Rotten Wood Table

hey this is cam with blacktail studio and i don't know how to turn wood however i am able to make this for about 40 bucks in a weekend so if you want to do the same stay tuned like a lot of you out there i tend to hoard wood i bought this piece of maple about four or five years ago on craigslist actually about two of them they're about the same size for fifteen dollars a piece and i thought it was a pretty good deal and it's a really cool piece of wood it has a lot of figure in it and it's pretty big about four inches by six inches so i kept putting off using it i was kept saying i was going to save it for the perfect project no i can't use it for this i can't use it for this so finally here i just decided it was time to use some of the wood that i already had and since it didn't cost much money and i wasn't sure how well this was going to turn out i thought it was a perfect candidate some of you might have seen these amazing bandsaw artists that can cut these crazy reindeer and have them look amazing right off the bandsaw you can probably tell already that i am not that bandsaw artist most of this is going to be made up for with the power carving later so i am just doing the best i can with that thick resaw blade that i have on there and it's a good blade for resawing it's not a good blade for these complex shapes the base that i'm going to use for this table is about a two inch silver maple slab and this slab was about 20 bucks so we are up to about 35 dollars for the total cost of this project however i'm not using the whole slab so i'll be able to use more of this for another table later but it is nice to use the oversized stuff and this is two inches and it's not gonna look like a two inch slab when it's done but that is one of the things that makes this power carving so cool is that you get a really kind of contour the shapes down into it so a pretty thin base actually needs to start fairly thick a lot of people ask me about this jig that i use on my band saw and it's actually a really cheap and easy jig to make and i just got on youtube looked up a couple different designs and landed on one that i liked and a lot of you asked if i will make a video showing how to make this jig so then they can make the same jig for their bandsaw at home and first of all i didn't invent this jig and second of all i didn't improve on it so i don't really feel like i'm worthy to make a whole video about this bandsaw jig since i would basically just be ripping someone else off so what i will do is i will look through youtube and i'll try to find the same video that i watched to learn how to make this jig add a link in the description so then you guys can make the same jig if you want for your own bandsaw for the actual shaping of the table base i'm going to be using these cut saw carving discs and some of you know that ketzel has been a long time supporter of my channel they are really cool to work with when i have an idea for a video i don't have to deal with some media firm i literally call the owner he answers he also manages their instagram account they are great to work with they are like a third generation family-owned company all of these discs are apparently even handmade and i found that hard to believe i asked him if i could have some videos and he said that would give away their secrets of how they do it but essentially they are these tungsten carbide teeth that essentially never get dull and of course everything has to get dull eventually but i haven't had any of these get dull yet so they are these really amazing discs they cost like 60 bucks a piece so you can be all set up and into power carving for the cost of an angle grinder plus 60 dollars so really cool tool and really just a great company to work with these discs do kick up a lot of dust so even though i was doing this in my shop to start i found they work much much better outside make sure you wear a respirator make sure you wear goggles all of those things however these carvings aren't as intimidating as they look they you'll feel it out pretty quick once you get started carving and don't do anything you're not comfortable with however you will pick it up pretty quick cuts all doesn't just make those shaping discs they have a whole line of carving tools this is their ball nose burr and i have just recently got this electric die grinder and it works really great i was using an air powered one before but i highly recommend getting the electric one it never runs out of air has plenty of power so a really cool tool and another cool carving tool that i can use but eventually i didn't really like the way this was going i didn't care for the shape it started to look like a flamingo with too many knee joints so what i had to do was i had to smooth it out somehow and i ended up using that same ball nose bur to kind of flatten out the sides more like a snake scales and i don't particularly love the look of the snake however it was going to make this much more interesting and less flamingo-like as much as i've always wished i was an amazing artist i know that i just don't have that gene in me i can't paint a picture i can't create an original shape but what i've done in the past because i know i have this handicap is i looked in nature for inspiration i've done that a lot with my epoxy tables and that's what i've done here and i feel like even if you don't like snakes you can still respect the amazing shape that nature has given them because they did it over millions of years and it's hard to improve on what nature has done so i used it for inspiration i think it worked pretty well here i didn't want to go too on the nose i didn't want to put a big cobra shaped table top on this i just wanted to use some of that amazing organic shape as inspiration and then kind of make the rest my own during the shaping process i made sure to look at it from all different sides because you don't want something that looks really cool from one side and then you go 90 degrees and it looks ridiculous because if this is going to be in your house you want to look good from essentially all sides at least three sides i'd say so once i liked the shape of it i moved on to my oscillating tool with the 80 grit and the 80 grit is a really good bridge from the finish sanding to the shaving whereas if you have a lump if you have a spot that you don't quite like you can still smooth it out with the 80 grit but you don't risk going too far like you could with one of those carving discs at this point i was finally ready to bring the project back inside which is good because we do not get that many sunny days during an oregon winter and what i'm using here are a couple really cool tools one of them is the cutsall rasp the other is a vacuum clamp and if you don't know a vacuum clamp is exactly what it sounds like it's essentially a suction cup for woodworking it is a vacuum powered clamp that holds onto whatever you put on there and it doesn't even need to be that smooth it's actually a pretty amazing tool it is also pretty expensive it's like 13 100 some dollars for the pair of them that sander i was using there is like 500 and i mentioned that this can be a really cool way to get into woodworking for cheap this is not a good example of that if you want to get into woodworking for cheap stay away from the blue and green tools they are a horrible idea but they are really really nice just like any project there was a lot of sanding and just like any project it is super boring to watch it was it was essentially like watching someone else play video games only i had just learned that people actually pay to watch other people play video games now so maybe i need to start a twitch channel where you guys can pay to watch me sand wood because i think that would be just about as exciting as the video game thing also this turned out to be a really bad idea so don't leave just yet if you're on the fence because i made a pretty huge mistake just stay tuned do you ever look over and see a co-worker doing something really stupid and be like oh my god i can't believe you almost did that you are so lucky i am here or maybe you've been that co-worker where someone's like wow i can't believe you almost did that this was a really bad idea so i don't have any co-workers i am the only one looking over my shoulder and so this is what happens when you have no co-workers [Applause] i would try to defend that idea but it was just a genuinely bad idea and my youtube guardian angels will be delighted to know that i was wearing closed toed shoes and safety glasses during that whole process so i at least have that going for me and in the end i was able to mark a line that was perfectly parallel with the bottom and then make that cut with this japanese pole saw so i ended up with a table that's about an inch shorter it's not for a client it's just for my house so not a devastating blow in the end but certainly not something i was trying to do a few videos back i pointed out the woodturners use this trick where they hollow out the center section which means just that outer ring sits on the floor which means it will sit much much flatter and someone in the comments pointed out that it's not just woodturners who do that it's basically everybody does that soda manufacturers cereal bowls everybody makes things that have just the outer ring that sits on the ground so if you are going to do a similar project make sure that you kind of concave that center section and it will sit much much better speaking of youtube comments every week i have this little call to action at the end of the videos and a few weeks back i told people to say their favorite band and the first person that had the same favorite band as me i would give a call out in a future video so big credit to matthew potter who had the very first correct answer and he was not the last correct answer but the correct answer was obviously led zeppelin how does anybody have another favorite band so thanks to everybody that played along with that game and big credit to matthew potter if you're wondering why i'm not giving a detailed tutorial on how to apply this finish it's because i actually end up sanding off this finish here a little bit but i wanted to show you what it looked like and tell you why i sanded it off and i'll get into the reasons of exactly why i took it off later but for now i am using sl wipe it on and wipe it off it is a finish i've used before and i normally like it it just was a little too orange on this maple all right on to the table top and this might not look like much but it's actually some of the nicest wood in my entire collection this is some highly figured curly and spalted maple and i'm sure a lot of you guys already know this but curly maple does not come from a curly maple tree the curl are those linear kind of tiger lines you'll hear it called tiger maple or fiddleback maple those are all kind of variations on the figure spalted maple also does not come from a spalted maple tree the spalting is those dark black lines and those are actually a fungus that comes from the tree beginning to rot when the after the tree's been cut so once the tree is dead they leave it intentionally for a while to induce that spalting trying to make it so it doesn't get too rotted but still getting enough of those cool black lines i believe i spent about twenty dollars on this board a couple of years ago and i think that brings our total up to 55 and i know i told you 40 dollars total but i didn't use the entire slab i didn't use this entire board so i'm gonna round down but we're going to be somewhere between the 40 and 55 so apparently this knot hole resembles another kind of hole and i do get a lot of trolls but that doesn't always mean they're all wrong and i had posted a video of this on instagram and i hadn't even really noticed it but i got some very interesting comments from people and this next little bit might make some of you a little uncomfortable so feel free to look away but instead of trying to hide this hole i decided to kind of lean into it and just make it a little bit more artistic make it a little more interesting looking and i had some more of these cut saw die grinding tools and i used this kind of thin one with the extreme grit to auger out most of it and again i wasn't trying to hide the fact that there's a hole i was just trying to make it look a little bit better and a little less like the thing that it kind of looked like this is one of their flame bits in the fine grit and you can get really close to kind of a sandpaper finish with this fine grit if you go nice and slow and keep the speed good and then the last thing i had to do was just use this dremel tool to kind of smooth it out and clean it up a little bit i definitely don't need any more comments whether or not you think that hole looked like what it definitely did look like but what i would like some feedback on is whether or not you think i should have left it natural so to speak or if i should have done what i did by hollowing it out and kind of embracing the void there i mentioned i didn't like how yellow that seal a cell turned the maple which is common of any oil-based finish so i went back to a tried and true finish of mine and that is the osmo 3043 it's not the best protection but it might be the prettiest finish that i use so i did about two or three coats of this osmo 3043 and it provided a great non-yellowing finish i always like to wait at least a day before i take my wood out of the clamps and this one was ready to go the next day so pulled it out of the clamps got it on my circle jig the same one that i used for that base cut it out to the proper diameter again i kind of undershot it so i had to make a second cut where i was able to trim it right down to size and this spalted maple can be really tricky to work with because those spalted areas are so rotted and therefore so soft the first thing i want to do is get them on my drum sander i don't love using a drum sander it's just a slow tool to use but it does get it very flat and consistent because hand sanding can be very hard with the spalted maple second i went on to my router table and i got a new 60 degree chamfer bit or bevel bit whatever you want to call it and i did take quite a few passes before i got up to this point because it is a pretty big bit and i don't have a huge router in there so i had to make nice slow shallow passes so i didn't either have tear out or burn it and then i was left with a slight little lip able to take that down with my little mini block plane and now i was finally ready for finish finishing spalted maple can be really really tricky as well because it's so soft that it needs a finish that's going to harden you can't put something like the osmo on here or the rubio because that doesn't get really hard so you need something like a varnish or a lacquer but the problem is most urethanes and varnishes all the oil-based ones they're going to turn this spalted maple really dark and it really takes away from the whole effect of it so i used a water-based finish i'm gonna try to have a whole video on this finished process because it was kind of experimental and in the end it worked really well but the key is to use a water-based finish at this time i wasn't positive i was going to keep this top with this space permanently so i wanted to make kind of a mounting plate that could interchange some different tops so that's why i didn't recess this top into that circle and i may eventually do that if i'm 100 sure that i'm going to keep this top with that base but for now is a pretty simple mounting solution that actually worked really well if you want to know how i got this really cool dramatic shot i had my iphone in ultra wide mode i had a black backdrop up put a bunch of photography light on this and then just panned that phone back and that is how it looked and that photography backdrop it doesn't look great in person you would be very surprised to see that this is what i look like but this is what it looks like on my camera when i'm taking the photos so it is really cool when you get your settings right because everything just clicks and these are how the photos ended up and i'm pretty proud of these photos i thought they looked pretty dramatic i loved how this finish turned out again i'm hoping to have a full finish video on that eventually i just want to make sure that i actually know what i'm doing so i can teach you guys the proper way first and again there's that curl those linear lines all that spalting just a really remarkable piece of wood in the end i mentioned a few weeks ago that i'm trying to use my platform now to bring up some of the smaller youtube pages of the really talented woodworkers and this is nick sawyer of sawyer design he is a traditional woodworker he does amazing things with hand tools that i could never even dream of making i will include a link to his page in the video description below because he only has like 2 000 subscribers but has an incredible amount of talent i am currently in a heated debate of whether to get a mac or a pc desktop for my video editing so cast your vote by saying either mac or pc at the start of your comment that way i will know you made it all the way to the end of the video and i promise i will answer all of your questions or comments first as always thank you so much for watching have a great week

Channel: Blacktail Studio

Views: 623,048

Keywords: angle grinder carving, chainsaw carving, diy end table, diy side table, electric wood carving tools, end table plans, kutzall, power carving, relief carving, simple wood carving, video to help you sleep, wood carving, wood carving for beginners, wood sculpture, woodworking projects, Woodworking projects, Wood projects, diy projects, woodturning for beginners, spalted maple, wood turning, lathe alternative, lathe

Id: uANK0B7LH_s

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021