Craftsmanship and Finish

Handcrafted Quality Table Tops Through Board Selection, Exact Joinery, Careful Glue Ups and our Durable Heirloom Finish

Lumber Selection

As mentioned elsewhere, we use only select and better, kiln dried hardwood lumber to ensure quality and generational endurance in our solid hardwood tables, surfaces and table tops. We also hand select each board for every table top we craft in our shop. Since our hardwood lumber is of consistent quality and purchased in random lengths and widths we have the ability to maximize aesthetic appeal while paying absolute attention to the enduring quality that we demand and our clients expect. Our tops are generally crafted from wider "planks" rather that a group of thin boards which allows for a more more attractive top but also ensures long term stability.

Our Surfacing and Joinery

As our hardwoods are purchased rough sawn, we have the extra thickness available to us that allows for machining flat, square and parallel planks and boards which is the basis in any type of fine furniture. In fact, our years of experience in furniture-making makes "never taking a shortcut" the norm in our wood-shop. A proper glue joint is perhaps the most particular of all woodworking joints as perfection is the only way to ensure heirloom quality. All hardwood planks, slabs and boards are flattened on our jointer before they go to our planer or wide belt sander and one edge is made square and parallel before going to the tablesaw for a glue-line rip cut. We do it right instead of doing it again or worse not doing it right in the first place. We believe that there is no future in a poorly machined hardwood top glued together with hope and prayer. We expect our tops to outlive us all and take great care to make that a reality.

Our Perfect Glue Joints

Our exact joinery allows us to provide perfect glue joints in all of our hardwood table tops. By beginning with flat and parallel boards we can achieve perfectly square edges that will provide for tight and exact glue ups. We will only accept perfect glue lines since a good, well crafted glue joint is stronger than the hardwood itself. In fact, we will not use any artificial aids such as biscuits, dowels or cheesy bow-ties in our glue joints as they do nothing to strengthen a joint and are really a sign of a suspect glue joint. Perfection may seem overkill to some but if a glue joint is not perfect, square and tight, we do it again so that after clamp up we know it is forever.

Finish Sanding

Each hardwood top, round, rectangular or live edge is finish sander to a flat state that will accept whatever finish is to be applied evenly. As a general course of workflow, our tops are sanded to 150 grit on our industrial grade three head wide belt sander to ensue flatness and a really ready to finish surface. That said, we do random orbit sand each top for good measure and do final edge, and corner easing by hand. We are continually up-grading equipment and sanding materials to make ourselves more efficient and always fully prepare our tops fully so that they are ready for finishing.

Our Durable Low Maintenance, No-Ring Finish

We use Milesi 2k Polyurethane finish on our tables and table tops. This finish offers a very durable and low maintenance finish that endures and resembles the beauty of a fine hand-rubbed finish. Our residential, commercial and restaurant clients do not experience water rings and yellowing, cracking or other issue typical of lacquers or the terrible pour on finishes that are sadly too common today. We offer staining using Milesi products as well as a Dye / stain system for our ":ebonized" tops. We feel that Milesi is the finest finish available anywhere for solid wood surfaces.