Walnut Bar

[Eric.]

3) Never use the garbage you see at other places as a metric for your own work.  They'll only drag you down.  People don't know how to build things.

[Eric.]

Just now, Mike. said:

the only qualifications you need to be build that stuff are a fierce beard and a stack of systainers.

LOL

I'm gonna paraphrase this and make it my signature.

[AceHoleInOne]

I would put less thought on the "spill the drink" and think more about how to build to fit the application. It's a bar top and will receive more than moisture that's just in the air. Bar tops get spilled on, cleaned with wet towels, possibly a sink is below the bar top?

Anyhow, how would you feel in a few months, a year, that your top is cracked to hell and back with a very pissed off customer??? Your doing the right thing. Rock on!!!!!

 

-Ace-

 

 

[Pwk5017]

28 minutes ago, Lester Burnham said:

There's a place we go to often that I've been keeping track of how jack their table have gotten. Each one, EACH ONE, is cracked and/or shaped like a potato chip. Great food though.

It is hard to critique those guys for using "rustic" wood etc. Ive bid on several restaurant table top jobs, and done two. It is tough to do much of anything with the budgets they set. For example, i did a lot of back of house end grain work for this new one that opened in the spring. Also bid on the table tops, serving boards, and live edge bar top. My table bid was like $8,000 and i considered it to be pretty tight on my end for producing 35-40 table tops. I didnt get it, and the guy that did made them for around $3500. I ate at the restaurant a couple months ago and the tables had horrendous 1/8" joint gaps and tons of burned saw marks. Worst of all, looked like it was made with 2com oak. It was so riddled with bug holes and all other manner of defect. BUT, that guy got the job and i didnt, and i bet he didnt do terrible on profit either. If that is what the customer is happy with, then i can get behind it. I personally dont work that way, but i dont hold it against the bearded folks that do. 

 

I honestly dont feel warm and fuzzy about this build even after correcting the end last night. Those pegs only have a 3/16" of slot one way or the other in the domino to move. With the middle fixed, that means i have 3/16" from today to get bigger and 3/16" from today to get smaller over 20" length. I was worried mid-typing and went on over to woodweb. If i go from a 6-7% now to an 11-12% in july, flatsawn walnut will move 7/32". In terms of shrinkage, i went from 6-7% to 4%, where i have to deal with <1/8" shrinkage over 20". It is close, but not catastrophically far off. Worst case scenario is a hairline develops along a joint in the summer. This is assuming MC jumps that much(which is possible), and the piece doesnt absorb the 1/32" difference across the 20" width with something compressing instead of splitting. This also involves an assumed intoxicated customer recognizing a 1/32" opening in joint over the summer. Im concerned, but not much else i can do at this point other than hope it only swings to 10% and thing remain hunky-dory. 

 

I know this is discussed a ton around here, but i did have this conversation with the guy already. When he wanted the lip and his girlfriend wanted a profile, i showed it running along the front edge only. He then requested it wrap the corner, which i responded this presents challenges that will most likely lead to a gap at the mitered corner, but i would try to mitigate this issue. Told me to do it anyways, so here we are. This is why i was never concerned about a gap at the profiled butt joint. I all but guaranteed it would happen from the start. Avoiding damage to the main top is why i redid the thing last night at the expense of it not looking as good at the corner year round. It all comes down to having to be more assertive with people even if it means losing work. 

[JosephThomas]

2 hours ago, Mike. said:

take it from a professional bar visitor

Are you guys hiring right now? I'll get my resume ready...

[JosephThomas]

47 minutes ago, Pwk5017 said:

and i bet he didnt do terrible on profit either

Yeah but profit on a single job is only one part of the equation. If all his work blows up on people within a couple years then his reputation will be crap.  He'll be forced to use a new company name every few years, or at least charge less and less and less until he's charging less than ikea because his furniture doesn't even last as long as ikea particle board. Good businesses make enough profit + make happy customers. 

[AceHoleInOne]

1 hour ago, Pwk5017 said:

He then requested it wrap the corner, which i responded this presents challenges that will most likely lead to a gap at the mitered corner, but i would try to mitigate this issue. Told me to do it anyways, so here we are.

Well if that was the case, nextime write up a letter of understanding that you and your customer shall sign understanding the risk and he/she accepts that risk and holds you harmless, wood is a natural product and all that jazz. 

Just a thought??????

 

-Ace- 

[wdwerker]

You can miter the corners and wrap 3 sides but you have to let the entire end be able to move because it would be fixed at the miter plus the first domino around the corner.

[Pwk5017]

40 minutes ago, wdwerker said:

You can miter the corners and wrap 3 sides but you have to let the entire end be able to move because it would be fixed at the miter plus the first domino around the corner.

Yeah, i think this is what i should have done originally. It is where my head was at, but clearly didnt execute it. 

 

49 minutes ago, AceHoleInOne said:

Well if that was the case, nextime write up a letter of understanding that you and your customer shall sign understanding the risk and he/she accepts that risk and holds you harmless, wood is a natural product and all that jazz. 

Just a thought??????

 

-Ace- 

Absolutely. Every time i have a headache, it always leads to another form/process to indemnify me. Like the one time a contractor had an end grain island of decent size get rained on and placed it directly on the garage floor to sit overnight. Sucker cupped 7/8" within 45 mins of putting it on the base cabinets the next day. I ended up sacrificing a goat to the woodworking deity and getting the cup down to 1/8" over the course of a week. I havent heard of that project in a year, so i assume that cup remained at 1/8" or less. End grain pieces are so strange with how they react to moisture and how quickly the wood reacts. Scary, but interesting. Another big step for me was a custom job around $800 3 years ago where the guy fell off the face of the earth when it was time to pick up and pay. I ended up reselling it at a small discount, but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed me hasnt taken a job without deposit ever since. Im hoping this isnt a painful learning experience 6-9 months from now. 

[Unknown craftsman]

I think your work will be fine.I know the weather is very different for you but Kiln dryed walnut is very stable.Ive found it to be almost as good as Fine Mahogany.

I hate it when woodworkers get all scientific over woodworking so I'll leave it at that.

Making the change you did to the top shows you care.Thats a hellava big top that will be admired by many.

Good job

Aj

[Eric.]

11 hours ago, Aj3 said:

I think your work will be fine.I know the weather is very different for you but Kiln dryed walnut is very stable.Ive found it to be almost as good as Fine Mahogany.

I hate it when woodworkers get all scientific over woodworking so I'll leave it at that.

Sorry AJ, you're wrong.  That wood will move and there will be problems.  You don't have to "get all scientific" to know that wood moves...always.  Head in sand is not a solution.  Kiln dried walnut or "fine" mahogany is no more stable than anything else...it's a hygroscopic material and it will expand and contract with changes in RH for the rest of its time on Earth.  That's science...it's also reality.

[Unknown craftsman]

@EricWood movement I don't worry about silly stuff like that.

• Plus if we get a Democratic president next week that should reduce wood movement.

Aj  aka the sandman

[Eric.]

I'm not taking that bait.

Yooge.  Gina.  Gina is yooge.  It's a yooge gina.

[Coop]

On 11/4/2016 at 9:56 AM, Aj3 said:

@EricWood movement I don't worry about silly stuff like that.

• Plus if we get a Democratic president next week that should reduce wood movement.

Aj  aka the sandman

Wonder how that worked out?

[Pwk5017]

lol, part of me wants to interview the residents in my neighborhood with signs last fall. How do you REALLY feel now?

 

Update on this bar, just so it doesnt seem like im trolling GOPers. The customer emailed me a few months ago complaining about the width of the bar extending beyond the breadboard trim by about 1/4". I had to email him an underlined past correspondence daylighting the seasonal movement and how it may be narrower or wider at times of the year in relation to the side lip. Put an end to that discussion, but if it was close to 1/4" on the one side that means that top moved close to 3/8-1/2" across the width. That is pretty substantial! 

[Pwk5017]

14 minutes ago, Mike. said:

How wide is the top?  Assuming a 6% change in EMC* you'd expect a 36" wide flatsawn top to move ~9/16".  It is 100% predictable even though no one wants to admit it.  Even Shannon repeated that lie that "in a modern climate controlled house wood movement is not a big deal" on a recent podcast.  Modern climate controlled houses (in a northern climate) are literally a kiln in the winter, and create extreme conditions that only kiln dried lumber can tolerate.     

Oof, off the top of my head it was in the 40s, 42-44" maybe? Exactly, im not/never was arguing the potential of wood movement, but this is one of the few times ive tracked a piece through time and moisture changes. 8/16-9/16" is wild to think about. 

[Unknown craftsman]

Ok so I was wrong again  it did move more than I would have expected.

My experience with flat sawn panels is once they take on a parallelogram shaped hey never go back to square. I wonder if flat sawn table top does the same with its movement.

Thanks Cooper for bring this to my attention.

Aj

[wdwerker]

Nice to see my estimate of 5/8" movement wasn't too far off the mark.