Modern Table

About this modern table

This modern table is the water table in the new Arc3 range. Our previous pulpit designs have geometric shapes, made up of what are called primary forms. Circles, cones, rectangles are instances of this. These shapes look good and are relatively straight forward to make.

The Arc3 pulpit, water table and preachers table are a radical departure from this. They use organic shapes (non primary shapes). This is much more modern. They are more flowing in appearance and have a more dynamic feeling. This reflects the energetic and dynamic nature of church preaching. The preacher will rarely stand motionless on the stage. Instead they are dynamic, walking around, gesturing and expressing.

Making organic shapes is much more difficult. And even more so in stainless steel. We estimate that it is about eight times harder to make an Arc3 range compared with the Arc2. 
In fact, the organic shapes we wanted to make had never been achieved before in stainless steel.

At first, we explored different materials. That would have been much easier. But other materials are not as durable as stainless steel. We want the pulpit and tables to stand up to the task of being used in a church for 20 years and still look good. If we were to use a painted finish, a chip or scratch would need to be retouched. Stainless steel is raw, so a scratch or knock will not be noticed in the same way. Most marks can be removed by carefully rubbing with a heavy duty scotch brite pad from the supermarket (like you would use to clean pots and saucepans.)

In addition, stainless steel and clear acrylic (with anti reflective film) are what designers might call ‘raw finishes’ .
Unlike painted or applied finishes, raw finishes have a neutral appearance and are more likely to fit into a variety of church interiors. Whether in a traditional cathedral or a modern warehouse church building, raw finishes will still look good. 

The Arc3 table comes standard with anti reflective film. This is particularly important if you have a projector screen behind the preacher (which most churches do). Click here for more information on anti reflective film.

It comes flat (keeps the parts safer and avoids the cost of sending air). It requires assembly and we provide the tools and expect it to take you less than 5 minutes.

Like our other pulpits and tables, it is made by us here in Australia. It takes continuous monitoring and problem solving to achieve our standards. We are pulpit specialists, so this is all we do. It takes commitment to this one thing to be able to make this difficult lectern at all, let alone to a high standard. 

It is going to on your stage and your congregation are going to look at it every weekend. We are committed to do whatever it takes to get the best possible result. There is no way that this would be possible by sending it away to have someone else try to make it.

More about the painful birth of the Arc3 table

Although still modern, to us the Arc2 lectern was looking a bit long in the tooth.

We tried 17 times to design a better pulpit than the Arc2. 16 times our select customers said they preferred the Arc2. It was fruitless and tiring. Finally Stephen designed a lectern shape that was amazing looking but impossible to make. We spent thousands of dollars and many hours painstakingly making one by hand. Our select customers loved it. They wanted to buy it. Now our challenge was to find a way to make it at a reasonable price. 

We spent 2 years trial and error working out how to make it. It was impossible to make using regular machines, so we had to make our own machines. We made machines from a metal cutting flame throwing torch, windscreen wiper motors from tractors and more conventional parts. In the process, we had 11 suppliers say that various parts were not possible to make, produced 436 design drawings, and we set fire to a tree.