The Phil Campbell table

Written By Robin Wade

The Phil Campbell tableThe Phil Campbell table

Very much like the recovery efforts so far in Phil Campbell, kinda like our favorite past time down here, the table making process has begun, but as always has been SLOW. 

Here are a couple of pics of the table at this stage of the process.  The slabs are right where we left them after milling them into natural edge lumber back in September.  They need to air dry until the internal moisture content gets pretty close to 30%, before they'll be ready for the kiln.  I did cut them a bit thinner than usual - but they've still got quite a ways to go.

Although this looks like a lot of lumber, possibly similar to the state that Phil Campbell's presently in, the middle of these slabs (the log) was quite rotten.  I'm confident that it's going to make an amazingly beautiful piece of functional art - but at this point, it could go one of several directions.  Stay tuned.

The Phil Campbell table

Robin Wade
Robin Wade Furniture is a celebration of nature—a melding of a forward thinking commitment to the environment and a quiet, harmonious design aesthetic. From his "slow studio" in North Alabama, award-winning wood artist Robin Wade designs and crafts one-of-a-kind handmade furniture. Years before a piece is ready to enter a client's home or a gallery, the process begins—naturally—with the tree. Sustainably harvested, each specimen of hardwood is flitch sawn into natural-edge wood slabs, debarked by hand with a draw knife, and stacked to dry, usually for years, before the final cure in the kiln. From here, Wade and his team use both hand and power tools to bring Wade's vision to life, and then finish each piece with a hand-rubbed oil blend. Each organic furniture creation by Robin Wade Furniture balances the raw, natural beauty of environmentally, locally sourced hardwoods with minimally invasive, clean lines—a juxtaposition Wade calls both rustic and modern. “I haven’t yet found a better artist than nature,” he says.
robinwadefurniture.com
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