I have modified my sealing method in the last year or so. I have heard that blasting with walnut shells is the best way to go, but that is one tool I haven’t been able to add to the arsenal yet. FYI, the stainless wheels on the grinder and restorer will leave light marks on the wood. While their nylon wheel is delicate enough to remove light stuff without even marking the wood. Their stainless wheel is aggressive enough to get the rotted wood out. The Porter Cable Restorer is actually a really good tool for the money as well. I also use smaller nylon wheels attached to my drill for the hard to get spots. One reason I love the angle grinder and wire wheel, is that it removes all the soft wood, and leaves all the hard wood. My favorite tool for cleaning up slabs is an angle grinder with a stainless wire wheel though. Just go to town until you get the bulk of it off. The good news is, when working with epoxy, you can always fill a void or low spot with resin.įor the bark and really soft spots, a dull chisel and hammer is all you need. Unfortunately the really cool pieces for tables like this often have rotted spots, big knot holes, or other parts that need to be addressed. You want to make your table with only good, hard wood. If you or your client can handle a little undersized, you could chance making your marks a little closer to the final size. I am required to get my clients measurements exactly right. That way I have one inch room for error on each side. I mark my lines 2” over on the length and width. When your layout is finalized, mark your shape on the slabs with chalk or pencil. If you get stuck with your design, I’ve gotten inspiration in the past by searching aerial images of real rivers. This can be particularly helpful when adding islands in your river or other fragments to mimic a bay for instance. This way it most naturally mimics a true river. So ideally I like to match one curve in with another piece curving out at around the same area. I don’t like huge areas of open resin if I can help it (looks funny and gets expensive). Other than avoiding straight edges, I don’t have any hard and fast rules. This can be a pretty big inconvenience, especially if you only have one or two slabs and they both have straight cuts on them. If we try and mimic the curve with no corresponding grain, it will look like we faked it, which we did. The reason is, all natural curves of the tree have corresponding natural curves in the grain. However, In my opinion these never look right. You may think you can just add your own natural edge by carving it to replicate a natural curve. And a section where the sawyer cut a limb off, just won’t look right. When we build one of these tables, we are trying to mimic nature the best we can. Why? Because trees don't grow perfectly straight edges, and rivers don’t flow perfectly straight. I have one main rule for picking an amazing layout. I got a few funny looks the first couple times I did it, but now they are used to me. I have no shame and do this in my slab suppliers showroom. Even if you think you know exactly how you want it orientated, take a few minutes and play around with other ideas by moving your slabs, flipping your slabs, or adding in other pieces just to see what it will look like. Once you have your template, take your time choosing a layout. For the best visualization, build your template so that the inside of the template is the size of your finished table. I generally use some old 1x1” scrap I have laying around. Your template doesn’t need to be anything fancy. I always start my project by building a template to help me visualize my finished table.
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