Antique Rake Table

About 6 months ago my sister gave me four pieces of metal to give to my husband to make something with.  She said she just knew he come up with something great.  Ends up they were tines off of an antique dump rake, as seen in this picture my husband found on Craigslist.

Then she showed me a picture in Anthropologie of an inspiration table.  Well my husband and I played with these four pieces of metal for months trying to puzzle them together.  Part of the problem was that one was broken, so Dean had to cut the other three to match.  Then he came up with a configuration that he thought would work, welded them together using some angle iron and rebar and this is what he got.  He is such a genius!  Next came a top for it.  I thought it should be something rustic but he said the aged wood I picked out wouldn't work because the cut ends would look wrong, of course he was right.  Anyhow he found some birch in an old stack of lumber that his dad had sawed on the sawmill years ago.  Then he had to plane each board (the shop was covered top to bottom in sawdust), saw them to size, and glue them altogether to get this.

 Next we had to decide on a color and finish for the top.  First Dean wanted to try to burn the wood.  The test piece turned out pretty good, but it was hard to control the degree of burn.  Then we took most of the stain we had laying around and did test strips.  It surprised us both that we chose the ebony stain by Minwax, since we've never really liked it.  He finished it off with a satin spray poly.  Well anyhow, after much measuring, drilling, and counter sinking, he screwed on the top.  Here it is.  I think he did a great job, I think my sister will love it.

Partying this week with:

beyond the picket fence 
miss mustard seed
funky junk interiors hand built furniture