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Karl D. Clawson

The Table Story

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The Table Story -

I am a crazy old bastard. Now for the literal good spelling types my parents were both married long before I was born. The crazy part, well I don't have the papers confirming it nor have I ever been institutionalized. But for the figuratively speaking types, of course this is true. 

When I was a wee lad running through the hills of Pennsylvania I could hear people yelling there goes that crazy little bastard from up the hollow.

Then I was a crazy little bastard until my freshman year in high school. This name changed after I took several beatings from a bully and his gang of bully buddies.

I finally reached my limit with this asshole and beat him to the ground with an algebra book (ha, try doing that with a spelling book, you would get your ass kicked) I can still hear him screaming like a girl, " NOOOOO, NOT A BOOK!"

When I finally stopped book-slapping the head bully, all of his friends where standing back with looks of horror etched on their faces. I remember saying, "Anyone else want a math lesson?"  I took a step towards them swinging my now mangled and bloody algebra book, and they all ran.

Then I was given the dubious honor of  "Don't mess with that Crazy Mother F&*$er  (new crazy name) he will hit you, with a book!"

Then for many years I was simply a crazy bastard. Now. Now, all of a sudden I am a crazy OLD bastard, or OLD crazy Bastard, or a Crazy bastard that happens to OLD.

Do any of you see where I am going with this??????? I know a lot of crazy bastards that are a lot older than I am and they are still just "crazy bastards". So knock it off, you know who you are.

And finally, I am tired of being called "full of crap”" This story will have pictures associated with it to prove pertinent facts. This will prove to most of you that I am only half-full of crap. The pessimists out there have my blessing to think that I am half-empty of crap.

 If you got this far, God love ya.

 And Now

The Table

 Many weeks ago I spun a tale of a giant root ball that I wished to make into a base for a table. Then I told of my horrible woo as the root-ball was too big, and I had to go back down and cut another smaller piece of stump to use. If you remember, I was rescued by a giant that came out of the forest who then picked up and placed the 300 lbs plus piece of wood in my truck for me.

Well this is the rest of the story.

My plan was to let the wood dry out behind the house until my next arrival in two weeks. I thought this wood (ha, ha, joke good spellers) give the wood plenty of time to dry out. The root- ball indeed did dry out and could be worked with. I still have no Idea what to do with the root-ball tho. It appears to have grown out of the side of the hill and there is a 45-degree angle at the beginning of the growth.

I can't see anything in it yet, but I will keep looking.
 

Here is the Root-Ball.

Cool huh? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

The stump however did not dry out at all. It in fact seemed to be wetter. We had about 10 inches of rain that previous two weeks and I think the stump sucked it all up. If you could lift it up I might have bet that it would drip.

At this rate it would never dry out. I had to come up with a plan. What a great plan, I came up with to boot.

I placed the stump in the hot midday sunshine then at night. This is the smart part. I made and placed the stump in a dry sauna.

I made the sauna utilizing a tent and a dehumidifier that I place into the walkout basement.

Every morning using a refrigerator dolly I would haul the stump (no easy task) out into the sunshine, only to haul it back during the evening.

As you might guess some of the neighbors started taking an interest in what this OLD crazy bastard was doing.

Then the jeering started. "Everyone else has a pet dog but Seadog has a pet log".  I played along (because that's just the kinda guy I am) and told everyone that this was indeed my new pet and its name is Stumpy. Thank you very much.

Then I would hear crap like, "Look its Seadog's new BFF (best friend forever) Stumpy".

As another less tolerant man would have given up. I kept up the drudgery and continued hauling my new BFF in and out every day. Actually I bleached and insecticided Stumpy every morning as to kill any residual bacteria or borers and such that may had infected my new best pal.

After a few days Stumpy had indeed dried out enough to start working with.

Then I started grinding. I used an angle grinder with the biggest circular wire brush I have ever seen. It looked like a strand from the cable of the Golden Gate Bridge. You could barely bend it with pliers.

The first cutting took five inches of wood off of the exterior of Stumpy. Probably about 50 pounds of rotted wood, very tinny, ittsy bitsy pieces of rotted wood. I had all the protection gear on but still had to take a shower with the garden hose. I needed a leaf blower to clean up the work area and to blow off Stumpy. It literally made a cloud of dust.

The next few days involved taking Stumpy into the work area, grinding then placing my new BFF into the sun, then back into the sauna.

Then one morning it happened I reach hard wood. Now the serious grinding started. I would locate the hard veins and push the grinder deep into the softer still rotted soft grains next to the hard ones. All of this was done following the grains of the stump to make the cuts look natural.

Since there was still an enormous amount of soft rotted wood I needed to apply several coats of wood hardener. Hag called the local hardware store that is only 40 minutes (one way) away and asked if they had this hardening product made by minwax, she said it came in pint containers.

"Sure do", the guy told her.

When I went to get the hardener the guy took me up to a shelf with a small hardening mix. I asked where the minwax hardener was. "This is all we got," he said. "My wife just talked to you and you told her you had one-pint containers."

"That's it", he said. "That's only two ounces," I replied. "Yup, one pint", he said. I will not include the rest of the conversation because it paints a bad picture of me.

Luckily for me it was also beer day. This is a day in which several of the men in the lake hood go to Louisville for a beer run. I got my bud Bradley on the phone and asked if he could pick up some of the hardener for me.

When the hardening was done it was time to select a stain. We had brought many different stains with us. They all looked black on Stumpy.

Black was not the look I was going for.  Even the bright red (red Oak) stain looked black. With a whim and throwing caution to the wind I pulled out the left over oil based cedar stain that we used on the Pupmahaul tree house (a story for another time). This with utilizing some of the other stains gave me the exact look I was looking for.

Stumpy was still very dry and literally sucked the stain off of the brush. I would let the stain dry and do it again. I used an entire gallon in two days. With a last batch of insecticide application I was ready to Polyurethane Stumpy. I selected an oil base outdoor sealant because, well because I had some on the shelf.

I have never read up on or had any formal training on woodworking; I just like to make big pieces of wood smaller. So those of you out there that do indeed know what you are doing. I confess, as to being a novice. Please, please, I don't want to hear of everything that I had done wrong thus far. Thanks.

Stumpy still sucked up the outdoor rated polyurethane to the tune of another gallon but he finally sealed and glossed up.

During the sealant process I started working on the tabletop.

This piece of wood was 40 inches wide and 84 inches long. It was made out of 2-inch by 2-inch sugar maple. The 2x2 lumber was dowel-rodded with 1 & 3/4 inch dowels.

I was told that the top came out of a GE factory sometime in the 60s when the factory retooled. I had no reason to doubt this as I was given this information by the retired GE factory worker who had stolen them.

Our resident lumber expert Bradley told me that they used maple for workbenches back then making them extra hard by lumbering them when the sap was high in the tree.  Then during the curing process the sugar would harden and make the wood harder and more durable. Could be true the point is I don't care enough to research it.

The old guy who sold me the house left two of these slabs. One I made into a coffee table. The other was my workbench until I found a better use for it, like now.

The old dude had put some type of laminate on the wood in the 60s that were now brittle and very hard to remove.

But I had this figured out because, I had, the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover".  This tool I purchased many years ago for our first house which had a copious amount of horrid 1970's wallpaper in it.

The "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" is about 6 inches wide. It has a red base and has three swiveling wheels with an extraordinary amount of small pointy pokey things sticking out of the wheels. The goal was to take the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" and roll it around on the wallpaper so that it will perforate the wallpaper so that hot water or solvent can reach the glue making the removal of the paper a snap.

And it worked too. It perforated the wallpaper and the drywall behind it. I had to hire a guy to patch all of the drywall from six rooms, because of the hundreds of thousands of holes left by the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover".

Hag told me to throw the f..ing thing away. But nooo, It has been in hiding in my tool bench for 15 years.

This was the perfect tool to remove the hardened laminate. What harm could it do? Tthis was not dry wall we were talking about, it was sugar hardened Maple.

And it worked too. I poured some mineral spirits on the laminate and the glue started to dissolve.

Our stepdaughters were visiting at the time. Well not really stepdaughters but Hags Stepdaughter from a previous marriage and her life partner. So I guess they really aren't anything to me but they introduce me as their step dad and that's good enough for me and to tell you the truth I am proud that they would have me.

The four of us took to pealing away the laminate. It was a real hallmark moment me, SeaHag, SeaLez and SeaBo (I wouldn't call them that if I were you). We had that laminate off in a jiffy.

And what to my wondering eyes did appear but millions of little holes left in the super hard sugar maple left by the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover"

Hag recognized the pattern of the holes immediately, "Oh no you didn't!", she said to me. "I thought I told you to throw that piece of crap a way!"

The truth is she told me to throw that F..ing thing away. There is a difference. But at this point I bowed to her superior intellect and threw the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" into the trash.

I told her not to worry that I had lots of sanding to do and the little holes would disappear.

But first I had to chemically remove the original factory satin and varnish. I don't know what they used back then but I can tell you it was a bitch to get off.

And.

The original stain when dissolving got sucked into the millions of "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" holes.

This is when I went back into the garage removed the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" from the trash and jumped on it with both feet. I will now congratulate the inventors and manufactures of the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" (if nobody has killed them yet) for making one strong and durable tool.

As my 245-pound frame landed squarely on the back of the tool it bent slightly and shot out from under me like a greased pig that had just smoked crack and drank a Red Bull soda.

As I laid there on the hard, cold concrete checking for broken bones I contemplated all of the stupid shit I had done in the past and started rating them to the stupid shit of that particular day. It was a 10.

When I could finally get to a sitting position I reach for broom and started trying to kill the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" but it avoided each swat like it was alive.

When I could finally stand I picked up the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" walked to the edge of the forest and threw the piece of crap as far as I could all the while perforating the ends of my fingertips.

With my fingertips freshly bandaged I started sanding. I sanded for hours. Hard grit, medium grit and fine grit. I sanded until every one of those little freaking holes disappeared.

Now it was time to choose a stain. I had Hag come down and help select. I had three stains to choose from and as I put the first very small sample down on the wood, low a behold hundreds of tiny "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" holes appeared.

Haggy touched the holes and said, "I told you to throw that thing away".

As she took pup down to the lake for a swim I put on my Merrill mountain-hiking boots. These are my favorite boots for hiking the rocky shoreline. They are without a doubt the best hiking boots I have ever had. I then walked out into the forest in the general area that I threw the "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" until I found it.

Then I shot it six times. I only did this because the gun only had six chambers. I then dry fired the gun ten more time screaming "Die Mother f&*ker Die". I then placed a 12.5 wide hiking boot on the back of the bullet ridden "Amazing Magic Wall Paper Remover" and slowly pushed its bullet ridden carcass deep into the forest carpet made up of decades old composted flora and fauna.

The simple solution came to me whilst I was jumping up and down screaming.

Turn the wood over you dumbness

And I did.

The other side was fine and I had sanded and stained the wood before they returned from their swim.

Not only that but stamped into the bottom side was 3-55. With my great ability to deduce the impossible I instantly realized that this piece of wood was manufactured in March of 1955

Here are the pictures to prove it. I didn't have a 'before' picture of stumpy but here are some finished pics

Haaa, just kidding this is our fire pit where great fires have burnt and even bigger lies told,

My new BFF stumpy
	The top
Add some mismatched antique kitchen chairs and voila. Hag calls it modern rustic. I call it chic redneck.

We also had some horrible, terrifying episodes involving a large roving pack of rabid, man-eating  raccoons. But that is a story for another day

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