This Forgotten Wood Was STUNNING

I recently got my hands on this black walnut slab and as you'll see it's one of the nicest pieces of lumber I've been lucky enough to work with I'll be building a desk with a slab using a design that I've wanted to try for a while and originally this desk was going to be for me but in the end I decided to sell it but I'll explain more about why here in a bit you may also notice that I'm building this in my new shop that I just moved into and this created a whole host of issues throughout this build thank you Walnut isn't near as abundant around Texas and Oklahoma as it is up in say the Pacific Northwest but every now and then you can find some really stunning pieces and this was definitely one of those this slab is a crotch slab meaning this is where the trunk first branched off into two all that weight and compression on this section of the trunk creates this swirling figure and I've never worked with a slab with such a long section of crotch figure the crotch is seven foot long which in and of itself is impressive and no I'm not trying to make any any window here I just really like working with such nice wood so at this point I have been in the new space for about two weeks but we were still waiting on all the electrical to be run and I couldn't even run my CNC to flatten the slab yet luckily my friend Todd Miller who's the owner of vintage reclaimed Lumber let me use his wood with slap flattener and vintage reclaimed Lumbers also where we found this gym this slab was buried under a pile of slabs on the back of the property and sort of Forgotten but when I dug through the pile and I saw this I knew that I had something really nice the slab has been air drying for a couple years and I've heard that air dried Walnut has better color than kiln-dried Walnut I have no idea if that's actually true but as you'll see this Walnut was really really beautiful and a lot different than the other black walnut slabs that I've worked with that come from my area also don't worry they've got a whole stack of these so if you want one you can pick one up for yourself and if you tell vintage reclaimed Lumber that Johnny build sent you they'll even give you a discount okay so that wood whiz is basically somewhere in between a CNC machine and a giant router sled it has a five inch cutter head on it and after a few hours I was able to get both sides of this piece flat and head back to the shop so the focal point on this piece is the crotch figure and I want to make sure I position the figure so it runs parallel across the width of the desk this way the crotch is going to be right up front in the center again I'm not making some sort of juvenile innuendo this figure is actually called crotch figure or compression figure and my goal here is to educate and inform not make subtle anatomical jokes often on my bills the epoxy is one of the main features but I wanted that to be more utilitarian on this project I have to fill this void but I took one of the offcuts from trimming the slab down and I'll flip that around to fill the space up I can cut this quickly over my bandsaw but as I was cutting the bandsaw just kind of sounded a bit off thankfully I was wearing my brown pants that day [Music] and I can finish that cut with the track saw I probably should have just done that in the first place one of my favorite parts of working with Walnut besides how good it looks is how easy it is to clean up the live edges the BART peels off fairly easy and a sander cleans up the rest really fast with the crotch all clean I can set it for the epoxy pores and I'm trying a different way of building a form I'm using the same stucco tape on the bottom of the form that I always use and then I'm running a bead of latex caulk all the way around the base of the slab to prevent epoxy from seeping under this should both save on the amount of epoxy that I need and make the cleanup much simpler right here you can see where I want the epoxy to flow into that larger crack on the left side of your screen so I'm adding caulking around this part normally I would place the edges on the form and then add caulk where it joins the base but this time I add a caulk to the bottom of the edges of the form and this worked out really well as you can see I was very liberal with the amount of caulk I used and with all this cocktalk I made zero [ __ ] jokes and honestly I'm just proud of myself and the amount of personal growth that I've experienced for those pores I'm using total belt thick set fathom which you can pour up to two inches deep at a time versus regular thick set which is only one inch deep at a time even though I could pour this whole thing in one go since the slab is right at two inches thick I was cautious and only poured an inch deep that first day total boat is a long time sponsor and I've got a link below where you can get a discount if you want to pick up some epoxy or some finish a day later the epoxy still hadn't hardened but it was reading about 60 degrees so I went ahead and added the final one inch deep pour and headed out of town for a maker meeting I left that here for three days and then epoxy had hardened up nicely where I can take it out of the form I did not tape to the sides of the form like I normally do but except for this one Edge the sides came off fairly clean so the main feature of this desk is going to be a monitor stand that doubles as a Cabinet to place my computer and other items while working at the desk the door of this cabinet will be a Timbre door which is the sliding door made from strips of wood and I decided to use some leftover purple heart because it looks really nice as a contrasting wood to Walmart to make the Tambor I realized I was missing some needed supplies so I made a trip to a local woodworking store that had just opened up in my city Rockler just opened a store here in my hometown of Oklahoma City we're gonna go check it out and do some shopping let's go this is a small part sled which is going to be perfect for those Timbre doors that I'm making this is what I'm talking about right here it's got all the different kinds of gluing accoutrement that you might need I actually already have one of these the funny part is I got it for my old table saw and it's never fit my current table saw I need a new Rockler mug too mine uh broke in the move you guys know rock color is a long time sponsor of this Channel and I'm super excited there's a rocker store in my city now make sure to check it out if you're in the area it's got everything you could possibly need for all your woodworking projects thank you mayam thank you you have a good day I'm cutting strips with this six inch wide Purple Heart board into half inch pieces and I want to talk real quick about some inspiration that I got the weekend before when I made a trip up to Philadelphia for maker Meetup I met this really talented woodworker named Larissa huff and while I was touring her shop I saw a cabinet that she had just finished and it had a continuous grain Timbre door on it I've done a set of Timbre doors in the past when I built that wrecker cabinet but they weren't continuous grains so I really got inspired to do that on this piece this purple heart has a nice grain pattern so as I cut the strips I have to number them to keep them in order and I ended up with 55 strips for the size of door I needed now I can finally take that slab over my CNC to flatten it since I finally have it running and behind the scenes I had all sorts of trouble getting it to that point you see in my shop I do have access to three-phase power which the spindle needs to run at full power to run at that full 8.7 horsepower but when I tried to use it I discovered there's two different types of three-phase power there's three phase Y and three-phase Delta now I couldn't begin to tell you what that means because well the only College I went to was the U of SMC but what I do know is I have three-phase Delta and this machine requires three-phase y I could have went out and bought a three thousand dollar converter but instead I've just got it running on single phase 240 and this means I get six horsepower out of my spindle versus the 8.7 horses like in my old shot but as you can see that six horsepower is more than enough to plow right through the slab and get it flat again notice that I made no plowing jokes no jokes about how my wife says six horsepower is actually average like I'm doing pretty good here even though I wanted to I'm doing pretty good here also I left out the part where once I got power figured out I learned that my spindle had been damaged in the move and no longer worked so then I had to wait another week to get in a working spindle to replace the old one and now I can finally run my CNC again it's such a huge part of my workflow but this really made me wonder am I too reliant on my CNC I'm curious what y'all think do I use it too much I do have some ideas for some builds where I'd limit myself from using some of my larger tools if that's something you'd like to see just drop a comment down below and let me know now it's unlikely to have any effect on my decision making process but I truly am curious what you guys think also if you're hearing that really loud noise in the background it's the electricians pulling wire in the ceiling directly above me and this was going on constantly throughout this build which made filming this project very difficult at times but I'm not complaining here I'm very thankful they were able to get all my electrical and lights wired up now if I could just get my air conditioner to work and get Wi-Fi life would be perfect I'm trying something a little different for that edge profile normally I like a big old round over on the bottom but on this piece I thought a sharp chamfer would look really nice so I went out I picked up this 60 degree chamfer bit online this thing set me back 120 bucks I'm really happy with how that steep chamfer looks combined with a slight round over on the top it definitely gives it more of a mid-century Vibe with having to change out the CNC spindle I had to retrain the machine and if you don't know what tramming is it's just getting the bit perfectly 90 degrees to the wasteboard you can see here those deep grooves on the top showing that I was even close to getting it trammed but I didn't have time to mess with it anymore and as a result I had a ton of sanding to do so I saved the lower end of the slab that I cut off earlier to build the Tambor monitor Riser cabinet thing and after Milling up the wood I put that on the CNC to carve the top foreign so when I was carving this on the CNC and I I took it off the wasteboard I was bummed because this big piece chipped out but then I looked at the other side and realized that somehow this interior uh track for the Timbre doors had somehow gotten off of alignments it sucks because this was an actual piece of that slab that I used to carve that out of that wood is just so pretty I've got some Walnut here to replace it it's nowhere near as nice as the original Walnut from the slab I guess I just wasn't paying good enough attention after gluing up a new panel for the top I can start carving the curved ends for the Tambor cabinet and this is a technique you've seen me use a bunch of times here in the past year or so and because I've done it so many times I've learned some tricks along the way so I've done enough of these segmented glue UPS like this to know that I always get tear out on one end and this time was no exception but I actually added some extra length to the pieces right here I made this little jig right here this piece can slot down in here I will run that through the table saw cut these ends off and I don't have to worry about the tear out [Music] so as I glue these up I just want to stop and say thanks for all your support it feels wild that just a couple years ago I was working out of my little bitty garage and now I'm in this huge shop with all this exciting equipment and more on the way and I have all of you and your support to thank for that I was able to retire from that full-time day job six months ago and now I do this full time now there's a lot of days where building these projects and making mistakes and making the videos and just kind of everything that goes along with that can be really stressful but I still think my worst day in the shop is better than my best day at my old job so if you're not subscribed and you enjoy these videos please hit that subscribe button and follow along as I make more projects in the upcoming videos seriously I can't thank you enough but I'd like to do something nice for y'all somewhere in the remainder of this video I've hidden a little Easter egg if you're the first one to spot it leave a comment tell me what it is and the time stamp of where you saw it and I'll send you a Johnny builds t-shirt for free no matter where you are in the world this lab had several bar conclusions and cracks that needed cleaning up including this large crack on the end now I'm going to secure this with bow tie inlays versus filling it with epoxy I'm also going to do something several of you viewers mentioned on past projects about fixing cracks on the bottom of a piece with bow ties normally I don't focus on the underside as much as the top but on this piece I wanted to level up my woodworking a little bit so the bottom has two fairly big cracks and I'm adding bow ties to both no one's ever going to see these but I'm going to be happy just knowing that they're there to do these bow ties I'm using a bow tie template that I bought online it's from a company called slab Stitcher this isn't sponsored I bought it with my own money but they do make really nice templates and my favorite part is they sell the bow ties to match I do have to come back with a chisel and square up the corners where the router bit couldn't reach because well the router bit is round but these bow ties came out really nice [Applause] [Applause] this not filler is another tool I purchased that I really liked and there's several different brands that all seem to work the same but I'll link the one that I use down below now the polymer that I use to fill these cracks seems like it wouldn't be durable but in my experience it works pretty well I mean this is the same stuff that they use to fill not holes on hardwood flooring so I think if it's strong enough for something that you walk on then it's good enough for this desk [Applause] on the top of the desk I did bow tie inlays in that larger crack you saw me cleaning up a minute ago and I went with a descending size pattern which I think looks really good I always think bow tie inlays look aesthetically pleasing and my eye is always drawn to them whenever I see a piece with bow ties out in the wild so I'm always a little surprised when I do bow tie inlays and I get comments telling me how ugly they are so I want to conduct a poll in the comment section which this should be very scientific and provide a definitive answer to the age-old question of bow ties good or no good so if you like bow ties just type in bow ties with a thumbs up emoji and if you don't like bow ties then type bow ties with a thumbs down emoji and help me get to the bottom of the great bow tie debate foreign [Applause] moving on I recut the panel for the top of the Tim board monitor Riser cabinet and thankfully I got it right this time now these inside edges are pretty tight so to allow the Timbre door to slide more freely I chiseled out that sharp corner on the top piece and on the groove cut into the slab like I mentioned earlier when I went shopping this Rockler small part sled is perfect for making the rabbits on the ends of the Tambor strips I've got this stop block positioned so that each strip is about an eighth inch shorter than the height of the door opening you want the Timbre to have a little bit of wiggle room because if it's too tight it's definitely going to bind up in you and not work and this took about an hour to cut both sides of 55 strips of Tambor as I say in each piece you'll see that I created a jig for the Tambor assembly and this jig is important to secure all the pieces tightly and keep everything aligned for the next step which is gluing on a piece of canvas that's going to hold the Tambor together this is just a cheap painting drop cloth canvas it's actually left over from the first time I did Timbre doors and the wood glue bonds really well to the canvas and to the wood what I do have to be careful of is that any wood glue that happens to squeeze down in between the strips after 45 minutes of letting it set up I took the tear more out of The Jig I made sure none of those pieces were sticking together and I'm really digging that continuous grain look and it's actually kind of fun to play with it's almost like a big wooden fidget [Applause] this here is the last remaining piece of that original slab and I'm using this to create a little shelf inside the Tambor cap this shelf will hold the computer and below it will give me space to slide in the keyboard and a track pad when I'm not using it the back end of the Shelf has two slots to allow pass-through of cables without interfering with the Timbre door as it slides around the back after a bit of resizing the legs and adding a round over I can glue up that shelf back to the Timbre door I need a door pull and it has to be wide enough that it catches on the ends of the cabinet so I just used a random spray can that I had laying in the shop to lay out a half circle and cut that with my jigsaw now I did cut it pretty rough so I can then sand it back through the line that I drew and now I need to add a relief for the finger pull I had no idea initially how I was going to do this but I remembered I had this little cordless detailed sander that was the perfect size for this and with some 80 grit sandpaper this works surprisingly well to make that finger release after a lot of sanding I glued this onto the first strip of Tambor and had no idea that I was completely overlooking something right here can you guess what it is don't feel bad if you don't because I had no idea until later I added a round over to the top of the monitorizer and realized that I had this little divot that needed filled now I knew it wasn't deep enough to have the polymer stick in there so I chiseled it out a little deeper before filling it with that same not filling pollen right away I hated this it looked like a big black stain on top but I'll come back later and address that here in a bit I'm almost ready to assemble the Tambor cabinet but before I do I need to square up the ends on these curved parts now this technique of gluing some sandpaper to a flat surface like this piece of plywood is really effective and just after a couple minutes I had both of these flattened after gluing on the sides I can add the back panel but these ends weren't sitting perfectly 90 degrees to the top so I scribed the backer board and cut this on the table saw at that slight angle it's probably like 88 or 89 degrees but after sneaking up on the cut the back panel fit nicely and I could glue this all up there's all right so I've got the top all mocked up this isn't actually glued on yet and I've got the the Tambor down the groove and I realized that I kind of overlooked something so right here on this Edge where I wanted the pull to catch that way it couldn't go past what I forgot to account for is you can still see a little Gap in there so what I decided I'm gonna do I'm gonna take this extra piece and cut off the ends that ride in the groove and then I'll glue that here and that'll give me a little bit of a spacer to kind of go past that opening and kind of close that Gap you know you won't be able to see into it at that point this bothers me because now that first strip isn't continuous grain but when the cabinet is closed it'll be hidden and when the cabinet is open the rest of the door is hidden so it's just a little detail that only exists to drive me crazy you've already seen the hole in the top of the Tambor cabinet but here I'm going to show you where I was cutting that out with the CNC and this is for a cable management pass-through the ledge you saw me cut supports the cap and I'm making that out of purple heart and as you'll see here in a bit this fit perfectly and is totally a testament to my slightly above average 3D modeling skills I need to drill a couple two inch holes through the slab and I recently bought this new set of 14 bits this isn't some magic Revelation or anything but having a brand new super sharp bit for cutting through the slab was awesome I mean it cut like butter and I had almost zero tear out the set wasn't cheap but it's really nice and I'll drop an Amazon affiliate link for it down below if you want to pick one up for yourself [Applause] before I glue on the Tambor cabinet I want to get the Finish applied to the bottom and reinstall the c channel I'm going with Rubio Monaco which has become my go-to finish it's super easy to apply and surprisingly durable and the best part it looks great on Walnut all right back to the Timbre door it needs finish on it before I can install it since there's going to be no way to add finish to the whole thing once it's installed and next up that Center shelf gets glued on and these Long Reach hand screw clamps worked really well for clamping that down okay back to that black blob on top of the Tambor cabinet and Jeff came up with a great idea he told me I should cover this up with a bow tie inlay and even though that bow tie is sort of out of place right here just being used as a patch it's going to look much better than that black blob foreign [Music] before I glue on the cabinet monitorizer I finished the inside with more Rubio as this was also going to be really hard to access once I have it installed so I have to use epoxy to install this anywhere where the wood touches the epoxy on the table top and to prevent that from staining the Walnut I'm adding some tape to the edge once the cabinet is in position I added tape around the perimeter which does a couple of things one it gives me the exact location of where to glue the top and two it prevents any glue or epoxy squeeze out from staining the top I'm using some total boat four minute quick curing epoxy and brushing that onto the end where I've marked it contacts the epoxy on the table top I did have to get a little creative about this glue up as I don't have any clamps wide enough to apply even clamping pressure to the whole cabinet so to fix this I had some two by fours and I cut these to be the same height as the Tamworth cabinet and then I can rest these other two by fours across and then clamping on each side gives me equal pressure to secure the Tambor cabinet to the tabletop oh as I finish the rest of the table I want to talk about the table base and for this piece I wanted a really nice sit stand desk so gazebo is sponsoring this video and they sent out this gazebo Ultra three-stage standing desk frame which was really easy to assemble I needed a new desk for the office of my new shop and this super sturdy for Zebo base was perfect for this project and if you're thinking about building your own desk for your home office setup I really encourage you to check out the link to the zebo's website listed down below this base can resize to fit a wide range of desk sizes and I was amazed at how high this thing lifts with the range this thing has if you're shorter or tall or anywhere in between this would fit your needs they even have full desk kits you can buy if you don't want to build your own top and they sit on those mid-century modern standing desks for Jeff to try out and this thing looks really really nice make sure you check out that link below as visible has many different models and sizes that are sure to fit your needs last up I'm adding the Blacktail N3 Nano finish and this stuff is the next evolution of furniture finishes the Rubio has had a full seven days to cure at this point and I could add the N3 and what this does is add a nano layer of protection and hardness that not only makes the top extremely durable but also enhances the Sheen and appearance my pieces aren't really finished now unless I've added in three Nano finish and it's been a game changer for the pieces that I build so if you're building or refinishing Furniture I highly recommend you check out in three and find out for yourself I've got a link for it down below like I said at the beginning of this video I built this desk for me but honestly it turned out way too nice to be my everyday desk in my Dusty dirty shop so I'm gonna go ahead and throw it up on my website for sale in the hopes that one of y'all can put it to good use and not probably destroy it like I will all right man uh you had that uh stack of like kind of hidden forgotten slabs on the back of your property yes this is what we turned it into man what do you think I didn't know that wood was that pretty or I never would have given it to you how many more of these slabs do you have I got a half dozen maybe of these I'm so glad that I found that slab Berry than the stack at vintage reclaimed Lumber and if you're in the area and if you hurry up you may still be able to grab one for yourself and I think they'll even ship them out to you I've got a whole playlist of similar projects for you queued up right here make sure you comment this if you watch the end and make sure you get subscribed so you don't miss my next build

Channel: Jonny Builds

Views: 182,139

Keywords: desk, desk build, diy epoxy table, dream desk, dream desk setup, epoxy resin, epoxy table, expensive wood, how to, live edge furniture, live edge slab table, modern desk, purple heart, slab furniture, tambour, tambour door, total boat epoxy, walnut, woodworking projects

Id: j3U3wp612gM

Length: 24min 28sec (1468 seconds)

Published: Sat May 13 2023