars that support the top. he also cut the top sections to shape and the matching solid wood borders, as well as the holes for the power/data fixtures.
this is a section of the walnut and walnut burl table. ditto for this one except for a little adjustment to the thickness of the inlay panels. for whatever reason, the pockets trevor cut in the top sections were a little too shallow (there were two sets of burl panels made as the first one was too dark and burly, so, i suspect that was part of the problem. anyway, it was a quick, though somewhat nerve racking fix. after milling pockets in the spoil board he took a few thousandths off the backs of the panels so that the 1/40th inch veneer panels were just a shade below the surface of the 16th" veneered main table panels ... im glad i wasnt the one to level them up ...
but level them up they did ... and below, the solid wood edges are added to the top panels ...
the tables are probably finished by now, and maybe well see them before they go, or maybe we wont. anyway, we always enjoy working with steve and his crew. their projects are inevitably a rewarding challenge.

we recently carved some butternut scrolls for a mantle that one of our clients was making.  we had sort of an internet fuzzy photo to use as an inspiration, but we did some google image research and came up with the drawing below.  click the photos to enlarge them ...
the reason we decided to do that was that, as you can see from the first photo, the element had to be 13" thick (!!) to complete the design.  after a little thought, we realized wed need a whole bunch of pieces (about 20, not counting a couple of miscuts and practice pieces) and that led us instantly to the cnc.
i have the actual cad drawing somewhere and ill post that later ... all for now ...
on site 12/14