This is part 3 of a 3 parts series
Anyone who's been to any of my apartments in the past three years, or has read far enough back on this blog, should remember this:
It is pictured here as an entertainment center, but it hasn't been used for that in some time. By my estimation it is the least practical thing that I own. It weighs well over 200 pounds, probably close to 300 (or more). It's difficult for one person to even move around in a room. It's constructed from a bunch of 7 x 5s.
Also, I adore it.
I don't really know why. It doesn't have a lot of room. It's inconvenient to put things under it. It's too hard to move to be a coffee table. I have no use for an entertainment center. It works well as a work bench, mainly because it's so sturdy I can just stand there beating on it and nothing will happen, but being as short as it is, it's inconvenient to work over. I imagine I love it for the same reason I so badly want a Curta. They both perform their simple function in an overly grand yet pointless way (present day that is, Curtas were pretty fucking sweet back in their day). Remember the Tamagotchi Gesture? There's probably a bit of that here too, I'm not sure who else would love the fucking thing.
I mention this, because when I decided I would be making the world's greatest table, it was absolutely the first place I looked for design inspiration.
That's actually terribly misleading. It's kind of rare I sit down and say "hey, I'm gonna make a thing, let's brainstorm!" They moreso just happen. For example: The finishing of SG1 overlapped with the making of SG2 quite a bit. I really liked the frame that I made for SG1 and that sort of thing seemed like the way to go. However. SG2 weighs a lot. I'm guessing 30-40 pounds (probably more, I tend to underestimate the weights of things). So not only would it be more dangerous to mount it on a wall, given that it's over twice the size of SG1 it seemed a touch more ridiculous. The frame thing seemed solid though, so what else could I do with that? Well, if it's not going to be mounted on the wall, I suppose that necessarily means it would have to be something that goes on the floor. It would look dumb just laying on the ground, so a table just made sense. Then it was the normal, I had the idea, I offhandedly figured out how to make it real, then I had to make it real.
The wood I used to make the frame for SG1 was 1 x 4, which was fine for that project, but for this I thought it would be good if the stained glass went farther into the wood, to give it some added support (again, much bigger). The first thought was to up it to a 2 x 4, then I could easily get an inch into the wood, which seemed pretty sturdy. You may recall a big part of the reason I went with the 1 x 4 in the first place was Lowe's sold precut boards that were able to fit in my car (ability to get home is pretty important). So I went around looking for some pre-cut 2 x 4s (again, at Lowe's). They didn't have any (at least any small enough) but looking around I was like zomg 2 x 6s are delightful. It made perfect sense because I had at some point decided I wanted the table legs to be made out of 6 x 6s (I was at the time under the mistaken impression that the above mentioned table was constructed out of 6 x 6s) so then the leg width would be the same as the frame, SYMMETRICAL! Tragically Lowe's didn't seem to have any lengths smaller than 12' and since I'm not capable of asking for help (also I didn't see a saw anywhere) I felt it was time to move on. I'm inclined to say there was some other compelling reason for me to look elsewhere, but I have no idea what that is.
I was walking around Menard's when I realized that I have no idea what I'm doing. I suppose it's probably pretty common that when wingin' it, I don't actually have any idea what I'm doing and just make it up as I go. I rarely think about this fact though. Going through the lumber section at Menard's though, I thought to myself "huh, there sure are a lot of types of woods, I bet there's compelling reasons to use each of them, maybe if I had some idea what I was doing I could make a more informed decision. OR I could buy these 2" x 6" x 4' scrap boards that are a buck fitty a piece."
The problem was I had at some point decided that when I painted the table, I didn't want it to be immediately distinguishable as wood. This meant shitty wood was a problem because any cracks, knots or other assorted imperfections would be trouble. I looked around some more and found some wood that was perfect. Looked great, right size...tragically 40 dollars for six or so feet (aka not enough). So I says fuck it I says, I'll get the shitty wood and make it work, cause that, is what winners do. I sorted through the eight or so pieces they had in that scrap pile, got the best looking two and was on my way.
Back home, I somehow managed to miscut both pieces (ooooh measure TWICE cut once, not the other way around). Four feet long as a length was really tragic as all four pieces that made up the frame were slightly longer than two feet. Well that sucked. Back at square one I went to Home Depot. Home Depot totally DOES have a saw and so I got a 2" x 6" x 10' cut in half and I was on my way.
Frame construction was pretty much identical to that of SG1, except this time the grooves I cut were a bit deeper and farther in on the wood. The other added wrinkle for this was the support layer. Strictly speaking you shouldn't display stained glass horizontally. It might be rigid, but it's still going to want to bow inward. Especially with a piece like this, as heavy as it is, it would probably sit in the table fine for awhile, then one day I'd come home to a pile of broken glass and weep. I think I must have just googled glass shops and came across mclean county glass and mirror. Great people, I went in and explained what I wanted, the guy recommended something and it was done the next day. The way this is set up is the clear glass sits right below the stained glass in the frame. The stained glass stays perfectly flat and light can still shine through.
It was then time to make it work. That involved plaster.
I got some stuff and filled in any dents/cracks/general unsightlyness in the wood. In addition, I built up the wood at the seams where it was uneven, so when it was painted you wouldn't be able to see. For that same reason I had recessed the screws slightly and then filled those holes in with plaster.
Boy that was a lot of work. Next up was primerin' time! I didn't photograph that. At this point I moved onto constructing the rest of the table. Did I mention earlier that I wanted the legs to be 6 x 6s? No one sells pre cut small sections of 6 x 6s, cause who would ever want that? I went to Home Depot to see if I could get one cut only to be hit with the tragic news that their saw cannot cut something that big
:'(
I checked with general life consult El Fuego (conversation took place via texts while I wandered Home Depot)
me: does your dad have some sort of device that could cut a 6 x 6
el fuego: ...a chainsaw would be my immediate reaction of anything i know to be in the garage, but im very sure thats a horrible idea
me: haha that was my initial thought for how to do it, but yea, I can't see that ending well.
el fuego: hehe. Well this is the flaw when i pretty much only ever use a hand saw, bow saw, or like a little dremel tool for anything ive ever done or suggested.
me: man, it'd take for fucking ever to cut a 6 x 6 with a dremel
el fuego: at that point the bow saw may well be a better option and that seems like a pretty bad one on its own merit.
me: I had to downsize to a 4 x 6 : (
el fuego: what is this for?
me: the greatest table ever made.
el fuego: hehe nice
Did you get the important take away from that conversation? That I had to downsize to 4 x 6 legs? I was devastated. After it had some time to sink in though, it didn't seem so bad. The 6" dimension was the most important thing to me and a 6 x 4 is still pretty beefy, so I thought this would look just fine and potentially be more practical. Normally I don't try and get any "precision" cuts done at the place, because guys who get paid minimum wage aren't going to try that hard (not to put them down, they do good work, but I needed this to be perfect). Of course 6 x 4s aren't much easier to cut than 6 x 6s, which meant I was stuck with their work. I went with 15" segments, which would make the overall table height close to two feet tall. How did I arrive at that as a good height for the table? No idea. At all.
They weren't perfectly equal segments, but close enough. This wood went through the same plaster process as the frame wood, but man, these were of dubious quality. I'm not of the impression 6 x 4s are ever used in situations where looks matter.
The plan was that the legs would not actually be attached to the frame, rather there would be a smaller table that the frame would sit on, that ended up looking like this:
Now due to lack of precision tooling, the square there didn't slot into the frame perfectly. To keep light from leaking out the sides and to keep the frame held in place, weather stripping was added around the edges to act like a gasket.
Lighting was identical to SG1, except this time I used three light strips. As you may have noticed from the above pictures, everything was painted black. For the table top I went back to Mclean County Glass and Mirror. Again they did a great job, this time I also had them add four holes in the corners, so I would have some way to attach the glass to the frame. Problem is the frame isn't a perfect rectangle, but the glass is. This meant that if I just set the glass on it, it would look terrible as this unevenness would be pretty apparent. To combat this I decided to use some risers.
I was working under the faulty assumption that if I went to a home improvement store there would be a table building section and in there I would find something meeting my specifications. Lowe's apparently doesn't cater to the DIY table crowd. I ended up just walking the aisles hoping to be struck by inspiration, which is exactly what happened! I found something called a connecting bolt, I forgot to take a picture before putting them to use, but here's the shot from the packaging.
See I felt this was perfect because the bolt had a nice flat top and I figured if I turned the nut around it would be a nice surface for the glass to sit on. And indeed, that would have been perfect, if things ever worked out that way.
Two problems:
1. You can't actually turn the nut around, it's not threaded that way, the other side has an allen cap
.2. There wasn't enough thread on the bolt, even screwed all the way in, it wouldn't actually grip the table.
Of course those are only problems for close minded people. This, you see, is exactly why I say everyone should own a tap and die set. What's a tap and die set? Well a tap is sort of like a really sharp screw with grooves cut into it that you can use to cut threads into a hole. A die is the opposite, it's like a really sharp nut with grooves cut into it that you can use to cut threads onto a rod of some kind. Some short work later and I had bolts that were threaded to the top and nuts that worked the right way.
I ended up going back and getting another set of four nuts, this second set would be embedded into the table to act as a washer for the spacer, as well as holding the bolds securely in place. The last bit of work that had to be done to prepare them for the table was to put felts on the top of the nuts and the bottom of the screws, ended up like this.The rest actually worked out perfectly. The frame was dropped onto the table. The nuts were put into the frame. The glass was set on top and the bolts were tightened down. Which brings us to why I assume any of you are here.
Wow! I bet it looks even better lit up! Well, that's debatable, I'm kind of torn.
It does look better in person, that shot doesn't really do the lighting justice. I know I know, you're still not convinced, you're saying "Mike, you know what would help? If you had some sort of stupid art shot. Do you, have, some sort of stupid art shot?"
Like looking into the ark of the fucking covenant innit? No? Well fuck you too.
Greatest table ever? I'm glad we're in agreement.
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