Tracy Sigler — Steel and Aluminum Bridge Table
Author: Tracy Sigler | Posted: June 18th, 2006 | | Tags: furniture, Handmade, metalwork, sculpture, table | 2 Comments »
Happy Father’s Day! Here’s something I couldn’t have made without my father. I did the work on this table, but he taught me how to weld and use almost every type of tool there is. Moreover, he is a living example that you can build anything you want if you can just get started. This was built in his garage, using his welding gear, torch, grinding tools, etc. around 1990. I was also hogging up a lot of shop space with scrap metal and steel I had ordered. Thanks Dad, for being you.
The table top is aluminum plate. This is another piece that has a connection to Peter Pittman. For a while that I knew him Peter was doing design work for some metal fab shop. He offered to take me in the shop on the weekend and let me pick out some scrap. I found this large piece of aluminum behind a jumbo shear. It was surely usable for some job, but after hesitating for a second Peter said I could snag it. He’s cool like that. And nobody was around to notice.
So, this construction was made to the dimensions of that first piece of plate. The frame below it is mostly half inch steel rod, painstakingly welded together on a jig I had made. Then, even more painstakingly, and painfully, the welds were ground flush. Never again! The only pictures I have of it are from a gallery show, on a contact sheet a friend gave me. Thanks again Pam Taylor.
Another Father’s Day note: Our good friends the Pelczarskis now have this table. AND their second child, Tatum, was just born a few days ago! With an infant and a toddler in the house it’s a good thing I made that table baby-proof with only four sharp metal corners.
Thanks again for this amazing table. You know we love it so. It’s currently in our garage so as to minimize the hazard to the young ‘uns. I’m using it as a pseudo workbench, though I’m keeping the banging to a minimum. I have ideas about mounting it on top of another workbench to provide high shelf space and the ability to hang some tools in front of a window without blocking air flow.
Oh, and Max would want you to know that he’s not a toddler any more. He’s a *big boy*. He’s doing some pretty incredible tricks on his trike these days, pushing the pedals from in front of the handlebars, facing both forward and backward, cranking both forward and backward. He’s also experimenting with pressing himself on his handlebars to a position parallel to the ground. It was scary the first few times he did it, but now I figure that he’s got a helmet and decent balance, so why not let him push himself?
Thanks for the shout out on the new critter. We’ll be posting more stuff to http://czarkids.com over the next few weeks, months, years.
Cheers!
It is a beautiful piece…I miss it.