The Ark of the End-table

The Ark of the End-Table

By Bobby Neal Winters

God told Noah to make an Ark 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits. Because of the context, we might think an Ark is a boat, but later, God instructs Moses to make an Ark that is 2 and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits tall.

An Ark is a box. When you work with wood, just about everything is a box.

I’ve been working on a box.  A big box.  I’ve just finished it, but it took on a life of its own.

Since just after Thanksgiving, I’ve been working on an end table for my brother.  We’d gone down to see him the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and I saw a table he had in his living room.  I determined to make him an end table to match it.  

If any of you have seen “Lonesome Dove” it was like when Captain Call determined to take Gus’s body back to Texas, but I didn’t recognize it at the time.  I was put on a path.

The key thing that set this path for everything that followed was that the legs were to be made from a four by four. Everything was on rails from that point on.  

The table needed to be two feet tall. (I don’t work in cubits.) Therefore, the end table was destined to weigh at least as much as an eight-foot four-by-four.

If there are any young men reading this, they might not get it.  If you are reading this and have never personally wrestled with a four-by-four, you might not get it.  However, if you are a man beyond a certain age, I believe you will understand.  There is a certain amount of heft involved. You can carry them yourself; and if you’ve taken care of yourself, you might do it easily; but you don’t do it thoughtlessly.

I will say this.  When you cut an eight-foot four-by-four into four pieces, it does reduce what physicists refer to as the “rotational moment of inertia,” but the weight remains. Every darn bit of it.

As work progressed, my project became approximately a 2-foot-by-2-foot-by-2-foot cube.  That is bigger than it sounds, especially when it’s heavy and is gradually growing in weight.  

I started with the legs, and then chiseled out the mortises. (It loses a little weight. Yea.) Then you put in stretchers made from scrap 2-by-4s. (And it gains quite a bit more weight. Boo.) 

All the time, it’s taking up space. What’s more, it’s taking up working space.  And did I mention that it’s heavy.

There are spots on the floor, here and there, where I could put it, but it got to be so darned heavy that moving it back and forth got to be quite a chore.

An enmity grew between me and my end table.

I am not quite sure enmity is the right word there.  I was annoyed at it.  It was in my way.  There are all the other things I wanted to do while the glue dried, but I couldn’t because the carcass of the end table was in my way.  

Carcass.  That is the word that is used.  Like the dead body of an enemy that you’ve killed.  Some ancient furniture maker understood.

The answer may seem obvious: Just finish the project.

Ah, but the project was getting so big that it was getting in its own way.  

I’d made the carcass, but I needed to make the drawers, and there the carcass was right where I needed to be to glue-up my drawers.  

I cleaned a spot on the floor; heaved the carcass off the work table; did the drawers.

Then I needed a top, but where to put the drawers then?  

Okay, I could slide the drawers into the carcass which I did.

When I made the top--again trying to match the piece that my brother had--I put a frame around a piece of plywood and then used mortar to attach porcelain tiles to it.  Then I grouted between the tiles.

At this point, I’d kissed trying to make this table lighter good-bye a long time ago.

Every step of the construction was hindered by its bulk and weight.

I slapped some shellac on it and declared it finished on February 8.

When the shellac dried, I could take it out of my shop.  But I needed help.  With the Ark, Noah had the waters of the flood there to move it.  All of his neighbors are dead, but the thing is moving, right? With the Ark of the Covenant, there were pairs of rings on each side to help them move it with poles.  

I didn’t have any of that, but I do have a loving and helpful wife who lovingly helped me.

The Ark of the End-Table now awaits my next trip to my brother's house, and I’ve got a lot of workspace back.  

Life is good.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.