Shop Tour: World's Strongest Concrete Ping Pong Tables | Shop & Story Pt 1

[@essentialcraftsman]

Full Interview with Lem James Here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKaUi318haZlj5Y

[@_davis435]

What a great niche. And I love that he's secretly planting skateble features all over the place by making objects built to last.

[@leonardticsay8046]

They would still look okay with a little bit of skate wax on them. It wouldn’t even take that much to make it slick since the concrete is so smooth.

[@bobireland1256]

What a wonderful testament to ingenuity, major thinking out of the box, and putting together so many different disciplines with amazing skill! Pray maintain speed and course!

[@zurezkhan]

Coooool! I think I wanna do something similar here in Lahore, Pakistan now. I certainly have the tools and space for it that you helped me set up through youtube. So inspiring! Thanks for bringing this and so much more value to your audience, coach! God bless you and your family.

[@Centercreek]

Inspiring.

[@Gbfaninnm]

Great tour, looking forward to more in the series!

[@Hoaxer51]

Well, I watched this series backwards because I didn’t realize that it had two parts, I guess I should read the title of the video better. I also commented that I’d like to see them actually pour their products to see how they went about it. My interest was from being a cement mason for forty years and I still like to see the inventive ways it is used. Nice job guys, you make the world a more playful place to be!

[@kurtzcol]

concrete foosball table wow thats awesome

[@TWX1138]

I wonder how many people understand the importance of that shaker-table. When I was a kid they built a brand new junior high that I got to attend its opening year, and it featured poured concrete columns for overhead steel shade structures. Those columns were poured with round molds that were meant to impart a finished surface, there was no evidence of spiraling like so many cardboard molds leave, but even over the couple of years I was a student there, the columns started out with visible air holes, and kids probed the surfaces of those columns to break into voids that were just below the surface. It was pretty clear that they hadn't really done an especially thorough job vibrating the concrete to get the air bubbles out as they were pouring. I expect that for these gaming features, it took a fair amount of time to bring the process down to one as efficient as this. It also looks like for a manufacturing process it's not especially hard on the workers for being concrete work. I'm sure that the usual issues apply for exposure to concrete still apply, but working at counter-height for a lot of the process looks less uncomfortable than casting tilt-up walls or the like, and being in a semi-controlled environment is probably less harsh than being outdoors list most concrete work. Looks like a cool idea for durable play features and something where hopefully reputation plays a role when it comes to repeat business from cities looking to equip their parks and public spaces.

[@dougfairburn2037]

EXTREMELY INSPIRING! makes me want to start my own business. Great stuff. Thanks for the tour.

[@WhiteytheLab]

Love the Backgammon! The Chinese checkers one is fancy...

[@kevinbreitkreutz3678]

How creative!! Excellent work.

[@astral_Y_T]

11:40 nice transition 👌

[@testtestt-z7q]

Great work, thank you! Please remember: white on the right - the chess board is set up wrong. 10:25

[@Concretetabletennis]

Our installation instructions include installing the stools so the white square is on the right. It's surprising how many customers don't even glance at the instructions. Some installations I've seen have the stools oriented BOTH ways where there are multiple chess tables. We have the Knight chess table set up so that there is more room for your knees on the sides of the horse head (knight chess piece). I think they probably installed the stools front and back of the knight so that the chess piece base is more visible. This is at a winery in Sonoma California.

[@62forged]

Awesome story of craftsmanship!

[@MarkZart]

Well done, sir! You are an inspiration 👍

[@merrickboyton3673]

love this idea! There’s a ping pong table near me in north boulder park in Colorado. It’s a great feature of the park. It’s My favorite place to play. Truly a piece of art to play on! One thing I found interesting is the ping pong ball will get almost get sanded after days of play.

[@samrustan]

Oh this is fantastic. ❤

[@MikelNaUsaCom]

Love it!

[@badlandskid]

MRWR agents were a game changer for us when placing concrete 👍🏻

[@charleselliott5767]

Amen Amen..... keep it going

[@youtubeviewer7039]

In Germany this is how all outdoor pingpong tables look like. I never thought about it but there must be tens of thousands in the country and I wonder where they were made, probably not that far away from where they are standing considering what the shipping costs must be.

[@Concretetabletennis]

We first saw them in Germany and I really wanted to play in our parks! We are working on the tens of thousands thing :) There is a company in Germany that makes them and I believe many were originally made by local craftsmen but I have not been over there since we started the business to really take a good look.

[@mrtopcat2]

@@ConcretetabletennisHoffentlich bleibt es dabei und man macht keine Sitzbänke daraus, wie in der USA üblich.

[@jimbarbieri2387]

Have you ever heard of auto-clave concrete? I heard of it years ago, but never since. The special I watched claimed 1/2 the weight, 2x the strength. It's a process of curing concrete in special enclosures to control heat // cool, moisture, pressure, and all variables involved. Just a thought.

[@Concretetabletennis]

Fascinating

[@jml3327]

Does the thinness of the slab have a chance to warp? I have no idea which is why im asking. I know slab foundations can without a vapor barrier. Thanks for any answers. Peace

[@Concretetabletennis]

No warping it's rare to have any damage unless a car or forklift hits it. Our concrete is about 2x the compressive strength of most house foundations and far more fiber and steel inside. Not that foundations aren't engineered well but we love the smell of overkill in the morning.

[@brentjenkinsdesigns]

Have u guys thought about making GO boards?

[@anthonysharp9136]

I could see adding pipes in the corners in high skate-traffic areas.

[@leonardticsay8046]

Angle iron or round coping would definitely make the product more robust.

[@TWX1138]

Trouble with embedding steel is avoiding rust-jacking. If the buyer, most likely municipality, wants it to last for 50 years, then they need to avoid things that will cause fracturing. That might not be a major problem across the entire country but would be a significant issue anywhere with a lot of rain or snow. For places where that's a major concern, simply corrugating the edges might well be enough to make skateboarding on it impractical, at least for protecting the edges from grinding because it wouldn't really be possible to get any speed prior to grinding anyway. The installer's or landscape architect's choices for site design would probably also play a role. If the feature is sitting over gravel or even grass where there's no chance of riding a board from the feature to a sidewalk or other paving then it may simply not be especially fun to try to skate on it.

[@CaptCha-p2q]

Nice!

[@theschwarzey]

Crokinole would be cool to see.

[@markm7824]

New York City's had the chess boards since at least the '70's.

[@jamesjosh]

We didn't make the chess boards at first because so many other people made them but as people asked for them more and more we added them to our product offering.

[@markm7824]

@@jamesjosh James, I love what you've done.

[@allanaaron2281]

Send this table to Bills Mafia before their next Chiefs playoff game (edit to add (table) for clarification)

[@Reallifesatan]

Holy cow dude 😂

[@allanaaron2281]

@@Reallifesatan well...I figure if they can table-dive through this one and break it, maybe their team will have a chance to break through the chiefs barrier finally lol.

[@patrickcowan8701]

No one's moving that sucker.

[@Concretetabletennis]

Right :) There are plenty of portable models ;)

[@aredditor4272]

I love this, and I hate to be negative, but in many cities, there will be people who love to ruin things by etching. We've all seen what they do to windows, but I see them doing it to marble, steel, toilets, sinks, etc. A solution is polycarbonate film, but it has to be routinely replaced.

[@Concretetabletennis]

We have encountered a couple of cases of vandalism in our 15 years but far less than you might guess. I think because it's such a positive play structure. We have tables in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, San Antonio, Anchorage, El Paso, Toronto and many other urban parks.

[@aredditor4272]

@Concretetabletennis I worked in downtown LA for a while. Nothing gets left alone, not even the stonework and marble of historical buildings. 3M and others make vandal resistant films, which gets a lot of use there.

[@mrtopcat2]

Fantastic to see the technology side of it. Although I dislike the use, I don’t like concrete chessboards, pong-tables, benches or alike. I know it is cheaper on the long run, but that is about it. They are cheap, cold and uninviting to use.

[@RollinLeonard]

get a lav mic on this man please.

[@MrWorldasmaya]

Well, this is a good example of where a good American company is about to be hurt and negatively impacted by the absurd, for no reason, Tariffs with Canada. I don't say that to make a political comment - I could care less about rt. v. left divisiveness. Speaking merely as a matter of economics. It's stupid and a lot of good people are about to find out that a tariff is a tax on consumption. Period (there are instances in certain sectors where a tariff is beneficial. Those are limited in scope). Frankly, a lot of people who voted for our current POTUS are going to be hurt by this...and the richest and large corporations will barely feel the bumps in the road....those bumps will be mountains for certain businesses and for the poor in this country. And lest one think 'well we'll just develop our own manufacturing'...that's a fiction, again speaking only in terms of economics. Why is it a fiction? 3 main reasons a) Building a manufacturing base takes time (years) unless one is on a 'war time footing'. b) raw material imports will be more $$ c) American workers, because real wages adjusted for inflation have not risen appreciably in 50+ years, will not be able to survive point 'a' (time) and will not be able to afford 'b' (materials after production) until 'd' happens...ending disproportionate advantage by the richest and corporations and paying people a livable wage. Well, hate to break to anyone but that hasn't happened in 50+ years (no matter if it's a republican or a democrat in charge or in the legislative body) and they're sure not going to do it now. It's a real pickle we're in and it ain't good.

[@Concretetabletennis]

The times they aren't boring. We are going to do our work and focus on bringing the joy and playfulness and connections. It's what we do and it's the best we can do to improve what we can.

[@MrWorldasmaya]

@@Concretetabletennis It's all any of us can do it seems /shrug. Well, GL! And your craftsmanship and 'mission statement' are wonderful. GL and TY for the civil reply neighbor.

[@Concretetabletennis]

@@MrWorldasmaya I'm more than civil towards the mess we are in. We build quality and I prefer a quality government as well.

[@MrWorldasmaya]

@@Concretetabletennis And both take quality people of integrity - those who are honest, value hard-work, truthfulness...