Seriously tyguy, fire the president of a company because someone in customer service isn't being responsive enough. Maybe someone in customer service is lazy, or maybe they are just overwhelmed as their business is growing at a rate that they can no longer keep up. Surgit has even addressed some issues on this forum personally. I can't recall that happening with any other manufacturer. I got my CC in less than 2 weeks as they had it in stock at the the factory and it's LP. I hear there is a much longer lead time now. TominLA, the reputation of the Capital Precision is very good, and the only difference from the Culinarian is the burners. Watch some older episodes of chopped and look at how huge those sealed burner caps are, most of the flame goes up around the outside of the pan. That caused problems for many competitors. I think I would be very unhappy with those burners. If you could stretch the budget another thousand, I think you would be much happier with the CC or a BlueStar. I heard that American Range came out with an open burner residential range targeted for a lower price point. ARROB430N $2999 at AJMadison. The higest powered burners on the American Range are 25,000 btu and the oven will hold a full sized baking sheet just like a BlueStar. Yes, the open burners are so much better. Capital has all their owners manuals online on their website, so you may be able to find the information you were looking for there.

Dishwashers have to be on site so the granite people can drill holes for wood blocks. If the DW was in fact sitting there, the granite company could have at least mentioned it since a lot of DW are top mounted. The stone company I used would not come and template until the dishwasher was there. But since it had the side brackets (I had to show them the specs) they were willing to template without waiting for the backordered DW to actually be in place. You are lucky your DW has side holes. These are not that common yet and typically say "stone counter top" ready in the specs.

I chose Plato Woodwork over P&F. As a designer, I look for quality in the product as well as people and manufacturers who can provide the proper service and deliver on time and on budget for my clients. And Plato has done that for me in the past 3 years. During my initial debate between the two lines, I considered the quality of the finishes and their abilities to make custom parts and pieces and I'd say they are both great products. In terms of quality, I was particularly drawn to the fact that Plato's finishes are much more unique and stands itself apart from the masses. Their cabinet boxes are sturdy and well engineered, and as an added bonus, they are a green product with a formaldehyde-free finish and glue. (see http://www.platowoodwork.com/ and their green website http://platowoodwork-california.com) While I cannot speak about P&F's customer service, I can definitely share some experiences about Plato. Their customer services and engineers actually review your kitchen before making the cabinets, as opposed to just another cabinet order being pushed through an assembly line. So they actually know which cabinet goes where and look at your order as a functional space, versus just a cabinet list. If/when there are problems, their customer service jumps all over it to make sure a reasonable solution is provided to ensure proper customer satisfaction, which both my clients and I value highly. Having been in the business for years now, I have had enough of different finger pointing and am glad that I haven't had much of that to deal with at all from Plato and their service reps. And at the end of the day, I think we are paying the same, if not less than what most other cabinet makers at this level of craftsmanship, so then at the end of my debate, it was really more of a question, 'why NOT Plato?' I hope this helps and good luck with your project! Eric eric@mtkc.net www.mtkc.net Here is a link that might be useful: MT Kitchen Cabinets, Inc

Ashley, going back to your original question on slides, if you want to use a fixed base, you need an equalizer slide also called a pedestal extender http://www.leevalley.com/us/hardware/page.aspx?p=40139&cat=3,43586 Osborne sells them as well, and here is a video showing installation and how it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHm2asFZTn0  On hand hewing, not sure what you are asking about - do you mean hand planing the surface. With a sharp plane blade and a good plane, it is a lot of work but manageable. If you don't have a decent plane, or don't know how to sharpen the blade it will be a trial. As to woods, there is soft maple and hard maple. Hard maple, is as the name implies, pretty hard, but while soft maple is softer than hard maple, it is still pretty strong, and would do much better as a table top than pine http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/differences-between-hard-maple-and-soft-maple/ I agree with the suggestions about a woodworking club. If there are none near you, another option, though it will take a lot of time, is buy access to FWW magazine index through their online program - which is around $4 a month http://www.finewoodworking.com/members  There is a free trial period, so you may want to check it out. It won't walk you through every step of your project, but you should find articles that will show you most of the info needed for each part of your project, from the legs, to working with large slabs, to different ways to have the table top expand http://www.finewoodworking.com/2014/12/03/expanding-top-for-any-table  http://www.finewoodworking.com/2014/12/03/how-to-engineer-an-expanding-tabletop