I Tested Viral Slab Bending

thousands of you have been sending me this video of these guys in the Netherlands bending a Live Edge slab I don't think I've been this excited since I was 18 years old and discovered that you can drink beer Faster by shotgunning it and because I'm always looking for new woodworking techniques particularly with anything dealing Live Edge I knew that of every test I've ever done on this channel that this one in particular was calling my name instead of doing like a tiny little table we're going to shoot the moon on this one I've got a 14 18 plus foot long slab that's about 3T wide sitting in the other side of the shop that I paid about $2,000 for and we're going to do a 6 foot long double bent Live Edge desk out of it and this should get ridiculous so the likeliness of me screwing this sucker up is is probably higher than normal you know I've never done curve cuts on this scale that could get super squirely and then it looks like in the video these guys are steam bending it and I think I have to build a custom steam bending box to make this work which is also something I've never done this is going to be great potentially the best thing I've ever made so I ordered two slabs and they're huge I mean look at these they're enormous that's a huge I chose these because they're uniform one and two it'll be a pretty good siiz desktop right at the gate I don't know which one I'm going to use quite yet but let's get these up and then on some horses and look at them I think I think that one's a little bit straighter is you blind and I I have this piece here so let's use this guy now got to pick it up and move it you a biging [Music] fing enormous like I do with every slab to get started I got to find Center first that'll give me reference Mark to then start like cutting things down this will be almost the exact same kind of breakdown and process I use in my master class on live Edge and epoxy tables so if you want to learn more about doing some stuff like this and where I get all my knowledge and give you guys a $50 discount just from watching this video I'll have the link right here on screen and the code will be down below but this Center Line is going to be my rough gauge on how I'm going to build like pretty much the whole table it's important to start with that now that doesn't have to be perfect it does help if you are next thing for this I want to cut it to rough size I'm pretty tall so we're going to need to do 32 in size so the kicker here is that I don't know like whatever this measurement is it could be 12 it could be 20 in my eyes I just have no idea looks like we just need to flatten the whole slab wasn't anticipating that I thought we'd be able to cut it down to a more manageable size when things are larger they're considerably more difficult to flatten but I guess it kind of is what it is I'm going to clean up these edges a little bit and then we'll get this sucker on the CNC I guess we'll figure that math out after it's flat so as it stands this will be the second largest slab we've ever flattened you're you're aome I love my floor I'm ready to get rid of the whole thing just make everyone suffer and have shin splints going to his spine out of his ass see I can see it's humped here here like this thing has to be perfectly flat since we have it even though the other side I don't like the look of it as much we're going to go check that one see if it's got less of a hump damn it it's considerably flatter hey Chris before you do anything else come here positive work environment this one's pretty flat except for the ends there's no big hump in the middle this one does seem better than the other one okay let's take that one off of the CNC put this one on typical one two let's uh put this one on the CNC now so this side is so high I'm going to try to cut some of it out and then kind of gauge how much wobble we have in it even hanging it off a little bit it's it's considerably less than what it was just see how much see how high this thing is still we're like an inch off the table here I guess what we're going to do is start adding some shims I'll just cut that side as well and then maybe that'll help take a little bit of that play out of it I can already tilt it if I just jerk it off I mean sand it I mean c it down a little bit what did he say it might help not be so atic and if you look it up in the brochure this is exactly how the neelson wants you're using their hand BLS eat the dick thanks for the help here for it still not great start by flattening those parts and this thing's almost 3 in thick so we've got a whole inch to play with and it's 2 and 2 and 3/4 as long as we're like 2 in inch and 3/4 it'll still look badass we're flat or as flat as I want to go we're right around 2 in which I think is pretty good that's what she said now for all the crazy got to find Center going to figure out where I'm going to do the curve marks we need to figure out the depth of the curve how I'm going to cut those and then build a jig in order to do it at 90° perfectly and also build a box in order to steam the part we're bending yay okay so we need to prove this concept and by that I mean we've got something the internet told us should work and you can get this curve spacing calculator by Googling it we put all of our stuff in test it on here to do so this might as well be written in Spanish they're using 30 seconds which which is just great the reality is I don't think that those 30 seconds are going to make a huge difference you can have a little bit of Blade deflection in your cut and that in itself will deflect it by 30 second from time to time so like I guess we'll see this thing has like no play in it let's throw a clamp on see if that helps okay it's bending twisting the crazy I've got shooting out vibes going on right now Jo what do you think if it does shoot out at least I feel super safe and I look like an absolute stud Rock in my shop Shades if you want to support the channel grab yourself a pair we've sold thousands and people are absolutely loving them like this dude and this person so check them out shop Shades available now shipping now appreciate all of you that have already bought a pair but buy more we need that outside to outside to be 90 and you can see here it's not did I do all the cuts at ass I missed a cut oh no damn it if it's just one cut that'd be nice cuz then we know the math now we just got to figure out how to fix the Gap problem back to the tabletop for that last cut so I'm way too impatient for water to boil even though it's boiling and so I went ahead and I redid everything we actually cracked the wood on the bottom but look at this they're both coming in at 90 that sweep just doesn't look like it but that extra cut did it we figured out where the curves are going to start they're going to end we're going 33 in off of the center line and then we'll drop both sides off and from the looks of it I think I could just keep the cuts simple the bottom box will be 48 in so I'm going to do 48 the width of our curvs is little under 19 in according to this math so I'll go 24 so we can steam a little bit on the outside more or less I'm just going to take some construction grade material I'm going to cut that bottom plate I'm going to cut the same thing for a top cover and then cut some strips and build a bottom this should go pretty quick my construction technique for this is simply wing it because if you look at any steam bending boxes they're all made for like strips of stuff not massive slabs so I think by just building a box should get me most of the way there like that we're not going to be able to get like perfect Gap filling but we wrap it in blankets and the steam should kind of stay on that bottom piece once this is flipped over and I should be able to cap it so all right the next phase is let's open up the steamer and see what kind of hole we need to make the old steamer the Amazon special here I'm actually excited cuz I've really wanted to make make myself a fly fishing net using steam bending for a long time since I bought this for this project if I ever give free time what the hell is that I can do that cut a hole I'm going to just guess and do it in the center what the hell there we go I'm pretty confident in like all of the random crap I've done so far you just watched me make some giant 90° clamping calls Chris is printing out internal clamping calls so once we get it up we'll be able to put this and then clamp this to these so we can make sure we're perfectly 90 and it'll have enough room for that radius so we'll be able to get close to 90 as possible that's my biggest concern just be a bear okay I marked all my lines they're hard to see on camera but I marked them with a knife that way they didn't rub off and it let me get a little bit more precise I'll use a pencil on my cut line and then I'll put my track right on the cut line and then make sure I'm taking the line every single time and that should get me pretty darn close to Center this one's not for the faint of heart I am shaking inside I've got the depth set locked in place our first curve cut this is about all I can do nothing left to do it gosh it just it just has me so concerned I got to do it again I just got to check the depth again I know I literally just said it but I don't know might have bumped something 316 let's go you little little you little boy now I cut one before I get too far I'm a bit worried if that's 2 in overall it should be two and I think 136 deep I think I'm a bit shallow and I think that's because this end isn't as thick as two damn it cuz I'm looking at this Edge and I'm was like man that's about a/ in and I'm off that distance see that but the problem is what's it going to be on this side damel Damu inconsistencies I'm like I'm like very close to just messing everything up like really easily okay right here this slab is 1.96 which is perfect exactly what we should be at and right here we're at 2.03 my concern about I mean if you look at this edge here this is a 1. 1825 we're like 1 and 78 here and we're like one in I don't know 31 30 seconds here so at this point I'm not as concerned as it going too deep so I need to be 1. 18125 that's 1 and 1316 and we're supposed to be 316 according to our thing there you know one good thing about festal is those are e so if I just come down one [Music] more okay I'm I'm good with that we're going to go 1 and 3/4 cuz once I get over to here and it material is a little bit thicker will be perfect got to send it we're going to start steaming one side no I have no clue if this is going to work cuz we have yet to put Steam in the box so those guys had blankets over top of it for the sake of what we're doing if we just kind of like stuff the blankets around it I don't know I'm making it up as iing go guys give me some confidence we're only a bunch of grown men here we're going to let this sit says an hour per inch I don't think we got to go that long we'll probably go just an hour we'll pop it open and get ready to bend it I've got some custom squares Chris made some custom clamping calls now we wait and see how done we actually are nothing's like pissing out it's been an hour it's pissing out over there just as you said that it wasn't doing this like 10 minutes I mean these are look at these look at this steam hopefully that helped we just put this on there for weight if if you watch the channel you know I basically said that this thing is a paper weight it's hot be careful um we want to be pretty quick here so we need the square calls also probably should be closer to the end of the table Yeah Chris you can pick it up and then I can move the table up and we can slide it off and bend her up sounds good these need to dry so we can do it again that one's wet this the first I've never seen a steamy slap don't burn yourself watch your face interesting interesting I don't know if that's like the chemicals coming out of the plywood or what the situation is but it's not as bendy as I was thinking it's going to should would be this sucks okay let's um yeah we do got to try to send it oh boy we got to go we got to go pick that up it all the way to the end with the box with the box there you go okay you grab the box I got the slab okay oh mother where's the squares ah clamp that all right yeah I need you to clamp it to the table the slab to the table use the table clamps and then we got we got to hurry so they're longer so you can grab clamp the one on that side Chris is in full panic mode having no idea what he's doing you can put a clamp on without the call on the front far side of the bottom clamp this is like as far as it's going Joe I need you to grab another big Square hey pulla come here bud Chris is obsessed with theing call the Call's not going to work as well well the call is going to it's not you need both okay grab this help them we going to get all this clamped I can see why there's so many dudes in the video bullet the squ what's going on talk to me is it not going up is it going up anyone it's going up anyone I think somehow the math got messed up on this thing cuz it's like not going we're losing time we got to be faster urgency I know both of you don't like the Urgent it's hard for both of you in tandem clamp there we go hold up hold up okay good we're twisted so that I'm my biggest fears are coming true probably needed more Steam where are the rest of our big body squeeze clamps I wanted that outside piece in there this is insane here's my butthole hold on I got this clamp's going to cut my leg off let go Chris it's kind ofing working it's kind of working why'd you both get on the same side you goobers it's like barely out I don't know if there's much as all cuz we T touching all on this interior on both sides also this is just for drying we got to glue it tomorrow now I had this Epiphany let's hear it yeah we needed it to be a 8 in Blade it was it was 0 or like 108 so it was a little shorten that compounds against 20 something Cuts I will say this Chris I asked you to measure I did and I told you the measurement and you said it was the same as the table saw yeah it is well the table saw was right yeah but that calculation count for a 0.125 thickness blade is our tabletop blade not 0.125 point I told you that you didn't tell me yeah I did .18 this will work so I'm I'm fine with it my butt Hol is in my throat so we're going to let this thing dry overnight we'll come back tomorrow get a game plan for gluing and also do the other side got to be honest though for a complete test and just shooting the moon not bad we broke all of our calls so we're going to glue those up double Lam them for tomorrow's but so far so good okay Moment of Truth Now the intent here don't forget is I'm using my lack of knowledge for steam bending and then applying it to a ridiculous circumstance typically you bend something around a form and then you let it sit to dry and then once it dries it stays there and you can laminate it or glue it that was our intent with this I'm expecting some spring hopefully it's not a ton we're about to find out real quick okay not a ton of spring so weird that's a slab it's it is insane that it's a slab so this isn't necessarily the end of the world cuz we do got to get glue into all this and um once we have the other side done we're going to be able to more or less clamp them on the base flipped over hopefully to make the table sit the way we want it but I guess all in all that's what we could have expected so now we got to do the other side let's beat and repeat this other side's going to be way more difficult here goes [Music] [Applause] nothing all right so now we got to figure out how to get the steam box under this side I think we bring the adjustable height desk down there we'll pick that end up on the desk to just match wherever the Box lands over here just exponentially easier the second time at least so far okay steams hooked up we're filled kind of going to give this one a little bit more time than yesterday yesterday was good I don't think more steams is going to hurt us so we're going to let this sit for probably an hour hour 15 hour 30 we'll come back out and give this side a Bend we're actually see and seeing some more calls like that those seem to have worked pretty well see you in an hour 1 hour later we came out and the steamer was off it's been about an hour a little more the box is warm it's just not like spewing steam like yesterday yesterday it was like dripping yeah we definitely want to get this more more wet okay back in the Box up again we can actually visibly see Steam and it peed on the floor a little bit so we think this time we actually got some moisture on it let's uncurl our girl we got to be pretty quick massive difference one two three okay woo woo Qui come on Fast throw on the floor we don't ever need it again ever this shit's hot hey ready faster turn sideways those going to be directly in the way of our clamps but I guess we're going to do it guys the intent here was to be smarter somehow we aren't oh my God all right well I can't see anything at this point guys and we're completely Twisted go down yeah good and then we'll get uh oh God we're we're this is broken just so you guys know you don't use the two end parts and then slide this onto theing Center I don't know who I do here you go this whole thing is not even close to being Square it's it's completely out number two is is given us a lot more difficulty than than I anticipated someone talk to me what's going what are we doing what are what's going on pull this down I'm concerned with everything this one looks like it's going completely to the right all right so we got to let this sucker dry we're getting a little bit of twisting it has has me concerned but I think we can compensate and pull the twisting out once we get to the glue up that was super nerve-wracking if we had a square side to reference from everything would be easier because we would know where Square starts but we don't go us I think the glue up tomorrow will be able to get a lot of the twists that I thinks in it out of it so I'm going to go take a nap so the shit's dry which means it should kind of stay where it's supposed to be let's get it out of clamps and get a game plan together on how we're going to pull it into square now we've been talking excessively about what we think and right now it's looking like we're going to try to clamp here and then find references to make sure we're pulling across cuz I don't know if I've explained this well enough but these legs can get like this very very easily when you're doing something like this and it's my biggest fear that that's exactly what we're doing and so when it's sitting on the ground it's going to look like one side's going up and the other side's coming up and just going to look like I'm hoping we can address that before we put glue on things what the I wonder if because we're rookies if we over steamed it and it cracked while drying the glue should hold it so what I'm thinking here I can take a measurement off of the center line of both and then I'll put a screw on that cuz these are getting cut off anyway and we'll be able to pull distance to find squareness see the Gap in the strings I don't think inherently it's going to be that difficult got to clamp it to the table let's start with that I don't know why I have these or where they came from so the reason we have them the angle we have them is that they should be pulling from the back eventually I think it's getting more it is hold on a sec watch your watch your dicks and your eyes your eyes are protected dicks aren't baby okay the last time it was pulling it away it looks dramatically worse from this side like I feel like let's get a distance between those because of what it ended up doing if you didn't notice took the tension off this but because it's the way it's pulling they should just barely be touching and I think that's what they [Music] do what we ended up doing is I have the center line on both slabs everything's marked from if we were able to cut an edge we wouldn't have to do any of this we could lay it down on that edge and clamp everything in and then take measurements based on that edge that edge would stay flat to the reference surface here and everything would be easy in the video they have a square Edge but they also don't show us how they glue it up when you're looking at the table from the end it would look Twisted that's what this is doing so this in that corner pulling it down is what this entire Center Line whole thing is I don't know how we figured it out but I feel confident in it I think we're ready for glue so we've got a gallon of typon 2 dark that we're going to write down the steps to put this back together properly cuz there's only me and Sam here so we have the ability to fold this sucker up get it exactly like it is now then we let it sit and dry it's going to take a lot of glue though we're going to work this side [Music] first chit's already hitting the fan words she's she's bending back ring back okay but go to the ground hold up a little bit golly all right let's spread some glue that's probably the most glue I ever dibbled in [Music] something okay oh good it just sprung right out let's get the other one on the internet did this and then said John would you mind making this I was like I am a glutton for punishment because of the plan that was relatively not that bad that the gluing part yesterday I think I lost six years off my life when we tried to get it up into the clamps taking it out of the steam form only concern now is is anything coming out of like Square which I I do like our plan but then also the glue not penetrating enough and these just exploding open once again once we're uh dry I guess all we can do now is wait see you guys tomorrow for potential catastrophe the next morning all right we are dry at least we think the bets are on I'm saying if either side fails it's going to be this one I think Sam agrees yeah this this side but Joe actually thinks it's going to be the side we kind of watered down so there ain't nothing to it but to do it let's take her apart see if this thing explodes or stays optimism level are we staying level are we staying level okay no but it's close closer than what it was before we put it in Pop That strap the strap might be the thing actually no pop it don't don't cut a finger off do you know how to pop a strap a boy any any day now any minute now go there we go that was a decent pop is [Music] it screw hey yes that is amazing I'll give you a high five on that one he usually misses cuz he's incredibly unathletic Falls unless he's falling off a ladder that rules I'm I I had like 40% hope that something awesome was going to no like 40% belief that this side wasn't going to just go plong well let's flip this thing over and give it a lookie now let's just go straight on the ground it's easier got to ful them keep going oh hell yeah now see there's our wobble baby that's the uneven cuts on the base but it freaking works I don't know if it's 90° but I don't even care it looks sick seems low I guess I always think seems well I'm standing everything's low so they're definitely not they're out of 90 probably lost an inch there we were shooting for like 30 between 30 and 31 in on the height and you said it was 28 it is a little low especially for my big ass can we grab a chair that's not 28 like a welding chair like grab that regular ass little chair that floats around both sides definitely flate out and so like I'll probably never do this again but if I was to do it again or you want to try it just go like way longer problem is if you're going to do two-sided you need like a 15 and a normal chair ain't bad at allet huh let's cut these square and then kind of going through that process we got some epoxy fills we're not done yet boys we give the people what they want in s Po's favorite tool you never leave some without it his laser level laser level and a can of tobacco remember this side was given us the optical you know where we looked at it and we're like this is way out and this side is significantly more out than that one cuz my line was so shitty so we're out this way so we've had what we would call A happy accident what we're doing here is working but if you see here we're just out a little bit left to right and so what we think is we're just going to cut that side first cuz my initial cut was so far off and then put the laser back on it and see how level everything is cuz it might take this out and then all I'll need to do is just skim this bottom with a with a something straight instead of the cut now which would take off about a half of an inch on that side to get those level so Sam's got it marked on that edge we're going to put it on the ground flip the whole thing upright clamp it to the table throw a tracksaw on get it get you'll see it's about to get weird let her down let her down let her down so once it goes up we're probably going to want to bring it on a side where we can get clamps on it we only need one we could just clamp on that outside okay oh sit stand table baby need you to use words I got the sound or one make sure not just jumps all right we're going to roll it up [Music] didn't didn't Chris just get all upset with us cuzz we missed the fun stuff and then he where'd he go hey Chris thought you wanted to have fun What's the clearance look like underneath you're hitting the metal frame thought so let's throw a clamp take the bar like we had it on the other one I got it Sam I didn't realize he was holding it that much hm that's weird the long the bar go across the face and then clamp it to the edges don't worry go slower it'll it's fine and then f squeeze clamps and clamp them into the box there we go you don't need to go so up faster the clamping part does let's be [Music] great all right shimmy it to you to then roll it back on the tabletop all right and roll to me that's what it is it's the bevel I wonder if we just put the saw back on doing the same thing and we just take that bevel angle and put on the saw it's not [Music] much okay oh hold up be over the bar you're over the Red Bar okay good now all right bar all right let's set this where's the [Music] Saw son of a [Music] well guess it's one-sided now had to be the shitty side too I'm [Music] scared it was so good it was so [Applause] good well happens guys and sometimes you just got to eat it that's what this is now I could sit here and and wh and moan and I I actually think it's a serendipitous opportunity here for you guys to get involved with how we're going to fix this instead of just cutting this off putting a leg or a cabinet on it finishing the table and finishing the video I want to know how you guys would fix it and I got two options for you first we take the wood that we have here left I will use the Stitch zipper inlay method that I've done in the past and we'll run stitches and stuff across it to make it fixed sound structurally and look good that's option one option two I'm going to break this whole part out here create an incredibly insane epoxy mold pour clear resin in there and then carve it all back so you see the broken parts coming together so if you think the Stitch option is good comment Stitch it down below and if you want to see me put epoxy in it comment pour it down below whichever one gets more comments will be the fix that I actually do on the table and then let me know what should I try next

Channel: John Malecki

Views: 747,519

Keywords: John Malecki, John Malecki Builds, Woodworking, viral woodworking, viral trends, bending wood, bent lamination, live edge slabs, live edge wood, bending table, bent table, bending wood table, bent wood, bent wood tree, bent tree

Id: u-ek17sceEk

Length: 30min 24sec (1824 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024