It Turned into an Obsession
It turned into an obsession: such amazing wood, I’ll just buy a little more…
For years I bought all the crotch mahogany I could find and I was pretty good at finding the wood! Wax the ends, knots and wildest crotch figures, put on sticks, band and then put them in the barn for safekeeping. All the boards have been air dried inside at least 17 years.. some 30 years!
We have used the crotches in some amazing furniture – just take a look at the Furniture We Have Made page – a 36″ Pie Crust Tea Table, a New England Desk, a 4 Drawer Shell Chest, and many very cool coffee tables.
You can buy your own board and make your special project or you can pick out your board and we will turn it into your very own custom Kinloch creation.
Feedback is that our customers were finding it difficult to mill our amazing boards. Not everyone has a 52″ planer sander. So now our boards are even more desirable because they are planed and sanded to 60 grit. Woodworking just got easier and a lot more fun!
Please stop by and visit our shop and our showroom in Unionville, PA.
By the way, I do have the elusive satinwood crotch veneer and 6″ x 6″ fiddleback mahogany bedposts, but I am not parting with those unless we make them into furniture!
(Picture: Doug with daughter Jessie and faithful dog MacGregor holding one of Kinloch’s magnificent solid mahogany crotches – years have passed, the faithful dog is now much greyer and my daughter Jessie is now in college. We still have lots of amazing boards!!)
The End Table
Tables of this design are $2,800. The tops are a single tiger maple board with amazing figure. The legs are a pleasing design and individually hand turned. We turn our work by hand because the end result is crisper, cleaner, and tighter.
There is something about having a single skilled artisan, rather than a hydraulically controlled machine shaping the legs on your handmade table.
The lower shelf takes a nice table and makes it a lot more functional. Another area for books and a tissue box leaving enough room for the lamp on the top.
The drawerfront is highly figured birdseye maple. We veneer the highly figured wood onto less figured wood so the drawerfront doesn’t warp or twist. Yes, the drawer is dovetailed.
Hand dovetailed because that’s just the way better is. With a tiger maple we use a hand turned wood knob. Because wood looks better than brass on tiger maple. The knob is turned with a tenon that goes through the drawerfront and is wedged from the back. Knobs held on with screws come loose. Knobs through tenoned and wedged do not.
A clear durable oil finish on top. We stain the tiger maple with a liquid butterscotch colored stain to accent the figure in the wood.
Why a Kinloch Coffee Table When Anyone Can Take a Piece of Wood and Put Legs on It?
Our coffee tables are not cheap. The pictured table is $4,800. We know our customers have lots of options with their money. So our work must be special. Not an I want, but an I gotta have. To us, that means special on many levels.
The wood must be enchanting. At Kinloch, that means going to our wood barn and pulling a board from our library of amazing boards. For the pictured table, a single board of highly figured solid crotch mahogany.
Kinoch has the finest crotch mahogany in the world. Well, the only crotch mahogany collection – over 300 boards. Google it. Our sister website will come up. Old growth, salvaged years ago from what was left after slicing veneer. Our last purchase was in 2004.
The finish on the top is coat after coat of oil. It takes a couple of weeks to build us a good durable finish. But the finish is clear and the grain of the wood just jumps. Other finishes are faster, but nowhere near as beautiful and clear. If you get a scratch, a little wax makes it disappear.
The single board coffee table has been made for years by some really famous woodworkers: Nakashima, Maloof, and Esherick. We wanted our own design.
Angled end columns ebonized with a twisted metal stretcher. The ebonized base sets off the rare top, The twisted metal channels some primordial power strong enough to twist steel.
All this description may seems like marketing gibberish to some, but to those who get it, come visit us! If this table isn’t the shape or size you desire, we can sort through our 300 board collection until we find your board.