WORK IN PROGRESS: A One of One Railway Sleeper Table

This is nowhere near finished yet, but it was far too unusual not to show you where we are up to.

The customer asked us to create a table using old railway sleepers, and you can already see just how much history is sitting inside that timber.

Every dark mark, old hole, knot, split and change in colour has been earned over the years. We could build another table in the same style, but we could never make this exact table again. That is what will make it a proper one of one piece.

For anyone wondering, these sleepers are not creosote treated. They are old, solid and absolutely full of character, but still suitable for us to work with and finish properly.

Working with timber this old is completely different from using clean new lengths. Nothing is perfectly uniform and no two pieces behave in exactly the same way.

A lot more time has to go into machining, levelling and carefully sanding every surface. The challenge is making the finished table smooth and practical without removing all the age and character that made us choose these sleepers in the first place.

The chunky base is now together and the top is beginning to take shape, but we are not 100% happy with it just yet.

There is still plenty more sanding and refining to do. As we work further into the timber, more of those lighter natural tones will come through and the whole piece will begin to balance out.

We will not rush it just for the sake of taking a finished photo. When we show this one complete, it needs to look every bit as good as it deserves to.

This is exactly the sort of commission we want more of. Something different, built around a customer’s idea and impossible to find sitting in an ordinary furniture shop.

If you have an idea for a table or another piece that is a little outside the ordinary, send it over.

The more unusual, the better 🤩