Live Edge Wood GLOW Table

We've been wanting to work with a piece of live edge wood, but hadn't found the right piece of wood at a good price. On a recent trip through Suwannee County in North Florida, we happened upon a small family operated saw mill right by the side of the road. Just like we brake for pallets, we also brake for beautiful live edge wood sold at the side of the road!

We brought home a slab, 9 1/2 feet long by about 4 inches thick plus a large oval piece. The prices were really, really good!

We were able to get it into the Honda pilot without having to have it cut. It was a tight fit with three adults and all our luggage in the car, but we did it.

We also wanted to try out using epoxy and glow powder in this project so we used this as a helpful resource: https://www.instructables.com/id/Glow-table/

Fresh Milled Wood--family owned and operated in Suwannee County outside of Live Oak, Florida. Try looking in your local area for deals on live edge wood.

Materials:

• Live Edge Wood (look locally)
• 3-rod hairpin legs (Rockler)
• Epoxy (Amazon)
• Glow Powder (TechnoGlow)
• Minwax Special Wanut Stain (Amazon)
• Minwax Polycrylic (Amazon)
• Minwax Polycrylic Spray (Amazon)
• Mineral Spirits (Amazon)
• Spax 2" wood screws (Home Depot)

Tools:

• Circular Saw
• Sawsall
• Orbital Sander (Rockler)
• Impact Driver (Home Depot)
• Metal Straight Edge (Rockler)
• Clamps
• Masking Tape and aluminum tape

We mulled around ideas for the slab and decided to make two tables--a buffet for Steph and an entry table for Vicki which required making three cuts in the slab. We had to improvise since we did not have a tool deep enough to cut through the slab. We first used the circular saw to cut as far through as we could.

After the first cut with the circular saw, we clamped a metal straight edge to the slab then used a reciprocating saw to cut through the piece using the previous cut and straight edge as a guide, AND it worked!

Then we sanded starting at 40 grit and moving to 220.

We finished the top by cleaning with mineral spirits. The mineral spirits also gave us an idea of the natural color. We decided to stain since the finished look would have been on the orange side.

Minwax Special Walnut was our stain of choice.

We finished with three coats of polycrylic, which we sanded between coats.

The top and bottom had wormholes, some of which, went through the entire piece. This made for a perfect opportunity to use epoxy with glow powder to fill them.

We prepped the slab for pouring epoxy by first covering the holes on the bottom side with painters' tape and then covering this with silver aluminum tape.

This is the glow power. We followed the manufacturer's instructions on how to use it. It's purple in the day light and glows blue after dark.

The epoxy is mixed in two part. Follow the manufacturer's instructions, exactly! We used a 1:4 radio of glow powder to epoxy- 1 oz powder to 4 oz epoxy.

We did several pours over the course of many days, waiting 24 hours between pours. Work slowly, clean up as you go.

The top of the table at the completion of the epoxy pours.

We removed the tape from the underside. Because the wood was not completely flat we had a little spillage outside the tape and between the tape. It took a long time to remove the tape but this was to be expected. In our case, it would have been helpful to use wider tape as some of the wormholes were large.

Finishing up the last of the underside epoxy pours.

Three-rod hairpin legs from Rockler were clamped and then screwed into place. These legs were the perfect choice.

We love how this table turned out! This is a new buffet table for Steph's dining room.

This table is perfect in an imperfect way! Because we didn't have specialized tools like a planer, the table is not a perfect thickness, but despite this, the table is strong, sturdy, and functions well!

For more details please visit MotherDaughterProjects.com