You're not going to believe how amazing this table is!
Hey everyone, it's Dylan from The Black Forest Wood Company this week we're going to be showing you our construction process
on this absolutely one-of-a-kind cottonwood burl dining table it's got midnight blue
Black Forest Deep Resin and then the largest cantilever base that we've ever constructed
so you guys are going to get to see this full build process and then you're also going to get
to see it delivered into the final space so it's not that common that you'll see cottonwood being
used to create a thirty thousand dollar piece of furniture some little-known fact I guess about
cottonwood is it's mostly used for like pallets crates uh plywood fuel like they'll actually
burn it as fuel that it's like the lumber is that invaluable in most cases let's say
as you guys can see though this tree is a little bit of an anomaly it is highly
burled highly figured in just a one of a kind piece and definitely worth using in this table
you see how that got in there saved his life saved my toes yeah i saved his life there haley so this
client selected a massive piece of cottonwood burl we do have to cut it down slightly though but not
too much since they are going with a cast so this slab is going to stay mostly intact i personally
think that's probably the best choice for this lab since it is so rare to actually
find a piece this large like this slab in some sections is over five feet wide so doing it as
a cast is kind of the perfect application for this piece once we got it all cleaned up and
debarked then we went ahead to do the pour and the client selected a midnight blue resin you'll see
why once we get to the delivery and we get this piece in the client space the the resin color
here actually ends up matching perfectly of course as usual we're using our black forest deep resin
you can pour the our resin up to like three or four inches thick in a single shot but you will
want to make sure that you have some cooling involved so we have aluminum tables that have
water cooling underneath them and then we also blow fans on the surface i would say without
the water cooling you can probably do three inches safely just with some fans and then if
you're going to exceed that you definitely want to get some sort of either air-conditioned room
the aluminum cooled table or something to help keep the resin cool while it cures
then once we got it de-moulded and lifted down from upstairs it's time to put it on our avid CNC for
flattening so we actually do have two CNC machines we have a Biesse that we use for door joinery
and table joinery and then we have our avid that's primarily just used for flattening
so this is the bottom side and usually the bottom side only takes a pass or two
one thing though with this table is it's too wide to fit through our wide belt sanders so
to get all these CNC marks out we're going to have to sand that by hand we like to start with the gem
sander and then move to the murka for finish sanding then it's time to get working on the
base so this is another one of our cantilever bases we've done one of these one time before
and it was much smaller than this one so this is the largest cantilever base that we've ever done
the whole thing is constructed from solid ash that we're going to be putting a blackened finish on
and then we've just got our door dowels that we usually use in our door manufacturing to
assemble some of the components for this base what you're seeing here right now is actually
the the center support that will will hold the whole cantilever up so that that's made out of
three plies and then this is the fatter shorter part of the cantilever that that center support
actually passes right through the middle of so i don't know if i'm doing a good job describing that
but shortly here once we get assembling the base you'll you'll see what i mean by everything
and then here's that center support once it's out of the clamps and what the boys are doing here
right now is they're clamping it into the drill press so that they can drill the angled joinery
that's going to hold it into the shorter fatter piece of the cantilever
so again we're going to be using
here these holes are going to be for big long screws that are going to hold this together
we could rely on wood glue or dowels but the screws will actually help to pull the
joinery tight so that's what we've decided to do here and since this is going to be hidden
inside the joinery of the base no one is ever going to see these holes or see the screws
so it's just kind of a nice insurance policy for our joinery
and now comes to the glue-up of the base the final assembly
so we do put a little glue on the one face for that center support and here's the screw holes
that I was talking about earlier so we've got nine screws that we're going to be sinking in there
so with all of that support you know this base should be nice and strong we shouldn't have to
worry about anything ever coming apart or any movement in this space you know
it could happen but we've purposely over-engineered this base to not fail
okay after final assembly is done we took this piece to Jeco to get it blackened
normally we do our blackened finishes by hand but the top for this table was getting sprayed
by Jeco as well so we just decided to have them do the spray finish on the base so that everything
matched so they do the spray stain first and then once that's cured they actually go ahead and
spray the same clear coat that they used on the top on the base
now that the base is back from Jeco you can see the nice blackened finish with the clear
coat on it uh it's time for us to install our metal inlays so on our first cantilever base
we did brass inlays this client though has a lot of nickel in their space so we're doing
aluminum inlays that are going to imitate nickel
aluminum is nice because it's non-ferrous so it's really easy for us to cut turn and polish anything
like that it's just a lot easier to work with and john here is just using a bead of silicone
to help secure all these in place and then we tape it in and in our experience the
silicone does a really good job of holding in small inlays like this for the long term
oh the supports okay since this tabletop is so large and so heavy we can't just rely on the
wooden supports of the cantilever on their own so we're actually adding some aluminum dowels on the
overhanging edge to give some extra support and stability so john's just cutting those to length
on the Festool and then we actually put them on the lathe to get a nice brushed finish on them
okay switch around
isn't that lovely oh that's a beauty okay now that we've got the top
flattened sized and sanded we take it over to Jeco for them to put their finish on it
so this is a two-component acrylic urethane that they're spraying on here and we have been getting
a lot of questions you know how do we decide whether we're going to do an oil finish or a
spray finish and it really ends up coming down to the client preference so the pros and cons of each
finish are I guess let's start with polyurethane the pros are the biggest one is the durability
it has very high resistance against any kind of liquids or watermarking I think it's actually
rated uh for resistance all the way up against sulfuric acid you know i don't see why that would
ever end up on a client's table but should it happen, they're covered the downsides to
a polyurethane though would be that if you get any kind of accidental damage like a scratch or a chip
it's not the kind of finish you can repair on your own you're having to call us to take the table out
of your house and have it resprayed whereas an oil finish you can easily repair any damage but it is
going to show damage easier so you're going to probably expect to have maintenance like once or
twice a year on an oil base finish table whereas a polyurethane table that's well taken care of
may never need maintenance it's just if something should happen it's a lot more costly to repair
okay so we've just pulled up to our clients uh gorgeous home here um the table's very big so
fortunately it's just a straight shot in but if you look here the door is kind of narrow so
it's a little bit of a tight squeeze through there but then once we're through there that
that should be the hardest part and then the rest should be easy we're hoping
you carried it more than me how heavy do you think it i think it's like 500 pounds
yeah at least 350 pounds on the low end
do you want to walk right into where it goes on the edge do the felt then stand it up yeah okay
all right let's lift some weight here guys
now even when it goes sideways we can't grab this really no
okay which way do we want to look at it
I'll be able to get in but we're going to lose support here I'll try to keep it here can you
get inside here Curtis because you have to there you go, there you go we're getting
close on this side here it's tipping keep it level, which way you want the cantilever to face
maybe we can should we set it on this edge here to do
that was the hard part you're not going to believe how amazing this table is this is
incredible this is one of the craziest tables like with the base concept and everything you
don't have your felt certification i don't have belt certification as of yet good yeah yes okay
okay all right
don't very well watch your head okay so we want to pivot it now right as we set it down
okay good
i guess it's going to be easiest what bring it off this way and then tilt it up that way to go in
let's lift her up a bit guys okay don't come this far we're good okay keep going alright
and as soon as we get a vertical you guys got to get under it too come under okay
go vertical guys
we'll be able to kind of tilt it and walk it around three two one
okay
okay let's go yeah yeah overseas
how did she go okay
not too much, too much okay right about there okay now she goes
yeah
because from here I just see glare
thank you guys for watching this week's youtube video this table turned out absolutely incredibly
it's a stunning piece of cottonwood burl like even just the piece of wood on its own it's very rare
to find something this figured and this large and then just pairing it with this nice midnight blue
resin that ties perfectly into the other details in the home with such a nice touch and then the
cantilever base has nickel detailing and you can also see matching nickel details on the chairs so
I am overly satisfied with how this whole project came together huge thank you to our
clients for trusting us with this process and allowing us to create such a beautiful
piece and I hope you guys enjoyed watching the process and we hope to see you next week