Strangest Thing I've Found In a Slab

hey this is cam with blacktail studio and this week i make a desk with a drawer and find a hidden surprise in the slab stay tuned this build started off kind of interesting because i got this really cool highly figured tons of color amazing walnut slab from gobi walnut there on the left but i decided it needed a small accent piece on the right so i had to go buy that big kind of bland looking piece because it fit the contour just perfect and the color was really really close the slab on the left was 250 and the slab on the right was 300 so the piece i'm using only six inches of costs more than the piece that i was making the entire desk out of if you want to make a desk i found the perfect size is about 30 inches by 60 inches and this one wasn't quite long enough it was about 59 inches and i made it actually slightly larger so it's about 59 inches by 32 inches this slab really just clicked together you can see there's really only one way that edge could have landed on that main slab so this build went together really quickly the only thing was it was slightly thicker than the main slab so i just had to give it a few passes on the planer and this is a grizzly 20-inch planer has a helical head which is more than enough to remove the material needed on this small piece you could even use a benchtop planner for a project like this overall like i said went pretty easy i'm using a porter cable restore and a nylon wheel just to remove all of the kind of strands and little bits of bark that are left making sure i get a good solid epoxy bond when i make that pour people ask if i'm able to reuse my molds and the answer is yeah usually i only had to remove the sides you can see they get a little bit chipped up and broken off from the last table build but i can always make a smaller table from them so usually get about two or three builds per table because i have to keep cutting the size down until they're eventually too small to use on a project sealing the edges or not sealing the edges seems to be a really hot topic issue in the epoxy table world right now i know the black forest guys came out with a video saying never to seal your edges because they had some tables that came apart after sealing their edges and i totally respect that i know dylan pretty well i've talked to him about this actually quite a while before he came out with that video i still seal both sides of my slab one reason you want to seal the top and the bottom is because when you make your pour and the epoxy goes underneath the top can potentially warp from absorbing moisture from the air i also seal my sides because i use this black epoxy and it can really really uh soak in there and stain the wood generally the black forest guys use a metallic pigment and that powdered pigment doesn't soak into the wood like this liquid dye does so that is one of the reasons why i still seal my edges also i haven't made as many tables as the black forest guys but i've probably made about 50 of these and i've sealed every single edge and not one of them has even had a tiny crack i am super super diligent about cleaning up all the soft wood and removing anything that could compromise that bond and getting a really really good scuff so i personally haven't had any issues i have had issues with staining so that is why i still opt to seal my edges so in the end it's going to be up to you but i seal my edges and make sure to get a really really good scuff or pour while that seal coat is still tacky as always i am using the liquid glass epoxy and as always i like to remind people that they are a supporter of my channel they are a sponsor of mine but they are also my favorite epoxy to use so come to your own conclusions on whether or not i am telling the truth there but i have only been using liquid glass for about the six eight months and have not had a single problem with it i did want to show one thing here though i was intentionally only mixing in the center to show you guys look at the edges there how the edges are actually still clear and this is what happens if you do not scrape the sides while you're mixing your epoxy i get a lot of people messaging me problems they've had with the epoxy not curing right not liquid glass or any brand in particular but any epoxy and you really really need to scrape the sides it's much more important to mix well than to mix long that's something people ask me is how long should they mix i usually mix for maybe two or three minutes but mixing well is much more important than mixing long and if you're wondering what was happening there i always pop the bubbles in the bucket before pouring in the table i want to take a second to thank all the new viewers i have out there if you haven't seen my videos i really appreciate tuning in because i know you have a ton of choices of things to watch and i also want to thank all my regular viewers because i put a new video out every thursday and it's actually getting to the point where i'm starting to get to know a lot of people out there i know that tom garber is working over in ghana and i get to talk to him about that and i know that mike hormer is a photographer and he's cool enough that he gives me professional photography advice in the comments for free so i feel pretty lucky to get that too i know mc's creations is mario down in brazil so it is really cool engaging with these people all over the world so if you are new to the video and you want to give me some tips on your field of expertise i love getting advice i'm not one of these guys that's too proud to take advice from my viewers it's actually one of the best parts about being a content creator so if you want to come along for the journey i do appreciate if you hit that subscribe button if you hit that little bell in the corner because then you will be notified when i put a new video out every week thursday at noon you probably noticed that these legs are a pretty wild design and they are made by flowy line design and i have used his legs quite a few times on previous projects they are really good quality and he is great to deal with his name is alex joo super responsive he has an etsy page as well as a regular website and i will include links to his website so you can shop his entire design my wife is in the furniture industry and she goes all over the world looking at these furniture markets and seeing the latest designs and she said that she has never seen designs like his so it really says a lot because she sees the same thing over and over and over again so it is really an honor to work with alex and have these legs on my tables i realize i am rushing this table leg installation a little bit but the good news is i have a full video and a step-by-step blog on how to install table legs properly you need to allow for wood movement and that is what these threaded inserts allow for as well as enabling the table to be assembled and disassembled an infinite number of times whereas if you use just lag bolts you could really start to auger out that hole after taking it apart just a couple times now i get to do the fun stuff and by fun stuff i mean the stuff i hate the most it is all the sanding and one tip i can offer you when you do this little epoxy touch-ups there is hit them with a sander which will warm the epoxy up slightly and then make the scraping go much smoother otherwise that epoxy can be so brittle they will actually kind of chip out of those small holes that you filled so hit it up with a sander and then go ahead and scrape it now i moved on to the ca glue touch-ups and that is what that little cup is with the activator i touch it up with a tiny little awl and then hit it with the activator and it is ready to stand in just a couple seconds it's a really really cool addition to my consumable list is this ca glue with an activator you can see just how fast it is ready to sand it's just a few seconds and it fills those tiny little imperfections really nicely one of the reasons i like making desks so much is that they are so easy to move around unlike a 10-foot table that about crushed me a few weeks ago this one i can maneuver pretty easily you can see there i'm using a photography light to do all my inspections so you can really really see any imperfections those photography lights are really generally cheaper than shop lights and they work so much better they're battery powered so you can take them anywhere and the color is better the brightness is better so don't use a shop light use a photography light once again i am kind of rushing this finish process in this video here but once again i have a full blog and a full video on a step-by-step process to apply the finish exactly as i'm going to apply it here so i will include a link to that in the video description below if you have any questions that aren't answered in that video or this video definitely ask me in the comments below if you have any additional questions i also start offering video consultations where i will meet with you via skype and we can go over whatever it is you want to go over whether it's finishing marketing how to build your social media pages anything you want to talk about this was actually a cool little surprise these were actually two bullets from the middle of the tree that were exposed when we were planing it up at creative woodworking so kind of a neat little thing that i decided to leave in the table i am constantly trying to improve my skill and improve the products i use i'm always reevaluating other epoxies even though i'm sponsored by liquid glass i want to make sure i'm using the best product the same goes for finish i have been using rubio monaco lately i am not sponsored by them whatsoever they don't even send me free product although i feel like they should at least do that rubio are you listening but for now i just actually really like the product i love the way it looks i love the protection i get from it it doesn't mean that i won't find a better finish someday i won't doesn't mean i won't find a better way to apply it i am always trying to get better so i know i used to use a lot of osmo i have used some other finishes too this is the best one of all the ones i found currently and i will continue to research continue to try to find the best ones i luckily have the budget that i can experiment with some of these kind of more expensive finishes whereas most of you out there can't really afford to spend 100 bucks on a can of finish just to see if it's better than another 100 can of finish so rubio is a great finish i love it i have had a lot of success i don't have any intention of stop using it but i'm going to keep continuing to look and see what else is out there one of my complaints with rubio is that you can't really continue to add codes to build sheen on top of this second coat that i'm about to apply here and they don't even really want you to apply a second coat i did talk to them and i did find a way that they would allow me to add a second coat osmo you can get a much higher sheen if you keep building those coats so i did like that aspect i wish rubio would find a way to get the same protection and allow a build of coats like the osmo does i have recently actually gone through my entire house and refinished every piece that i had finished with odie's oil and osmo and refinished all of them with rubio monaco and this is not for a video that i'm doing this is just because i needed a piece that looked great and could hold up to everyday use so that should tell you a little bit about how much confidence i have in this finish i've had comments on some past desks that i build saying that's not a desk that's a table desks have drawers and so this one is actually getting a drawer for once and this is a desk that i am building for my father-in-law i'm not even getting paid for it if you can believe that and the one thing he asked for was a drawer so i felt like i had to make him exactly what he wanted the problem is i don't make a lot of drawers and for you guys i'm going to rush through this drawer build because i don't think that i am the drawer expert i don't want you exactly copying me or trying to use me as your model for drawer building i am really good at building resin tables i am just learning how to properly make drawers so i'll take you through my process because in the end it made a really cool looking drawer that worked really well but again i'm not a not a cabinet maker i don't make these all the time i just wanted a really cool looking drawer that would function exactly as i needed it i was going for kind of a particular look and so what i did was i cut three sides that were all the same height and thickness then i had one kind of really thick bowl nose piece and you'll understand why i made it so oversized in a minute or two you can see here i'm just running a quarter inch dado through all four pieces so this is going to give that plywood there somewhere to sit box joints or dovetails or half blend dovetails are always super cool again i'm not a cabinet maker so i was attaching all these with dominoes which is going to be plenty strong enough but i suppose dovetails would have been a little bit more trick and if you haven't seen this tool before it is really cool it is my festival vacuum clamp enables me to kind of work a lot more flexibly able to spin these around up and down and get the sides and the ends really easily instead of having to clamp each piece down individually it does speed up the work quite a bit anytime you're doing a glue up that is like this where you have these sharp 90 degree corners whether it's for a drawer or a table leg or anything else it is really worth it to take the time and properly tape everything off you can see there that i have everything cut with an exacto knife actually use my japanese marking knife but an x-acto knife will work just as well and that will save you so much time in the end when you go to sand and finish these since this drawer was going to be suspended from the top i didn't want a separate drawer front so this is why the little dado square is stuck there so this is what i came up with i don't know if i invented this or if other people do this already but since i wanted a one-piece drawer front this is what i had to come up with just cut a little bitty square in there added a little bit of wood glue which by the way i'm using titebond 3 and i just learned from a really reputable cabinet shop they don't recommend using titebond 3 with walnut they said the original type bond is the one to use and you'll have to ask creative woodworking why that is but they said that this type on three has been known to fail and the really really high end shops use the original titebond and i'd actually posted that on my instagram and i got a ton of people saying that they've never had a problem with type one three and it works great and i personally have never had a problem with type one three however i did get quite a few messages from people that said that they have had quite a few failures on their cutting boards with type on three so i am going to pivot and start using the titebond original when gluing up this walnut what turned out to be trickier than i thought was going to be attaching these drawer slides to the underside of this slab because i originally wanted a really cool undermount hidden push to open soft close trick drawer slide and apparently that's not a thing in the drawer slide world because most of the time they go in cabinets and they're undermount to something solid underneath not hung down from a slab like this so i had to kind of pirate some brackets off of one drawer slide and attach them to another drawer slide that was actually a soft close so in the end i didn't love that you can see the drawer slides from the side you can see underneath it doesn't look great you don't see them a lot from the sides i'll show you some videos of me opening and closing here in a second but this is the best that i could do and they are a little bit hard to open because it has that soft close aspect so don't love that either but it's really even it's really smooth action on it works great but i was hoping for something a little bit better in terms of that hidden aspect and maybe a push to open i get a fair amount of questions on how i take my photos and i use a method called light painting it is definitely not something i invented but it is a pretty cool technique that enables a guy like me in a garage to get photos like this so if you want to know how i take my photos i made a video about a year or so ago it's pretty boring video if i'm being honest but it is pretty informative so i will include a link to that in the video description below also these legs by flowy line photographed really nicely because they are in a really cool flat black so thanks so much to floyd land for supplying the legs to this project all right it is that time again this week start your question or comment with the project that you want to see next i feel like i make too many of these epoxy table videos but you guys keep watching them so if you want to see more i will keep making them but start your question or comment with a project you want to see next and that way i will know you watch the entire video and i promise i will answer all of your questions first as always thanks so much please subscribe for more videos just like this one have a great week

Channel: Blacktail Studio

Views: 1,977,540

Keywords: epoxy table, modern desk, diy desk, resin table, epoxy art, epoxy desk, river table, river desk, epoxy river table, how to make epoxy table, diy epoxy table, walnut desk, desk with drawer, contemporary desk, slab furniture, live edge desk, black walnut table, diy epoxy, how to make river table, flowyline design, ecopoxy, liquid glass epoxy

Id: gRZ70Pei8Lc

Length: 15min 7sec (907 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020