In 2012, a gigantic oak tree, thousands of years old, was found well-preserved in a bog in East Anglia. Hamish Low has been turning it into a similarly gigantic table, with all the incredible affordances that must be considered for such ancient and valuable wood. You can't just run these fellas through a table saw…
Having worked on each plank individually we now needed to join them all together to make one gigantic slab. There were unique challenges associated with the size of these planks so we had to design a unique way of joining them. We called this the 'river joint'. This joint resolves some construction logistics but, more importantly, is very sympathetic to the unique shape and scale of the Jubilee Oak.
To turn these individual planks into one top the outline of each board was traced onto an individual piece of tracing paper. We were then able to place each piece of tracing paper next to, and over the top of, each other so we could adjust the overall width and the shapes of the 'river joints', while at the same time removing as little material as possible.
Fenland Black Oak Project [thefenlandblackoakproject.co.uk via MetaFilter]
