This is my first blog post in Made By Divine Design. I wanted to share the instructions on a custom made piece that I am very proud of. I am excite to share the process with you because I learned a lot about wood species, power tools and the furniture making process.
First I want to show what I started from and the end furniture piece
Photo: Start of Wood Table Project-
Photo: End Tables Completed
Now Lets Get Started on
How to make your own custom wood trunk coffee or end tables.
Step 1: Un-Barking, Cleaning and Leveling Wood
Tools Used
I used the following tools to complete this portion of the project.
Hand Sander Power Tool
100 Grit Sand Paper
Wood Chisel Hand Tools
Hammer
Drill with steel brush attachment
Oil (General Saw Lubricating Tool Oil)
Lets get started, by using the chisel and hammer remove the bark from the live edge of the tree trunk. To make the edge smooth I used the hand sander and drill with steel brush attachment power tools to remove additional bark and give the finished edge a smooth to the touch surface.
The diameter of the table is 28" to 32" wide at varying lengths of the table. I first tried using a chain saw to provide a level surface that was 4" in height. This produced a still very uneven surface that I still had to hand sand down. Then I thought there must be an easier way to cut an even surface, faster, smarter and less mess. So, I went and found a local wood mill that has a large size wood planer to cut the wood and level it to exactly 4". It only cost me a few dollars for this service but cutting the wood down not only made it much easier to work with it reduce the weight of each table.
Once the table was completely smooth to the touch and level, I rubbed oil on the entire piece in order to prevent additional cracking and splitting of the wood.
Quick Tip: Let the oil set into the wood and then reapply the oil about 4 or 5 more times. You want the wood to saturated with the oil.
Step 2: Adding Epoxy and Finishing
Start of Step 2
Now that the surface of the wood is level and sanded its time to add the epoxy and start the finishing process. Because the wood split during the first step of leveling with the chain saw and I did not want to start the process over. I wanted to use the wood with the huge split in it. Please check out my video below to view the second half of the process.
The End Result - the table came out beautiful. Here are a few more photos of the color epoxy and how it looked in the natural splits of the wood.
