Making a Live Edge Bench From Walnut and Resin

So recently I made an entryway bench from a live edge slab of walnut. This is a pretty easy project anyone can accomplish in a weekend with pretty minimal tools. I will note, if your slab of wood isn't flattened you will need something like a router sled to plane both side of your board down. Otherwise, you can get this project done with a circular saw, drill and router.

The supplies I used for this project are as follows:

1. Circular saw
2. Pull saw
3. Drill (with bits)
4. Router with 1/4 inch round over
5. Palm sander
6. Router sled
7. Measuring tape
8. Straight edge
9. Tuck tape
10. Epoxy resin with black tint
11. Stir sticks.

In this project I'm using a rough sawn walnut slab. So the first thing I want to do is square up one end and then cut my slab down to a rough size. You can do this with a track saw. Or, If you're like me and don't have one, just get something with a straight edge and run a circular saw along side it.

I'm also going to square up one of the live edges so the bench can sit flat against a wall. I'm cutting this the same way I did in step one.

Since this is a rough sawn slab we're going to have to flatten both side. For this I'm using my router sled. If you don't have one of these you can easily build one using some linear rails and a router. And you can build these more or less as big or small as you need to.

NOTE: When you flatten your boards with a router sled, do it in multiple, light passes.

Now that the board is nice and flat on both sides, I'm going to use a orbital sander to get the milling marks out of the surface of the board and also clean up the remaining bark from the live edge. I'm going to start with 80 grit for this step and latter work up to 220grit in later steps.

There are some cracks and chip outs on the board, to deal with these I'm going to fill them up with some resin. Since these cracks and chip outs are right on the edge I'm going to use tuck tape to seal them up before I pour in any resin. I'm also going to tint the resin black.

After about 48 hours I came back and again with 80 grit sand paper on an orbital sander I sanded all the resin smooth.

Now that the board is sanded to 80 grit and the resin is sanded flush with the board, I'm going to take the legs being used for this bench and make out where the holes for threaded inserts will end up later on in the build. I'm using a center punch to mark out the holes and a drill guide to make the holes.

Everything is going to get sanded to 220 grit. EASY!

I'm taking a router with a 1/4 inch round over bit and going over all the edges, this will both break the edge so it doesn't chip out over time and it also gives a more clean and finned look in the end.

next up I'm going to water pop the wood. If you are unfamiliar with what this is, it's when you spray water onto a wood surface which raises the grain then you sand with the last grit of sand paper you used. In this case 220 grit, this will give you a much smoother finish in the end.

NOTE: You don't need to go crazy with the amount of water you use. Use a spray bottle and evenly coat the surface but you don't have to drown it... I hope I am making sense.

For the wood finish I'm using a 2 part hard wax natural finish. Once parts A and B are mixed I pour it on to the surface of the wood and even spread it over the entire surface. After letting it sit for 5 minutes, with a clean cloth I wipe up all the access finish. Then I let it cure for 24 hours.

I choose a hard wax finish for this project because it gives a more natural look in my opinion. But, if you would like to use something like a urethane wood finish that's totally fine. No wrong answer here.

The last step we have here is to bolt the legs onto the wood top.

the threaded inserts I used came from amazon. But you can also buy them form most specialty wood suppliers for a fairly reasonable price. If you wanted you could use washers and screws. However, threaded inserts and bolts aren't that expensive and they allow you to remove the legs if you ever want to change them out, as well they give a more finished look in the end (even though you will never really see them).

Here are some final photos of the bench. I hope this was of some help to you and pleas share something you have made with me!