We were contacted by some new clients that were planning a significant house remodel and wanted to fold in some organic features using locally foraged lumber. We met with the clients in their home collaborated on the approach we would take. They wanted a live edge bar-height table and a new, more rustic mantel for their fireplace. We went back and forth on design concepts and wood species and settled on walnut for both and metal base for the bar table.
We started on 1/1/2020 by milling a walnut at our local sawmill, Tom the Sawyer. The walnut log was salvaged recently from a tree service working in Lake Quivera. We set out to produce a mantel that was roughly 12 inches deep, 8 inches thick and just over 6 feet long. Needless to say… it wasn’t light. When cutting a live-edge mantel, you remove the excess material from the top, bottom and back, and in the process you start to reveal the grain hidden below the surface.
With the mantel cut and loaded, the next step was to remove the bark from the live-edge face and treat the log with a solution aimed at making the wood uninhabitable for wood-borne insects. You can see the solution bringing out the color of the walnut as it dries. There is still miles to go on the mantel, but you can clearly see it taking shape in these pictures.
While the mantel was resting, we started work on the top for the bar. We selected a great piece of highly figured walnut for this project to match with the client’s request for something eye-catching. This particular board was salvaged from the site of the new Johnson County courthouse at the corner of Santa Fe and Kansas Ave in Olathe, Kansas on June 12th, 2018. The log can be seen in the background of the picture behind the handsome person with the giant chainsaw.
With our slab selected we began the process of flattening the slab removing the rough saw-mill marks and any other funkiness that developed in the wood as it dried. We did this using a series of different grit sandpapers on a wide-belt sander. The grain that was revealed was stunning. This is by far the longest example of crotch figure we have ever worked with. Crotch figure (the swirling grain pattern down the center of the board) is formed when a branch intersects the trunk. There will be lots of work to do filling in the various cracks and inclusions, but it will be well worth the effort. An inclusion is when a foreign object, in this case bark, gets swallowed up by the tree as it grows.
We have a good feeling about this project as we experienced a very positive omen while the mantel was drying outside. Everyone knows that a squirrel crossing your mantel is a very positive sign (actually no-one knows this and we’re pretty sure we just made that up, but it’s still very cool).
Next it was time to bring the mantel into the shop, but before we could do that it needed to be trimmed to it’s final length.
Switching gears back to the table, it was time to deal with some of the irregularity in the wood. One of my woodworking mentors once told me, “there is the right way, there is the quick way and rarely or those to the same.” The easiest route would have been to pour epoxy over the bark inclusion and hope for the best. The right way is to take the time clearing all of the bark which has a potential to go soft over time. This is a time consuming and messy process, but produces the best result.
Once the bark inclusion was removed, the underside was taped and the gap was filled with black epoxy. At the same time, we filled any other cracks and knots in the surface. It’s usually at this time where people start to question what you are doing, but fear not… the end justifies the means. Each side of the table will require several rounds of epoxy, and each round takes 24 hours to cure, so this process can take days to complete, but the results are worth the effort.
So by day 5 of epoxy work, we were almost ready to begin sanding and cutting the table to length… just one more day to go. But before that, we needed to fill some imperfections in the edges. Thanks to the inventor of the bench vise.
The one positive on the epoxy was that we were able to make progress on the legs with the help of our friend Neil. This was some pretty stout material and we needed a larger metal saw. The base was a custom design in collaboration with our clients and features two 6×6 supports and kick-bar made from two pieces of 2×2 square tubing with a gap in the middle to give the piece a more refined look. Needless to say, this thing isn’t going to blow away in a soft breeze.
While the clear-coat on the metal dried and hardened, we were able to shift back to the mantel where we started to remove the milling marks with some 50 grit sandpaper and an industrial strength belt sander. Once that was complete we sanded with a random orbital sander until it was smooth and ready for finish. On the front, we worked the live edge by hand. The clients wanted a rustic look and we tried to strike the balance of leaving some of the staining in place and mother nature helped us as well with some sap-wood staining as the result of growth and weather.
With everything smooth and ready to go, the first coat of finish was applied and the mantel came to life. This is our favorite part of doing what we do… seeing the hours of sanding pay off in a the rich grain and satin finish.
One of the ends of the mantel is a text book example of what heartwood and sapwood look like.
The table was trimmed to final length, squared up and the epoxy was sanded flat in order to begin Day 7 of epoxy work (final touch-ups). The edges were debarked, sanded smooth and then any imperfections that threatened the long-term stability of the table were epoxied. We like to leave a the edges smooth, but with a little bit of character to highlight the live-edge.
The mantel is nearing completion now and we are into the final stretch where it is scuff-sanded, wiped clean with a tack-cloth and then the next coat of finish is applied. We also did the final sanding on the table top. The light is used to find any final scratches or imperfections so that they can be remedied before the first coat of finish. Unfortunately this led to Day 8 of epoxy work, but only on two tiny spots.
The mantel is DONE. While the finish still needs to cure, which can take upwards of 3-4 weeks, it is ready to be installed and good to go. Our shop-dog and every-present helper, Midge, celebrated the mantel’s completion by scratching on the shop door and begging for a quick walk around the farm. Jen snapped this really cool image that has the effect of a pixelated Seurat painting due to the dense fog (the shop is about 300 feet in the background and completely invisible).
After hours of sanding we were ready to begin mounting the top. The sanding process takes forever on highly figured pieces of wood like this because the grain is so tight that the surface becomes very hard (and thus a pain to sand). In order to mount the top and yet still be able to remove it for install, we used screw-in inserts. These inserts thread themselves into the wood providing an anchor point for bolts that can be inserted and removed as required. Here’s the first glimpse of the table in the home stretch. It came together nicely.
So mounting the table top was an arduous task. The downside to working with highly figured wood is that it can often be finicky. We took several days of slowly wetting the table top and tightening the mounting bolts to gently ease the top into its new form. We did one last epoxy tough-up, sanded the piece smooth and applied our first coat of finish. Stunning.
Here are the mantel and table installed in the client’s newly remodeled home
