# Wooden Tile Table Top



## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

My daughter in law dropped off an old end table for me to repair that her grandfather had hand made in the early 1950's when the only power tool he had was a sears circular saw.
He had cut a black locust tree down in his yard and wanted to make a memento from the wood,so he built this end table. The unique part about it is that for the top he cut wafers from the branches and with a hammer and chisel he made hexagon tile from them. Then he glued them in a pattern onto a piece of 3/4" plywood for a top. he grouted around them with some kind of grey material and at a later date he poured epoxy resin over the whole top. 
At sometime or another a vase had leaked water and it had migrated under the tile in one corner causing the tile to curl up and break through the epoxy. So I removed these and broke them in pieces to flatten them out and glued them back in place. now they show a crack across them,but it is not distracting. The repair is in the lower right hand corner. I had never seen this done before and thought that it might be of interest to the group.

Herb


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Very creative guy! That design has a vaguely Moorish look to it.
That noise you hear is a bunch of members heading out to their back yard brush piles, looking for those branches they thought had no practical use.


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## Gaffboat (Mar 11, 2012)

DaninVan said:


> Very creative guy! That design has a vaguely Moorish look to it.
> That noise you hear is a bunch of members heading out to their back yard brush piles, looking for those branches they thought had no practical use.


+1. You nailed it Dan.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

*Light goes on*

For sale; elegant hardwood limbs. FOB my backyard. 
$25/lb or best offer


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

That's an interesting look it creates. 

Dan is that a "U- pick" deal? Bring your own chainsaw?


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

Great talent shown, especially with the limited tools used..


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Cherryville Chuck said:


> That's an interesting look it creates.
> 
> Dan is that a "U- pick" deal? Bring your own chainsaw?


No, of course not; we're not a fly-by-night operation here, you know!
They're nicely trimmed and cut to random lengths. Perfect for the discriminating woodworker. :dirol:


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

DaninVan said:


> Very creative guy! That design has a vaguely Moorish look to it.
> That noise you hear is a bunch of members heading out to their back yard brush piles, looking for those branches they thought had no practical use.


+2 Dan.....


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## old55 (Aug 11, 2013)

DaninVan said:


> Very creative guy! That design has a vaguely Moorish look to it.
> That noise you hear is a bunch of members heading out to their back yard brush piles, looking for those branches they thought had no practical use.



+3 Dan.


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## Marco (Feb 21, 2009)

A guy I worked with who cut bundles of 2x4x8 yellow pine in to various lengths for production use would always look at the end grains on the bundles and pick out "Unique" ones due to Knots and such...... he would cut off a fat 1/4" of the end and save it to make a table top one day. One made similar to the one you have shown. If he ever built it, I don't know but I would have liked to have seen it.


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

When I was a youngster I had a job in a prefab house factory and was the sawman cutting out the door and widow packages ,and I would chop out the knots from the 2X4's with the same idea in mind. and as time passed I had boxes of them and was sitting at the breakfast table watching my wife stoke the wood stove and didn't dawn on me she was fueling the fire with my knots, until one day I went looking for them and they were gone. HAHAHHAHAHA


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

That is some truly original work. Amazing what people come up with.


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## OPG3 (Jan 9, 2011)

Herb my friend, Thanks for sharing that - it is truly cool and displays an interesting use of a hexagonal number. He planned for this quite well, as is evidenced by his concentric hexagons of varying shades - must have been a math / geometry man! Also interesting is that you quoted "in the 1950's". Here in the metro Atlanta [GA] region, plywood was just coming-into use in the late 50's & early 60's. I cannot speak for its availability in other areas. A lot of "old-timers" would envision things such as this and one of their first purchases would be a template made by a blacksmith to use to ensure consistent sized and angled hexagons. He also used an exceptionally stable wood variety! VERY COOL!

Otis Guillebeau from Auburn, Georgia


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Otis; apparently things were done at a leisurely pace back then? 
Plywood was being used in 1940, for building the Mosquito fighter bomber...so it must have been in practical use prior to that?
The US also was using it in the '40s for PT boat construction. Various references suggest that it wasn't a highly restricted wartime resource, so there must have been plenty of material produced(?)...
De Havilland Mosquito

Popular Science - Google Books


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

More...
Canadian Plywood Association - Plywood Manufacturing Process
"Canadian plywood was first manufactured in British Columbia in 1913, but it was not until the 1930's that the discovery of a waterproof glue, that the story of modern plywood really began. "


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

Howard Hughes used plywood for the "Spruce Goose." I worked in a building one time that had a number of plywood templates used in making that famous wooden plane. Sure wish I'd kept a few of them.


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

DesertRatTom said:


> Howard Hughes used plywood for the "Spruce Goose." I worked in a building one time that had a number of plywood templates used in making that famous wooden plane. Sure wish I'd kept a few of them.


think of all the work Noah would have saved himself if he had used ply.....


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