Stories, insights, and craft wisdom from one of America's great furniture makers. Stephen Robin has spent over 60 years working with fine wood in Woodstock, NY — here he shares his knowledge on custom furniture, cabinetry, materials, and the art of making things built to last.
A local client came to us with a striking challenge: build a 10-foot dining table from locally harvested ash, with a dramatic epoxy river running down the center. The ash logs they had sourced were beautiful, but none were long enough for the full table length. The job would require precision joinery before we could even begin the main event.
To achieve the 10-foot length, we needed to join 6-foot and 4-foot sections of ash into a seamless whole. We took great care to align the grain so that even with a seam, the wood would read as continuous from one end to the other. Once satisfied with the joint, we used four tenons to align and secure the two sections, then added a 9-inch plate to ensure long-term strength at the join.
During preparation, we discovered that one large knot in the ash was soft and unlikely to hold an epoxy fill cleanly. Rather than risk a poor result, we cut and inlaid a patch in a similar shape to the knot, matching the surrounding wood as closely as possible. It is one of those details that most people will never notice, which is exactly the point.
To pour the river, we first built a waterproof form from melamine coated with waxed Tyvek tape to prevent adhesion. We built up sides and ends to contain the pour, then filled the channel with tinted epoxy. The river alone required over 12 gallons of epoxy. Patience is everything in this step: the epoxy needs time to cure fully before the form can be removed.
Once the epoxy had fully cured, the entire table top was surfaced again on our CNC router to create a perfectly flat, parallel surface. The finished top then returned to the client for final sanding and the application of a protective finish.
The result was a 10-foot dining table with a live ash top and a luminous tinted epoxy river, a one-of-a-kind piece built to last for generations. If you are interested in a river table or any custom furniture commission, call us at 845-679-8527 or visit the Robin Elliott Gallery at 2488 Route 212, Woodstock, NY.
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