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Coffee table
         
Original piece of walnut   Post epoxy resin   Oak base
Coffee table   Coffee table   Mary, Tom and Yuri

August 3rd 2024

Happy 5th wedding anniversary Jono and Georgie!

Given my interest in woodwork, it is fortunate that the traditional gift after five years of marriage should be wooden.  The coffee table that I made from a combination of European oak for the frame and an unusually shaped piece of walnut for the top was, therefore, ideal.  The walnut slab had been kindly given to me by a work colleague some time ago on the understanding that I would “do something nice with it"; I hope that I have done it justice. 

Of course, if tradition had been followed to the letter, the wood would have been cut on the day of the celebration by Jono and presented to Georgie by him as a finished item before the next two ‘quarter days’ had passed, i.e. before Christmas.  (For those like me who have no inkling about quarter days, they are: Lady Day on the 25th of March; Midsummer Day on the 24th of June; Michaelmas on the 29th of September; and Christmas on the 25th of December.)  But that wasn’t going to happen.

 
 

 




Proud owners of a new pergola
         
Green oak delivered   All ready to erect   Half way there
Completed   Finished   Jackson Crest

August 21st 2024

Green oak pergola

Continuing with the wood theme, Jono and I erected the pergola today that we have designed and shaped from slabs of French green oak. Given the weight of each beam, it was a great relief to see that the measurements we had taken some weeks previously were correct, and all three slotted successfully into the steel brackets that we had screwed to the walls on either side.

In an attempt to recreate the famous barn-raising scene from the film The Witness starring Harrison Ford, I had taken along a traditional hand brace drill and 18mm auger bit to allow us to fix the rafters to the beams. I would like to say that we perservered with this, but we didn't; an electric drill and spade bit proved considerably easier.
 

 




 

  © Copyright Thomas Jackson 2010