Slovenia's forests are a real treasure

Slovenia is a land of forests and wood is abundant. And not just any wood, but the best and most precious species in Europe. Mighty walnuts grow in many courtyards, the Pokljuka plateau is known for its sloppy spruces, and mountain maples, which are among the most prized species of wood, can be found at almost every step.

Wood is beautiful, pleasing to the eye and soul and to the touch and therefore an ideal material for furniture, which should evoke a feeling of comfort and warmth. In the flood of artificial materials that surround us at every turn and everywhere, wood represents a genuine contact with nature and brings a piece of forest into our spaces.

Short and concise arrangement - a massive oak table

In the spring of about a year ago, a very dear friend asked me by the way if I could make a table. “Of course I would know,” I said, thinking of a few tables I had made by then.

A massive oak table is usually not a particularly complicated affair, so this will be an easy task, I told myself. Then some water and months passed and I almost forgot to talk about the table when I received the SMS “Is it still valid for the table? :) ”.

“Send measurements and a sketch,” I replied, and so began the nearly four-month-long hand-making of a massive oak table.

The process of making a massive oak table for a wine cellar in Bohinj

The dimensions of the future table intended for the wine cellar stunned me a little - more than 4 meters long and just under a meter wide, and it struck me that this would obviously not be as easy a task as I initially expected.

Choosing wood for the table

First, it was necessary to find a suitable wood for the table. The decision was made from the very beginning for oak, which is a hard and high-quality and durable wood. In addition, oak is used to make wine barrels and the oak table would be a wonderful addition to the ambience of the wine cellar in Bohinj.

I found suitable wood on a small farm in Gorenjska, where there were oak planks that once grew on the edge of the forest behind the farm. They have remained with them since the construction of the roof 75 years ago and have been dusted under a haystack for many years. So they dried slowly and for a long time, which is useful not to crack. The finished table was supposed to be 4.2 meters long and 0.8 meters wide, but it simply could not be made from a single piece because the table could not be brought into the wine cellar at all due to the physical limitations of the entrance. When they delivered me a good 5 inches thick and 3 feet long oak plank, I almost ran out of space in my small workshop.

The showers had to be shortened to the approximate length first, and then the difficult search for the best possible combination began. According to the plans, the table should have the raw edge that a tree once had. The next step was leveling and trimming the wood, as even completely dried wood is never quite flat and smooth. Once the plows were empowered, they had to be joined, and since the sides were still not perfectly flat, milling was still required. Then I ran into the first major problem: the pieces of wood had to be pressed together as much as possible during gluing, and I didn’t have enough clamps to glue. Luckily, a friend came to my aid and provided me with steel rods and tensioning straps to replace most of the clamps.

Ko je bila prva polovica mize zlepljena skupaj, sem naletela na drugo težavo. Že posamezni plohi so bili izjemno težki in sedaj so bili zlepljeni v en sam velikanski kos, ki ga skoraj nisem mogla več premikati. Vsaka polovica mize (brez podnožja) je namreč tehtala prek 80 kg. Spet so mi na pomoč priskočili prijatelji in mi posodili industrijski voziček, s katerim je bilo možno premikati mizo velikanko naokrog po delavnici.

The gluing was followed by a lengthy sanding of the table top, which claimed a fatality between my machines. The small belt sander, which has served me for more than 15 years, burned out due to exertion and released its electric thyme. Of course, it was no longer possible to repair it, as spare parts could no longer be obtained. The grinding therefore dragged on for a few days as long as it took me to get a new grinder. Sanding was followed by polishing with finer sandpaper until the table surface was completely smooth and ready to apply the protective layer.

Wood oiling: tung oil on the table

In order to keep the table as natural as possible for the wood, the decision was made to protect it only with natural tung oil. Tung oil is extracted from the seeds of tung, a tree that grows in southern China, Burma and Vietnam. When dried, tung oil is completely resistant to water, alcohol and fruit acids, making it ideal for a table in a wine cellar, where, in addition to wine glasses and bottles, there will also be vinegar, olives and other delicacies.

The oil had to be applied slowly and patiently in several layers, each drying for at least a day or two. The most suitable method of application is to wipe the wood with a cotton cloth soaked in oil. The goods turned out to be excellent - cotton for T-shirts, so I searched all the drawers and cupboards for all the white T-shirts. Some of them were sacrificed by neighbors and relatives and the tungsten could have started :)

Oil-soaked cloths are extremely flammable, and after use, each flew into a full bucket of water that stood in front of the workshop.

Once the fourth, last coat of oil was applied, a tedious wait began for the oil to dry completely and soak completely into the surface, which took almost a month and a half. I wiped the table every day with a paper towel and when there were no more greasy stains on it, the oil was completely absorbed into the surface. I sent an SMS: “The table is ready. Come look. ” The answer came almost at the same moment: "I'm coming :)". It was actually the last time to deliver a table, as the boutique hotel in Bohinj opened two days later. We loaded the table in the van and she hurried towards her new home, where a custom-made metal base made by the best blacksmith from Bohinj was already waiting for her.