Dave Macfee writes:
Here's one you don't see every day. This table is one solid slab
of Rosewood. It is 1.5" thick and 78" wide. For scale I have
shown the table on its edge in the first picture, and the taller
individual in the picture is about 6'1".
For those interested in the repair story, we were called to
repair 2 new cracks near the edge of the top that appeared since
it was shipped to the States from overseas. You will see that 2
large pieces of angle iron have been attached in a previous
repair attempt (not mine) to prevent the slab from warping (fat
chance!). You will see in later pictures how successful that was
(not very!). From eye level view this thing reminds me of the old
"Tilt-a-Whirl" ride we used to have at the local carnival when I
was a youngster. Without regard to that condition, our mission is
to fix the 2 new cracks and try to close the gap in a long
established crack, which has undergone prior repair attempts.
All these shots were taken after we fixed the 2 new cracks. They
were directly over the skirt where the angle iron had been
installed and was jammed in against the skirt. It appears the
previous repairman went out of his way to fit these as tightly
against the skirt as possible, which certainly contributed to the
new cracks. It's a wonder to me why it hadn't cracked up more
in the past, so I also think it also logical to assume that shipping
from overseas had something to do with it as well.
While we had it in shop, it made sense to also do what we could
to draw another older crack closer together. The picture shows
our repair and also faintly you can see prior dutchman type
patches which didn't hold. We used a simple shape solid piece of
wood over the cracks to add some strength across the break. I
am not a big believer in supporting a crack repair this way, but
since we really couldn't get the crack to close completely, I
thought possibly it would add some resistance against the crack
opening more again.
The important change we made was to remove a little wood from
the inside of the aprons near the ends of the angle iron to provide
some clearance that will allow for expansion and contraction of
the slab.
Macfee, KS
