All of us just want to get out for a little fresh air and exercise. A week or two ago we hiked prairie link, a section of what we rightly or wrongly called powderface trail for many years. None the less it was a beautiful day with some great friends......and Fillmore of course.
Alberta has a lot of things to offer, beautiful mountains, glacier fed rivers and lakes, but warm hunid nights are not on the list off assets. So being from Manitoba where you can sit outside on a patio until the wee hours of the night is not an option unless you bring layers of fleece and down. So I decided that we needed a fire table to extend the comfortable evenings on our deck. After some research and going to the showroom, I decided I could build a fire table. Michelles dad was here and we cut down an old Oak wine barrel formally used as a rain barrel for the base, then I constructed a temporary fire pan and table top. Well the prototype fell short of a few key elements. The base was perfect, but my fire pan was flimsy and my table top was...well....combustible. Not good qualities when your talking about a table with open flames and heat for hours. So with some cajoling motivation from my baby brother, i decided to pour a concrete table top.
Jeff and I made the form from 1" wall foam board.
In an effort to keep the table top thin(and therefor as lite as possible) I used a specialty concrete with shredded fiberglass fibers in the mix. We spent a lot of time vibrating the pour to make the surface as smooth as possible.It was our first time doing this but we were happy with how it turned out.
After some sanding and de burring, the surface finish was smooth enough I dont even feel like we need to make a slurry to fill holes
I can see many a late nights by the table coming up....
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