Mill Road Wood And Concrete

Precision in woodworking = a variety of measuring tools and methods. These two are hard to beat.

C-channels are a must in slab based tables. It’s simply not debatable. Slabs want to move with humidity changes. It’s the nature of wood. A cupped or twisted table is visually distressing.

A tree grows like a loaded spring. Their fibres orient to resist some form of elemental loading. Take for example static loading from gravity or dynamic loading caused by winds.

Combine the loaded spring characteristics of the wood with the partial unloading of that spring through slab manipulation, and the fibre growth/shrinkage cycles from humidity changes and you have risk that needs mitigating.

The mitigation is c-channels. A few of them. And, don’t forget the threaded inserts.

Ready for a concrete pour?

The mould is made. The individual pieces labeled. The silicone has fully cured and has been cleaned add accordingly. All the ingredients are precisely measured and set out in sequence. It’s all ready to go.

GFRC can be a pleasure to work with if and when you are well organized. Put everything in its place, do a few rounds of mental rehearsals, start the process.

On the other hand, GFRC is not the kind of product you want to start improvising with. It sets quick. Like, real quick.

These are process pictures from The Abbie I made a few months ago. Finished pictures can be found in an earlier post.

Some studio shots of the White Ash dining room table benches. Progression pictures can be seen in the previous post.

They are with a lovely family .

Ontario reclaimed White Ash, dark brown epoxy, sap wood ash bow ties, waterfall joints. Finished with Osmo Polyx.

A friend of mine reached out with a request. She wanted some benches to accompany a table that is near to her heart.

The collaborative iterations with lead us to: light wood, minimal epoxy, waterfalls. And notably; funky curves were welcome!

The collaboration was a truly perfect. Every process picture was met with joy and excitement.

Here are some of those process pictures.

A bow tie on the underside of a Black Walnut table. Slow and meticulous.

Reclaimed Ontario Pine. The wood is from a locally dismantled century old barn.

Beyond a superficial sanding the surfaces were left mostly untouched in order to maintain the texture.

After a number of samples experimenting with finishes, and their impact on colour and tone, the winner was oil based poly. No stain applied.

The breadboard ends are haunched tenons.

Introducing The Abbie. The wood is Black Locust with black epoxy filling any voids. The concrete is GFRC (aka light concrete). The colour is Dove Grey.

You can see it’s progression pictures in some of my previous posts.



edge wood

An entry way bench made from two rather stunning match book, crotch, walnut slabs. Quite proud of this one.