$5,000 Black Walnut Table For A Famous YouTuber

hey guys this is trey with triple l rustic designs and in this video you're going to watch me struggle with this extremely heavy 1 000 black walnut slab and turn it into a beautiful 5 000 dining room table i'm going to show you the secret to keeping tables flat and you're never gonna believe who this table was built for stick around and find out so a few months back i picked up this beautiful black walnut slab from my friends over at third coast hardwoods they have a shop down here in bradenton florida where they sell really incredible slabs just like this walnut slab what's really cool is that all of these slabs are sourced from southwest michigan where their family has owned and operated a sawmill since 1980. so one thing i thought was really cool was when i picked up this slab from third coast hardwoods i noticed the live edges were already debarked and they looked to be scuffed or sanded a little bit if you've ever done any work debarking and sanding the edges of a live edge slab you know that that would have taken over an hour to do on this big walnut slab so seeing that it was already done saved me time and money so the customer for this project is wanting an eight foot black walnut dining room table and this slab is sitting at 99 inches right now and approximately 30 inches wide now if you've ever worked with a live edge slab you know it can be a bit tricky to cut some square ends because that live edge doesn't give you a straight reference line so i'm using this drywall framing tool and i'm just going to draw a square line to the best of my abilities and i'm going to measure down to the other end drawing the line at 96 inches so that i can make my cuts and bring this slab down to size to make those cuts we're going to be using our festool ts 75 track saw with the 36 inch festool track now the fest tool produces really accurate cuts but it's known to be underpowered so you're going to see me make four or five passes through this slab which is sitting at two and a quarter inch right now now that we've made that cut we will measure out confirming our 96 inch line and we're going to use the track saw again to make multiple passes at about half inch increments bringing this slab down to its final length next we need to prepare the slab to pour some epoxy and if you're new to this channel this is my wife zoe she's seven and a half months pregnant but that does not stop her from getting out in the wood shop and helping me with this project so you can see here she's gonna help me lift up this slab and we do confirm that this void goes all the way through the slab so we will need to tape off one side before we pour the epoxy before we start pouring any epoxy we need to do the hard job of digging out this void and to do that i usually use a chisel and a dremel i start with the chisel to get out most of the big pieces of bark and then i finish with the dremel by just getting in there and getting any loose bark or debris out of the void and we're doing this because we don't want the epoxy to bond to any of this loose debris you want it to bond directly to the wood inside the void this can usually be a messy job so zoe's going to work the dust collection hose with that rockler dust right system on it while i work the void digging out all the debris until there's none left next we're gonna move down to the end of the slab where these cracks are and we're just gonna use the dremel again to clean out the cracks and dig out any debris so that the epoxy can get in that crack and bond well with the wood we've got all the voids on that side of the slab cleaned out of any debris so now we're going to flip the slab over and start working any voids on this side of the slab the same way we did the other side getting it all prepped for the epoxy pour the chisel and dremel method seems to work pretty good but if i could find a dremel attachment that was longer than that inch or two inch attachment that i'm using currently i would be able to get down in those voids deeper and it would make it life a lot easier so if you're watching this and you know of a better way to clean out these voids feel free to drop it in the comment section down below after i get done using the chisel and dremel method i like to use some compressed air to blow any remaining debris out of the void getting it prepared for the epoxy now this is a step we should have done in the beginning but better late than never when you're working with a live edge slab like this it is very important to make sure that the slab is properly dried so we're going to be using our wagner orion 950 pinless moisture meter and we're just moving it around on this slab confirming that it is dry enough to work with florida's emc is about 13 and a half percent so you can see that this slab is testing between 13 to 14 so that lets us know that this slab is dry and ready to be worked with before we start pouring any epoxy we first need to sand the surface of our slab around that void so that when we apply the epoxy tape it gets a good bite to the wood sealing it up so that there's no epoxy going to leak out to do this zoe is going to use some 80 grit sandpaper on our five inch electric ray surf prep sander if you're not familiar with the company surf prep you've got to check them out i will have a link in the description below but they make some of the most incredible sanding products this 5 inch electric ray sander paired with the pov8 vacuum system has quickly become our favorite sanding system that we have in the shop and you can see it works really well you can just activate it with one finger in that vacuum system cleans up all the dust at the same time it's a really great combo and like i said there's a link in the description below if you want to check them out when getting these surfaces ready for the epoxy tape you've got to make sure you sand them thoroughly you do not want your epoxy tape pulling away from that wood because all your epoxy will seep out onto your floor and it's just going to be a total disaster the epoxy tape we're going to be using today is from the company bidwell wooden iron they also own another company called atomic finishes so you're going to be seeing us use a couple products from them in this video when applying the tape i like to lay it down carefully just like you would a sticker making sure to remove all air pockets and any air lines underneath the epoxy tape any air trapped underneath that epoxy tape can create a void for the epoxy to slowly seep out from under the tape so just make sure it's pressed down firmly and completely sealed to the wood now when applying this tape i'd rather be safe than sorry so i apply enough tape to fully overlap the entire void and then i come back and i apply a second row of tape the opposite direction which will give the tape more stability and help prevent a big bubble from forming when you flip the slab over and pour the epoxy taping up cracks like this at the end of the slab can be a little bit tricky but it's the same process as before you want to apply your tape and make sure it's got a good bond with the wood and then i like to leave a little flapper piece that when i flip the slab over it will act as like a dam sticking up above the slab and preventing that epoxy from running over now that flapper piece definitely has weight limits to it but for this small crack i just need it to stick up a little bit and prevent the epoxy from running out over the slab we've got all of our voids taped up so we can now flip the slab back over to the other side and get ready to pour some epoxy when working on these tables we usually use this black felt like material but for pouring this epoxy i want to make sure my slab is perfectly flat on a surface so we move that material out of the way and set the slab down directly on this piece of mdf that's covered in epoxy tape by making sure that this slab is sitting on a good flat surface it's going to provide support to the bottom side of the slab so when we pour our epoxy it does not pull down with gravity and either seep out or create a bubble underneath the slab if you follow us on our social media accounts you would have seen that a few months ago we started promoting and representing super clear epoxy and that is because triple l rustic designs has been fortunate enough to get sponsored by super clear epoxy if you know anything about epoxy you know that super clear liquid glass is considered to be one of the best epoxies on the market and not only that they are located about 45 minutes from our shop right here in central florida we couldn't be more excited to be a part of team super clear and their products have just been producing incredible results and actually in the top right corner of this video right now you can see that there's an epoxy project in the mold and that is actually a crystal clear bullet casing epoxy table and i'm going to be doing a full youtube video on that using the super clear products and you're going to be blown away to see the clarity and how great this liquid glass works to fill the voids on this slab zoe is going to be using the super clear liquid glass deep pore 24. this epoxy is a two to one mix ratio and it's great for filling voids and cracks or pouring projects up to one inch and the best part is it cures in about 24 hours one of our favorite things about super clear other than being made in the usa their epoxy is odor free with zero vocs but since zoe is seven and a half months pregnant and there's been a couple studies coming out about pregnancy and epoxy she's gonna wear a mask just to be on the safe side but it's really not needed to fill this void the customer wanted a smoke gray color so we're to use this black dye super color from super clear and we're just going to drop two drops into the epoxy these dies from super clear are extremely concentrated so they go a long way and you'll see that just these two drops really darkens this epoxy when it comes to pouring the epoxy there's really not much to it you're just gonna go ahead and pour it down into the void nice and slow trying to eliminate any more micro bubbles but the great part about the super clear epoxy products is that it has such a low viscosity that most of the time the bubbles will rise to the top on their own and that epoxy will seep into all the cracks very well when it comes to pouring the epoxy in these voids do not be afraid to over pour the epoxy as it seeps down into the voids it's gonna keep drinking it all the way down until it makes it to the bottom of the slab and not only that the epoxy as it cures is going to shrink a little bit so don't be afraid to over pour you can always sand it off in the end or plain it off like you will see me do later in this video during this process it's gonna look a little chaotic on your slab and there's gonna be epoxy everywhere even on these little tiny cracks like this but in the end when you sand it all back down flush with the wood it'll look very good so don't be afraid to fill every crack you find or every knot every void you find with the epoxy here's a good example of that flapper piece that i was talking about earlier in this video as the epoxy runs down this crack it runs into that flapper piece like a dam and it prevents it from flowing over the edge of the slab filling the voids on this slab took about an hour because as we kept pouring more and more epoxy into the void it just kept working its way down to the bottom of the slab and eventually it filled itself up all the way to the top but it's just a slow babysitting process of refilling the voids over and over again now that all the voids are filled up zoe's gonna take a heat torch and just lightly pass over the epoxy popping any of those micro bubbles that have risen to the surface when doing this you don't want to use too much heat just enough to lightly pass over and pop the bubbles after letting our epoxy cure for about 24 hours we came back and found that all the voids had the epoxy shrink down while curing and that's normal for epoxy to do so we just take some 80 grit sandpaper scuff up all the areas that we're going to want to pour more epoxy so that when we pour that next layer of epoxy it gets a good bond to that first layer of epoxy after blowing everything off with some compressed air i just use some denatured alcohol and a rag to wipe down all of the spots that i'm going to be pouring in the next layer of epoxy as i pour this next layer of epoxy to top off the voids you'll notice that i'm using a clear epoxy this is just some more super clear deep pore 24 and we've already achieved the smoke gray look in the void so the clear layer for the top is just going to top it off and fill it up to the top of the wood after letting another 24 hours pass the slab is cured and ready to be flipped over so we can work the underside of the slab now the epoxy tape does a great job at sticking to the wood and peeling up from the wood but more than likely it's going to be bonded to the epoxy and that's okay you can just plain it off sand it off scrape it off in this project i'm going to be using a scraper tool and that works very well and if you're interested in one i will have a link to it in the description below i just use that scraper tool working my way over the void scraping off as much tape as i can and as you can see it does a pretty good job some of these spots the tape was lower than the top of the wood so i just scrape it out and then i will add some more epoxy over any gouges that i make to fill the voids on this side of this lab we're just going to use some more super clear deep pore 24 and we're going to work our way around filling any voids that we find as i started filling this little void here next to the big void i realized i need to scrape more of that tape off of that big void so i grab my scraper tool again and i continue to scrape as much of that epoxy tape out of the void as possible and you can see that i'm making some pretty deep gouges in the void but that's okay because when we apply the next layer of epoxy it is going to level everything out and you won't notice the difference in the end as that epoxy was drying over the next 24 hours i noticed something about this slab that i didn't notice in the beginning and that was that this slab was slightly cupped i should have noticed this earlier when i was cutting the end of the slab because the saw hung up a little bit here in the center of the slab and then when it finally made its way through the cut you could see that in the center of the slab there were still some pieces of wood that the saw didn't touch that should have been a tell-tale sign that the slab was slightly cupped but i just didn't notice it now i do want to note that when we picked up this slab from third coast hardwoods it was kiln dried and surfaced perfectly flat what happened was when we moved it to our shop that didn't have air condition i stood it up vertically inside the shop and the humidity slowly cupped the slab just a slight bit if i had put this slab in a controlled environment or even laid it on a flat surface it probably would have stayed flat so it was completely my fault for the cupping but the great part is here at triple l rustic designs we have been fortunate enough to invest in one of these wood mizer mb 200 slab miser machines this is a 13 foot by 72 inch slab flattening mill and it works really really nicely it has a three horsepower motor and a five carbide blade cutting head that flattened slabs perfectly you're probably looking at this and thinking wow that dust collection does not work very well well that was actually my fault i started the slabmizer on the automatic feature and forgot that i didn't put a new bag on the dust collector so now that you can see the dust collector is working great and it's sucking up all that dust as it works its way around the slab flattening it we know that most people don't have access to a big 13 foot slab flattening mill like this so we offer slab flattening services to the public for 85 dollars an hour if you've ever done any slab flattening you know that with a router in a homemade slab flattening mill this slab would have taken hours to flatten but on this slabmizer machine it only took about 45 minutes to do both sides i told you in the beginning of this video that this slab was originally two and a quarter inches thick well after flattening it it is now sitting at two inches and it is perfectly flat on both sides now that the slab is flat it's time to take it back into the shop and examine it for any micro imperfections and what i'm talking about is any cracks or little voids that were exposed from flattening so we're just going to use some starbond ca glue and work our way around the slab filling any voids or cracks with the star bond and it'll later get sanded off i was so excited to start using my surf prep sanding system that i almost forgot i need to flip this slab over and work on the bottom of the slab first before i do any sanding to the top so we got this slab flipped over and i'm going to show you the secret to keeping live edge slabs perfectly flat some of you watching this probably already know what the secret is but if you're new here the secret is these pieces of metal called c-channel and we get ours from bidwell wood and iron and they're just top-notch quality powder-coated black really nice c channel now bidwell wood and iron sells a couple different c channel products but the one we're using in this video is the c channel 2.0 and it has the half inch leg for this table i've decided that i'm going to use three c channels two on the ends and one in the middle and this will ensure that the slab stays perfectly flat over its lifetime i've laid out these x style metal legs and i like the way it looks so all that's left to do now is start putting my markings onto the slab so that i can inset the c channel and drill the holes for the table legs i've decided that i'm going to embed my c channel about four to five inches in from the end of the table so i'll clamp that c channel down once i have it in the spot that i want it and i'll trace the outside of the c channel it's also important to take your pencil and mark the inside legs of the c channel so you know exactly where to route out so that the legs can sit down into the wood once you have everything marked up you can remove your c channel and you can see what i was talking about about marking the outside and the inside of the c channel so you know exactly where to route out so those legs sit down into the wood for routing out the grooves for my c-channel legs to sit down in i'm going to be using this dewalt cordless router paired with a quarter inch spiral up cut bit from the company bits bits now i like to take my router and set the depth of my up cut bit to the same thickness or depth of the c channel and then i'm going to go past it about an eighth of an inch because in the end we are going to embed the c channel about an eighth of an inch below the wood surface if that sounds a little confusing hopefully it will all make sense after you watch everything i do to this lab so you can obviously try to do this by hand but it's much easier to have a straight edge to reference so i'm using that festool track and i'm getting it lined up perfectly where i need it to be able to run that router along the edge and create my perfect groove now that everything's all set you just turn on your router tip it down into the wood and run it along that fence making the groove you'll see i end up making two passes at approximately a quarter inch depth each pass now that we have our first groove complete we'll readjust our straight edge fence and we will do the exact same process making two passes at about a quarter inch depth each pass to make that other groove you'll notice that a router with a dust collection hookup would be a much cleaner process but if you don't have one you can have a buddy work the dust collection hose while you're working the router after we make that second pass and get our grooves down to the correct depth we can then test fit our c channel to make sure we did everything accurately you'll see that i went a little too far on the length of my grooves you will want some extra space on either side of the c channel to allow for expansion and contraction of the wood during the different seasons of the year but that space only needs to be about an eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch not half an inch like i did here i've got two more c channels to put into this slab and i'll do much better on those two but then again this is the bottom of the table and more often than not most people aren't going to ever look underneath there now that we've routed in our grooves we need to move on to the next step which is routing out that wood between the two grooves so that when we inset our c channel it sits about an eighth of an inch in the wood and just below the wood surface this step is not absolutely necessary but it does provide a cleaner look in the end so if someone did look under the table you would see that the c channel is sitting flush with the entire bottom of the table and not sticking out about an eighth of an inch to do this we're going to be using our festool 2200 router paired with a white side 622 inch surfacing bit from the company bits bits if you guys do anything with routers and bits i encourage you to check out bits bits they make some of the best bits on the market and their customer service is the best this two inch surfacing bit is not made to plunge into wood so you'll notice i use a side to side technique plunging it down into the wood until it gets to the correct depth and then you can work your way back and forth routing out all that wood between those two grooves this festool 2200 router is an absolute beast and i probably could have done this all in one pass but to play it safe i did two passes at an eighth inch depth each pass and then when you put that c channel in there you can see it sits just below the surface of the wood exactly how we want the last step to this process is just using a chisel and a hammer to clean up those ends a little bit in any spots inside the channel that the router did not get so after watching that if you're thinking to yourself wow this guy is a real professional and really knows what he's doing to be honest that was my first c channel i had ever installed in a slab of wood i learned the concepts from my friends over at tnt industries you can find them on youtube where they're constantly making all kinds of commercial bar tops and table tops and they are the ones who taught me how to install c channel they make some pretty cool videos and i would encourage you to check out their channel and while you're there don't forget to subscribe and like the videos i will have a link to their channel in the description below this video after watching that if you're thinking wow that looks like a lot of extra work and i'm not gonna do that to my table i would encourage you the opposite take the extra time and spend a little extra money to install some c-channel in your table so that you can get that assurance that it's going to stay flat for the rest of its lifetime i recently built a coffee table much like this table and i did not install c channel in it well what ended up happening was the legs that i used to mount on the table ended up having a warped top plate and by not using c channel and by me tightening those legs down to the slab of wood it caused that slab to warp to conform to the same shape of those legs overnight it's not a good feeling to spend all this time working on a beautiful table to then come back and find it warped overnight so go ahead invest in some c channel and start putting c channel in your tables so that it gives you that assurance that it's always going to stay flat and you're going to have happy customers so now you've seen how to install the c channel into the wood but you want to probably see how to secure the c-channel to the wood so we're going to be doing this by using rampa threaded inserts and bolts and we buy these from bidwell wood and iron so not only are these hardware packs really nice quality they come with very specific directions on the pack that shows you exactly how to install them into the wood it even tells you which c channel it works best with the first thing i do is take a center punch and center it in the oval slot of the c channel then i'm going to take a hammer and just tap that center punch marking the spot where i need to drill my 3 8 inch hole for the threaded insert i just keep working my way around the slab to each c channel making my marks on each one of the slots after all the marks are in place you can remove the c channel and get ready to drill our holes just like the directions on the pack state we're going to be using a 3 8 inch drill bit and this little seven dollar drill block that is going to make sure we drill a perfectly straight hole perpendicular to the face of the wood this is the cheapest and easiest method i've found when it comes to drilling straight holes with a power drill you're going to want to make sure you mark your drill bit so you know the correct depth that you need to drill down into the wood i use a permanent marker and mark the drill bit but most people use tape whatever method you use just make sure you drill your hole to the correct depth for the threaded insert next i use a countersink bit and i just open up that top of that hole a little bit so that these threaded inserts can sit down nice and flush i don't know about you but before i go drilling 18 different holes into this slab i wanted to confirm that i was doing things correctly so now that i have my hole drilled i'm going to use an allen wrench and i'm going to go ahead and insert that first threaded insert it's going to take a little force at first but once you get that threaded insert to bite the wood then you'll just be able to crank that allen wrench and turn that threaded insert all the way down into the wood until it sits flush cranking in this threaded insert by hand with the allen wrench was taking a lot longer than i expected so later i end up using a power drill which was a much faster process like i said i wanted to make sure i was doing things correctly so we'll drop in our c channel we'll take that bolt install it into the threaded insert confirming that i did do it correctly and it is going to work now i can take this bolt back out and continue working my way all the way around the slab drilling all of my holes and installing all of the threaded inserts here's what i was talking about earlier about using the drill to install the threaded inserts and this goes much faster so this is actually an impact drill and i don't think this is probably the best drill to use but it did get the job done you're going to notice that i'm not using any glue when installing these threaded inserts and you're going to see other videos out there of guys using either starbon ca glue or epoxy in the holes when installing the threaded inserts as well as these things bit into the wood i just went with straight threaded inserts and did not use any glue so hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me but i think it's going to work out just fine now that we've successfully installed our first c channel we can move on to the next two and it's going to be the exact same process as before using that drill block to drill that 3 8 inch hole using that countersink bit to open up that hole a little bit and then carefully using our drill to install the threaded inserts now that all of our seat channels are complete it's time to move on to installing the table legs the customer wanted an x style set of legs powder coated black so i had a local welder weld these up for me these are 22 inches wide and 28 inches tall so the overall height of the table when finished should be about 30 inches i decided to install the table leg 16 inches from the end of the table which would leave a 64 inch gap between the two legs this would leave enough room between the table legs to fit three normal sized dining room table chairs which are usually 20 to 21 inches wide now it wasn't until i started working on the second table leg that i realized i messed up on the first one i actually had placed the leg on the wrong side of the line where if i would have gone ahead and installed the leg there that leg would have been about 18 inches from the end of the table instead of the 16 inches that i wanted this is a prime example though of why you gotta measure twice and cut once because if i would have installed the legs there i would have been pretty upset with myself but since i hadn't installed them yet i was able to just move it right to the other side of the line trace out the legs and confirm that i still had the 64 inches between the legs like i wanted so with these table legs i wanted them to look clean and embedded into the bottom of the slab just like the c channel so we're going to go ahead and do the same process as the c channel using the router in that quarter inch up cut bit to route out the lines of the table legs now with the c channel we made the grooves a little over a half inch deep and we made that center section about a quarter inch deep this is going to be different we just need this entire square to be about an eighth inch deep all the way around so that the top plate on those table legs can sit nice and flush in that area and that way it's nice and flush on the bottom of the slab and the bottom of the table like i said earlier this is not necessary by any means it just gives a way cleaner look to the bottom of the table and one day the customers kids are probably going to be laying under that table picking their nose and they're going to look up see that embedded c channel and that embedded top plate and they're going to be like wow that guy was talented i want to be like him someday now that we have the spot routed out for our table legs it's time to do some inspections and some work on these table legs as you can see this top plate is all kinds of jacked up you got one size hole here and then you've got an even smaller size hole here neither one is big enough for me to fit my bolts through to fit into the threaded inserts it sucks but we can fix this to do that we're gonna have to get our table legs clamped down to a good steady surface and we're gonna have to drill out those holes and make them bigger this sucks to do because it messes up the black powder coat but it is a pretty easy fix so if you happen to buy some table legs that the holes just aren't big enough for your bolts you can fix it just like this now that we've got our holes drilled out bigger we're going to put it on the table and then we need to clean up the underside of those holes i'm using a little cordless dremel here with a little grinding wheel and i just go around each one of the holes grinding down all those little sharp edges so that our bolts can sit nice and flush on the plate now that we have that whole issue rectified we can get back to work but don't worry there's going to be another issue with these legs but for right now we're going to take our center punch work our way around the legs marking the spots where we need to drill our holes for the threaded inserts and once we have those holes marked we can move the legs off and begin drilling our holes we're just using the same setup that we used for the c channels we've got our 3 8 inch drill bit our little 7 drill block and we're drilling some perfectly straight holes into the bottom of the slab so we can insert our threaded inserts before we install our threaded insert we're just using our countersink bit to open up that hole just a little bit so that threaded insert sits nice and flush and then we're using our drill to lightly install the threaded inserts into the wood without glue well it looks like i drilled all of my holes accurately because i'm able to put the table legs in their position insert those bolts through the holes into the threaded inserts and tighten it all down perfectly now that we have one table leg installed correctly we'll move down to the other end of the table install that table leg and we can finally get to sanding so i mentioned earlier that there was going to be another issue with these table legs so dad and i are going to get the table flipped over and you're going to see exactly what i'm talking about oh yeah perfect though that's a big that's the concrete that is not the cup here so as you can see we flipped the table over set it on the ground and it's got a pretty bad wobble to it we pretty much knew it was going to happen because we saw that the top plates on the top of those legs were not perfectly flat whenever the welder welded the top plate to those legs it actually heated it up and caused the top plate to bend and warp a little bit and basically that references down to the feet which caused the feet to be warped on the floor there is a pretty easy fix to this and that is adding some leveling feet to the bottom of these legs so i got to jump on amazon order some they'll be here in a couple days but in the meantime we can start sanding the table so to start sanding we're going to put the table back up on the workbench and we're going to remove all of that hardware from the bottom of the table so we can start sanding that first all the way up to 120 grit usually i would dread sanding a table this big but that surf prep sanding system makes sanding so easy and enjoyable that i just throw on some music and work my way all around the table making sure not to miss any spots once i sand everything to 120 i'm gonna work my way around the slab sanding the end grain and knocking down that live edge to give it more of a round over feel so it's not so sharp after that i'm going to install the c channel back into the bottom of the slab so that when i flip it over and work on the top there's no chance that this slab will move at all now for the top of the slab i'm going to start with 80 grit and work my way up to 150 grit water popping the slab between grits and if you don't know what water popping means it's where you take a rag with water or denatured alcohol and you wipe down the slab in between grits so that when you come back with that next grit it really gets all the wood fibers and provides the best finish so you might have noticed through that quick sanding footage that i did not sand the live edges but i'm going to take one of these rad pads from surf prep and i'm going to scuff all of the live edges to make sure there's no burrs or wood fiber sticking up these rad pads come in four different grits you've got medium fine super fine and very fine for what i need to do on the live edges i'm just going to use the medium pad and i'm going to work my way around the slab lightly scuffing the live edges making sure there's no burrs or wood fibers sticking up using this rad pad by hand is going to leave more of a natural live edge look then the sander would leave and i think it's going to look a lot better in the end now that we've finished sanding everything we're going to go ahead and wipe the table down with some denatured alcohol and get it prepared for finishing so i feel like i haven't flipped this slab enough times in this video so i'm going to go ahead and flip it back over onto the top side so i can remove all of the c channels from the bottom side and then finish the bottom side first and then i will flip it back over to the top side to do the final finishing before we start applying finish we need to put that triple l rustic designs logo in the bottom corner of the table that way wherever it ends up in the world someday everyone will know who made the table to do that we're using our laser pecker 2 pro this laser is quite impressive it's small but it packs a big punch and it all works right off your cell phone so it's very nice and very easy to use you can see it burns a perfect crisp logo every time we use it we love our laser pecker the finish that we're going to be using on this table is called rubio monocoat it is a three to one mixture where you mix three parts oil to one part activator and it provides a dust-proof scratch-proof waterproof finish to whatever surface it's applied on there's a couple different methods you can use to apply this oil in the beginning here i tried troweling it in but i realized it was probably a lot easier to just use a 3m gray scuff pad and just buff it into the wood by hand so you'll see i work my way around the slab just buffing in a little bit of oil to all the raw surfaces of wood now with this rubio monaco a little bit goes a long way so we actually are only using two ounces of the oil for this whole bottom side of this eight foot black walnut table one thing rubio monaco does very well is bringing out the colors in dark woods like this walnut after applying that oil you can just see how beautiful this slab is going to be after letting the oil sit on the wood for about 15 minutes they recommend you use a cotton or a terry towel to buff off any and all remaining oil doing this by hand can be a little bit of work and you will break a sweat so i have seen some guys use a buffer with the cotton towel and that just helps speed up the process a little bit but either way whatever method you use just make sure you wipe it down good and get all the excess oil off of the wood now that the bottom side is done we can flip the slab over and begin finishing the top side it is very important to finish both the bottom and the top side at the same time to prevent any cupping or warping or any movement in the table for the top of the table we're going to do the exact same process as the bottom we're gonna mix up two ounces of the rubio monocoat at a three to one mix ratio and we're just going to use that 3m gray scotch brite pad to buff it into the wood very thoroughly after about 15 minutes we're going to come back with a cotton towel and work our way around the slab buffing off any excess oil after that zoe's going to help me hold that slab up in the air so i can get to the bottom and install these c channels back into the bottom of the table because i do not want to take any chances of having this table cup warp move or do any crazy stuff over the next 24 hours while that rubio monaco is setting up now after applying the rubio monaco you can see that this table looks amazing the rubio really brought out the color in this black walnut and it just has such a beautiful sheen to it but there is one more thing that i'd like to do to this tabletop rubio is marketed as a single coat finish but when you really do your research you'll find that darker woods like this black walnut would actually do better with two coats of rubio monocoat so i'm going to show you what you need to do to apply a second coat of rubio so after 24 hours they recommend that you use a maroon merlon pad to work your way around the slab lightly sanding the surface i don't have a maroon merlon pad so i'm going to use this very fine rad pad and just work around lightly sanding and i say sanding but i'm really just trying to scuff the surface so that i can apply that second coat of rubio and it gets a good bond to that first coat with this pad i'm not really putting too much pressure i'm just working my way around trying to get a nice even haze all over the slab after that i'll come back with some compressed air and work my way around the slab blowing out any dust or debris that may be stuck in the grain of the wood then after that i just use a cotton towel with some water and wipe down the entire slab with this second coat of rubio i noticed it was a lot easier to travel the oil around the slab so that's what i ended up doing was just troweling the oil all the way down until i made it to the end of the slab and then i broke out one of those 3m gray scotch brite pads and i just buffed the remaining oil into the wood making sure that i did not miss any spots and that i coated the slab evenly as we wait for the next 15 minutes while this rubio's setting up look at this sheen on the slab there is a significant difference between that first and second coat of rubio and you can just see the lights reflecting off this slab like crazy to wipe off the oil it's the same process as before using that cotton or terry towel to wipe off any remaining oil on the slab now i know that you're excited because we're close to the end of this video and i am excited too but we do have one more thing that we need to do while this slab is setting up over the next 24 hours and that is install those adjustable feet in our legs to do that we need to clamp our legs down nice and sturdy and then find the center point of each leg after that we're going to use a punch just to mark the spot where we need to drill our hole and using some wd-40 in our metal drill bit we're going to drill out a hole and then use an m10 drill tap to tap the hole so we can screw in our adjustable feet after that we're going to repeat that exact same process three more times so that both sets of legs have the adjustable feet inserted in the bottom of them our table is officially complete so after some time to cure it is time to load it up and make the delivery to the customer's house now fortunately this customer does not live too far away which is good because with today's gas prices and the approaching storm we wanted to get this slab over there and get it delivered before anything could happen to it i definitely did not want to try moving this slab by myself so my dad's going to help me load it into the triple l rustic designs cargo trailer and we're going to take it down and deliver it to this customer [Music] [Music] hey honey you want to see this table before we deliver it to the customer yeah it turned out really nice looks nice yeah the customer actually doesn't live that far so we'll we didn't have to strap it down but the storms are coming so we got to get over there but yeah check it out really nice yeah once we get to the customer's house we'll install the legs and it'll be done very cool good job so what do you think about it i love it and they're going to be really happy with it well just so happens this table's for you no way yeah about two years ago now is when we made our other table which really kicked off our channel so i figured i'll make this one you helped out with a little bit not knowing that it was for yourself and now we have ourselves a nice oh my gosh i'm so excited live edge black walnut dining room table oh my gosh that is so exciting yeah and just in time for liam to come scratch it up and color on it with his crowns but oh it still looks so good all right well the storm is coming so let's go ahead and get this thing unloaded and see how it looks [Music] [Music] [Music] so what do you think about your new black walnut dining room table i absolutely love it oh my gosh i'm so excited i have no idea this is coming in here i loved our other tank table and it served as well for a couple years but i think it was time for us to upgrade and this is definitely an upgrade it looks perfect in here all right guys if you enjoyed this video watching me build this black walnut dining room table for my wife here make sure you go ahead and smash that like button and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss all of our future videos our youtube channel really kicked off when we built our other dining room table you can see it in the back over there but i really wanted to upgrade that table to a live edge slab and it was fun working on this project this was the first time that i built a 8 foot live edge table and it actually turned out really well i learned a lot during this process but it turned out pretty good lastly i want to say a big thanks to third coast hardwoods which is where we got this slab guys if you want to get some really really nice slabs like this black walnut slab i encourage you to visit the link in the description below they've got some great stuff and their customer service is wonderful drop a comment down below letting me know what you thought about this table build and if you want to see me do some more but like i said smash that like button subscribe to the channel and we'll see you on the next one

Channel: Triple L Rustic Designs

Views: 2,689,823

Keywords: blacktail studio, blacktail, black walnut, walnut table, walnut table build, live edge table, black walnut live edge, black walnut table, blacktail studio table, black walnut slab, walnut slab, black walnut wood, walnut slab table, live edge epoxy table, super clear epoxy, live edge walnut table, building a table, live edge slab table, Rubio Monocoat, black walnut tree, making a table, farmhouse table, dining table build, live edge table build, how to build a table

Id: VpXOTOZUsq8

Length: 47min 9sec (2829 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 18 2022