Woodworker's Guide to Live Edge Slabs E-Book

George Vondriska

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 146

Beschreibung

The first-ever accessible guide on making DIY furniture from live-edge slabs, this book will show you everything you need to know about incorporating organic, natural wood pieces into your home. After learning techniques for milling, drying, and preparing your own slab, adding inlays, using resin and epoxy, creating waterfall edges, and more, you'll then move on to complete seven projects that range in size and offer additional ideas and inspiration to implement in your own projects while using the techniques you've learned! From charcuterie boards and floating shelves to desks, dining tables, benches, and more, both beginner and advanced DIYers can accomplish these stunning woodworking projects! Author George Vondriska is the owner of Vondriska Woodworks, one of the premier woodworking schools in the Midwest. The managing editor of Woodworkers Guild of America and a contributor to Fine Woodworking, WOOD, and Woodworker's Journal, George has also taught woodworking classes for the U.S. Peace Corps, the Pentagon, Northwest Airlines, and Anderson Window. Learn from a true woodworking pro as you transform trees into stunning furniture your family and friends will love!

Leseprobe

© 2021 by George Vondriska and Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., 903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552.

Woodworker’s Guide to Live Edge Slabs is an original work, first published in 2021 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc. The patterns contained herein are copyrighted by the author. Readers may make copies of these patterns for personal use. The patterns themselves, however, are not to be duplicated for resale or distribution under any circumstances. Any such copying is a violation of copyright law.

Print ISBN 978-1-4971-0143-2

eISBN 978-1-6076-5853-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021939763

To learn more about the other great books from Fox Chapel Publishing, or to find a retailer near you, call toll-free 800-457-9112 or visit us at www.FoxChapelPublishing.com.

We are always looking for talented authors. To submit an idea, please send a brief inquiry to [email protected].

For a printable PDF of the patterns used in this book, please contact Fox Chapel Publishing at [email protected], with 9781497101432 Woodworker's Guide to Live Edge Slabs in the subject line.

Introduction

Many woodworking projects call for material that’s been highly processed: typically planks of wood cut to a specific thickness and width. The project dictates the material used, and how it should be used. Working with live edge slabs is different. Instead of the project dictating the material, a slab tells me what project it should best be used for. I love this. A live edge slab is still, in large part, the tree it came from. The edges are irregular, bark may still be attached, it may have knots, bug holes or splits. On conventional woodworking projects I generally cut around those “defects.” On live edge slab projects, I embrace and highlight them. The projects I create with slabs look and feel like they’re still a part of the tree. This makes working with slabs so much fun! Every live edge slab I touch is a little different from the last, and the discovery process is part of the fun.

This book provides you with the woodworking techniques you need to start working with live edge slabs, along with a number of projects you can use as a jumping off point. I want this book to give you the excitement I feel each time I see a slab, along with the wonder of “What does that slab want to become?”

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

GALLERY

TECHNIQUES

Logs to Lumber

Prep your Slabs

Epoxy and Slabs

Cutting in Bowties

Create a Waterfall Edge

PROJECTS

Charcuterie Board

Magnetic Knife Block

Deer Track Bench

Walnut Cookie Coffee Table

Desk with Painted Base

Steel Pipe Shelf

Floating Shelves

Bookmatched Dining Table

Resources

About the Author

Author’s Gallery

Endless Inspiration

The natural beauty of wood really comes through when you’re working with slabs. These are a few of my favorite slab-based pieces. When you marry the right piece of wood with the right form, you get a useful, wonderfully unique piece of furniture.

Soft maple desk with painted poplar base 29″ tall × 24″ × 42″

Pine side table with walnut butterfly 32″ tall × 18″ × 72″

Pine coffee table with walnut bowties 16″ tall 32″ diameter

Burr oak side table 18″ tall 24″ diameter

Pine coffee table 16″ tall × 20″ × 48″

Douglas fir side table 30″ tall × 18″ × 24″

Pine coffee table 16″ tall × 18″ × 48″

Walnut coffee table with spalted maple bowtie 16″ tall × 23″ × 48″

Figured hard maple desk 29″ tall × 28″ × 52″

Cherry side table with walnut bowties 16″ tall × 14″ × 32″

Figured hard maple coffee table 16″ tall × 20″ × 48″

Bookmatched hard maple burl side table 28″ tall × 20″ × 30″

Soft maple kitchen table and benches Table 30″ tall × 36″ × 60″ Benches 16″ tall × 14″ × 60″

Maker’s Gallery

Heitzman’s dished coffee table marries an inset, circular piece of glass on a slice of live edge walnut burl.

Austin Heitzman

A man of many influences, from a love of nature to growing up in Southeast Asia to a day job at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Austin Heitzman’s furniture is a true celebration of materials.

His creations flow from the locally-salvaged city trees he seeks out in his home of Portland, OR, including unique species such as apple, plum, and English walnut. In his words, “Nature does most of the work; I simply let it guide my hand.”

You can learn more about Heitzman on his website at austinheitzmanfurniture.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.

This liquor cabinet puts both the beautiful slab and a decanter front and center. Inside, there’s illuminated glass shelving that doesn’t hide the beauty of the wood (or the liquor).

Thomas Throop

Based in New Canaan, CT, Throop has been designing and making custom furniture since 1992. He aims to create work that both serves his clients’ functional needs while also showcasing beautiful materials and unique forms. He grew up building boats and repairing antiques with his uncle in the summer. After college, Throop spent several years restoring old homes before heading to England to study with John Makepeace.

While his work is deeply rooted in the expression of wood and old world craftsmanship, the work is still ultimately contemporary. You can learn more about his work at blackcreekdesigns.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.

Throop’s Pine Point bed uses a slab as the focal point.

The Kagan table features geometric inlay and coopered legs.

Supported by gently curving legs, the Beck desk has a small drawer to make it a truly functional work of art.

Jess Crow

This Alaska-based maker uses natural edge wood as the base for her handmade pieces of art. Crow has pioneered a unique epoxy painting techniques that gives her furniture and objects a truly handcrafted, one-of-a-kind look.

Her proudly woman-owned and run woodworking shop is a leading authority in artistic woodworking and epoxy. She even developed her own formula of epoxy called MakerPoxy, for her intricate, creative painted slab work.

You can learn more about Crow and working with epoxy at crowcreekdesigns.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.

Crow’s Salmon bed includes a slab headboard with an epoxy-painted scene flowing through the center.

The live-edge Stream coffee table puts a rendering of fish in motion center stage. Both water and fish are recurring themes in Crow’s work.

Matt Cremona

Today, all of Matt Cremona’s work starts at the custom, extra-wide sawmill he built in his suburban Minnesota yard, where he processes urban lumber into slabs. Though not all of his work is truly live-edge in the literal sense, he starts at the slab, using all the different kinds of grain running through a slab to match the parts of his furniture – very rarely does a milled, four-square board make it into his shop.

A self-taught woodworker, he quit his computer job to focus on milling lumber, woodworking, and creating videos to inspire others to make things.

You can learn more about Cremona and get plans to build your own extra-wide sawmill at mattcremona.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.

Cremona’s take on the classic twin bed makes ample use of live edges, including along the bed rail.

Three waterfall coffee tables. On the left, the void is stabilized and filled with epoxy. On the right, the void is covered with a custom fit piece of glass.

TECHNIQUES

Logs to Lumber

As a woodworker, it’s important to understand how logs get processed into lumber and how the resulting material is dried. This information will not only make you a more educated consumer, but it will also help you ensure that you get what you pay for when you buy lumber and help you determine if lumber you buy is ready to be used.

Understanding the milling and drying process will also help if you mill your own lumber using a bandsaw or chainsaw and help ensure that your labor results in good material. Even if you can easily purchase lumber, cutting your own is fun and allows you to mill species of wood you may not be able to get commercially.

Cutting and Drying

1. With the log positioned on the bandsaw mill, slabs are cut from the top face. The log remains stationary, and the bandsaw is propelled through it. The mill can be set to produce any desired thickness of material.

Sawmills commonly use a circular saw or bandsaw to process logs. Both methods work equally well. Bandsaw mills, Photo 1, are a little more common. Logs are cut while they’re still wet, which is commonly referred to as green. This is important. If a log is allowed to dry it will probably split to a point that it’s unusable. Plus, dry wood is harder to cut than wet wood. Referring to wood as wet or green means the wood contains a lot of water. Wet wood isn’t suitable for projects because, as it dries, the wood will crack, shrink and distort. The amount of water in wood is expressed as a percentage, called moisture content. If the moisture content is 30%, 30% of the log’s weight is water, 70% is wood.

The moisture content of freshly cut logs can exceed 20%. As a general rule of thumb, wood needs to dry to 8% to 14% moisture content before it can be used for indoor furniture. A simple, low tech, approach is to air dry the wood, Photo 2. The wood is stacked with spacers, called stickers, between each layer so air can flow through the pile and over the wood. The end grain is often sealed with paint or a drying-specific sealer. Air drying generally brings wood to 12% – 14% moisture content, which is fine for live edge furniture.

2. Air drying wood is simple, but requires patience. A general rule of thumb is to allow it to dry for one year per inch of thickness. It should be stacked in a place where air can easily flow over it, and it’s best if it isn’t in direct sun.

Wood can also be kiln dried. It’s stickered and placed in a large oven, Photo 3. Kiln drying brings the moisture content down to about 6% – 8% All wood, no matter how it’s dried, will expand and contract seasonally. It’s important to take wood movement into account in your projects. It’s also important to allow wood to acclimate to your environment. Do this by bringing material into your shop at least a few days before starting your projects.

3. On a commercial scale wood is often kiln dried. This is much faster than air drying, often complete in a few weeks.

If you buy slabs directly from a sawmill you can get sequence cut slabs, meaning they were next to each other in the log. This results in bookmatched pieces, meaning that the wood grain is mirrored from one piece to the next.

Common Cuts

4. The two most common methods of cutting lumber are plainsawn and quartersawn. Quartersawn is more labor intensive to cut, and has more waste, so it’s usually more expensive to purchase than plainsawn.

The two most common approaches for milling lumber are plainsawn and quartersawn, Photo 4. Plainsawn lumber is the most common by a long shot. Depending on where the board comes from in the log, it can be more prone to cupping and warping than quartersawn lumber, but plainsawn lumber is much easier to cut and produces less waste. In addition to being more dimensionally stable, quartersawn wood, in some species, can produce a more attractive grain pattern.

Making Your Own Lumber

On a smaller scale, you can mill your own lumber using a bandsaw or chainsaw. The resulting live edge boards can become shelves, charcuterie boards, or other small projects.

For best results, be sure the log you’re milling is still green. Try to mill the log as soon as possible after the tree is cut down. If the bark is still on, leave it on. That will prevent the log from drying too fast and cracking. Paint the end grain of the log with latex paint or end grain sealer. This will help slow down the drying rate if you’re not able to cut the log right away, and it needs to be done to seal the ends of the sawn boards anyway for drying. It’s much easier to seal the end of the log than a bunch of the ends of individual boards.

Bandsaw Milled Lumber

The size of log you can mill with your bandsaw will depend on how heavy a log you can pick up, and on the capacity of your bandsaw. Many woodworkers find they can cut logs up to about 12″ in diameter and 30″ long, depending on the capacity of their bandsaws. It’s helpful to have another pair of hands available for larger logs. They’re heavy.

The first step in bandsaw milling a log is to create flat reference surfaces on opposing faces of the log using a hand-held planer or belt sander, Photo 5.

5. Flat spots on the bottom and top of the log prevent it from rolling as you cut it, and give you a place to easily put a line you can follow when cutting.

Don’t try to cut a log without a flat spot on the bottom. It could roll during the cut, which is very dangerous. If the bark is smooth you could skip the flat spot on top of the log. Using a chalk line, snap a line on top of the log, Photo 6. Align the chalk line with the pith (the bullseye) at the center of the log’s growth rings. This won’t necessarily be the center of the log. Cut the log on your bandsaw, Photo 7, following the chalk line.

6. Snap a line on top of the log. This line should be in line with the pith on both ends of the log.

7. Freehand cut the log, following the chalk line. Use a 2-4 TPI (teeth per inch) blade, as wide as your saw will handle.

You may find it helpful to have someone on hand to help catch the log halves as they exit the bandsaw.

With that first cut done, set your bandsaw fence to your desired lumber thickness and cut the planks, Photo 8. The wood will shrink as it dries, and you’ll surface it to clean it up, so cut the boards at least ¼″ thicker than the finished thickness you want.

8. After the first cut, use the fence on your bandsaw to guide the material as you cut planks from the log.

Chainsaw Milled Lumber

A chainsaw provides a really fast way to turn logs into lumber. If you’re planning on milling lots of lumber with a chainsaw, it’s worth investing in a ripping chain. Ripping chains have different tooth geometry than crosscut chains and are easier to use for rip cuts. But if you’re only doing this once in a while, a sharp standard crosscut chain works just fine.

Lay the log on its side on a pair of 4x4s and mark out your cuts on one end of the log, Photo 9. The 4x4s prevent the log from rolling. As you mark out the thickness of the boards take into account the fact that the chainsaw’s kerf (the material removed as you cut) is quite wide at about ⅜″.

Cut on the lines that you created, Photo 10. Don’t cut all the way through the log. Stop 1″ above the bottom. Cutting a log with the bar parallel to the grain, as shown, is much easier than cutting from the end grain down. If the log is longer than your bar, you can cut from both ends, Photo 11.

Finish the cuts by standing the log on end on top of the 4x4s and cutting vertically through the 1″ of wood you left on the ripping cuts, Photo 12. It’s hard to get great cut quality from a handheld chainsaw, so it’s a good idea to mill the boards extra thick so there’s plenty of room to clean them up.

Drying

Seal the ends of the boards with latex paint or end grain sealer, Photo 13. Stack the boards to allow them to air dry, Photo 14. This can take quite a while. Put them in a place where air can move over the stack. Plywood scraps work well for stickers. The best way to monitor the drying is by using a moisture meter. If, after a few days of measurements, the moisture content is consistent (generally 12% to 14%) the planks have reached equilibrium and are dry. A general rule of thumb is that it will take one year per inch of thickness for the green wood to dry, 2″ boards will take two years to dry. This varies depending on where you live and the environment you’re drying them in. That also underscores the importance of using a moisture meter. The moisture meter provides an accurate way to measure moisture content so you’re not guessing.

9. Position a level so it’s plumb, straight up and down, and use a felt tip marker to create cut lines on the end of the log. The level guarantees that the lines are parallel to each other.

10. Cut the log, following your lines as best you can.

11. Cut from both ends when the log is longer than your bar. When cutting from the second, unmarked, end follow the kerfs created by cuts you did from the marked end.

12.