River top desk

[Jamie]

Starting a project for my daughter, she like so many people in the world is addicted to YouTube. She has seen many river tables and has been asking for me to make her a desk. We agreed to do the top as a river table, which is a interesting project to me. I like the look of them but just never had a place for one in our home. A 8 year olds room is a different story and should look pretty nice in there. 

This is the look that she is after for it. I will be doing the top out of walnut and the base out of ash to try to cut some expenses in this project.

 
The slab and ash that we are starting with. Paid $100 for the slab and $3.69 a bf for the ash. 

Started by debarking the slab. Boy what a mess! Started with a claw hammer and chisels. Bark didn’t want to give up easily.  Ended up getting the bulk of it off with the hammer and chisel, went back over it with the grinder and a wire brush. Went super fast with that method! Just made an insane amount of dust. After the brush head I used a sanding head in the grinder that I had for sharpening lawn mower blades. That disk is the best thing I found for that task. 

After getting the bulk of the bark off it really narrowed up the top. So am in a bind with it. I could split the top and have square edges which I think would be best for a desk.  Problem with that is it will take quite a bit of epoxy. Wife is already not happy with the cost of this project.  I’m thinking about checking where I got this slab to see if they would have something that I could use to fill some of the space and use 2 different slabs cut down to limit the damage on the cost of the epoxy. 

When I took the brush grinder to the slab edges is sure made a mess! Had the downdraft table running during the process. It sits about 20’ away from the bench I was using. The hat you see in the picture had a white mesh. It was sitting on the downdraft the whole time. Was shocked to see how much airborne dust the fan moved. Only reason I shared this picture is to show the amount of air flow this table has. 

[Bob]

What resin are you going to use?  It is going to be a great looking desk.

[Jamie]

38 minutes ago, Bob said:

What resin are you going to use?  It is going to be a great looking desk.

That is a great question.....I have zero experience doing this.  Was looking at stone coat counters deep pour, also looked at liquid glass.  Anyone with experience on a different product I would love to hear about it.

[Woodenskye (Bryan)]

Jamie. What is the width and thickness of the current slab?  If this was my project, I would take the pieces in the second to last photo and then fill in between those pieces. Buy a sheet of melamine to make a form and use packing tape to avoid the epoxy sticking to it.  You could also use regular ply if you use the packing tape. It also doesn’t hurt to use silicone caulk at the joints. I would think for a kids desk, 18 to 20” in depth is sufficient. 
 

As for the epoxy almost any would work. If you can’t do a deep pour you can always do multiple pours. Just remember to write down your epoxy amounts and the amount of dye you use.  Also have a heat gun or a small torch to pop the bubbles.  As for brands, TotalBoat, West Systems, Alumilite would all work. I just got an email today from Infinity tools about the line of epoxy they are starting to carry. Another place to look is the Epoxy Resin Store. 

[Jamie]

2 hours ago, Woodenskye (Bryan) said:

Jamie. What is the width and thickness of the current slab?  If this was my project, I would take the pieces in the second to last photo and then fill in between those pieces. Buy a sheet of melamine to make a form and use packing tape to avoid the epoxy sticking to it.  You could also use regular ply if you use the packing tape. It also doesn’t hurt to use silicone caulk at the joints. I would think for a kids desk, 18 to 20” in depth is sufficient. 
 

As for the epoxy almost any would work. If you can’t do a deep pour you can always do multiple pours. Just remember to write down your epoxy amounts and the amount of dye you use.  Also have a heat gun or a small torch to pop the bubbles.  As for brands, TotalBoat, West Systems, Alumilite would all work. I just got an email today from Infinity tools about the line of epoxy they are starting to carry. Another place to look is the Epoxy Resin Store. 

We are thinking the same. I was messing around with some layout on the top which is 16-19” wide and will finish at around 49” long and is over 2” thick now yet.  Not sure if that will be wide enough to be useful as a desk with the curve of the tree falling off the front, which narrows the usable writing space. I did go back to the shop tonight and got another piece of that tree. This time for $30 as it’s pretty narrow and will have a lot of bark on the bottom side. So not sure if it will even work. The guy who I got the slabs from said to try it and see if I can get it to work if not I don’t owe him for it. I didn’t grab any pictures of it yet but will grab some later on. I’m half tempted to cut the live edges off on the outside of the top to give it a finished edge and use a mold to do the pour. I think in the long run that would be the way to go. 
 

I received the same email from infinity. From what I am finding is that they all cost about the same. Think most of them are made in the same factory with a different label on the bottle. 

[Coop]

Jamie, does the width of 16-19” wide include the split part off to the right in the second to last pic? How do you propose to form the river design? Maybe what you have in mind but I was thinking ripping the slab down the middle, then ripping part of the live edge off of each side until a large part the live edge is now parallel to it’s other edge. Then put the two live edges together to form the center of the desk and the remaining part of your live edges will form the river part and the outside edges of the top will be square. If you still need added depth, front to back, rip the live edge of second piece you bought off of both sides and add it to the front or back of the top. Hope that makes sense? 

[Larry Moore]

The one I did I cut down the middle and turned the live edges to the center.. If you did it that way you could add to the saw cut edge to get the width you want

[Chet]

7 hours ago, Larry Moore said:

The one I did I cut down the middle and turned the live edges to the center.. If you did it that way you could add to the saw cut edge to get the width you want

This sounds like a good idea.

[Jamie]

16 hours ago, Coop said:

Jamie, does the width of 16-19” wide include the split part off to the right in the second to last pic? How do you propose to form the river design? Maybe what you have in mind but I was thinking ripping the slab down the middle, then ripping part of the live edge off of each side until a large part the live edge is now parallel to it’s other edge. Then put the two live edges together to form the center of the desk and the remaining part of your live edges will form the river part and the outside edges of the top will be square. If you still need added depth, front to back, rip the live edge of second piece you bought off of both sides and add it to the front or back of the top. Hope that makes sense? 

 

9 hours ago, Larry Moore said:

The one I did I cut down the middle and turned the live edges to the center.. If you did it that way you could add to the saw cut edge to get the width you want

These ideas have crossed my mind as well.  Now having the 2 slabs it might make this go quite a bit better to get the desired width of 22"+  hopefully get some time to mess with it tonight.

[Woodenskye (Bryan)]

I’m not a big fan of River tables overall, but the good thing is you can be more flexible in the design with epoxy. If you need 2 inches in width you can make that up with epoxy unlike a solid wood slab. 

[Jamie]

4 hours ago, Woodenskye (Bryan) said:

I’m not a big fan of River tables overall, but the good thing is you can be more flexible in the design with epoxy. If you need 2 inches in width you can make that up with epoxy unlike a solid wood slab. 

I’m not a huge fan of the look but like the concept of taking not the best lumber and turning it into something. Think I have it half way figured out with the second slab. 

Did end up cutting the left edge off which will be the back. Trying to use as much wood and little of the epoxy that I can. The left slab has a pretty good twist to it so will be thinning these up quite a bit. Thinking will be around 1.5 inches said and done. 

[Chet]

15 minutes ago, Jamie said:

The left slab has a pretty good twist to it so will be thinning these up quite a bit.

If you are doing the pour in a form, instead of using up a lot of time and wood shavings you could just get the tops flat and then shim everything level from the bottom.  No one would ever see the shims when the desk is finished.

[Coop]

Jamie, in Rockler’s new sales brochure they advertise 15% off of their Timbercast epoxy. I have never used or heard of it. 

 

[Jamie]

I’m a little behind on posting to this thread. Quite a bit of progress made since my last post. 
 

Decided against using the second piece of slab as the bottom side was 3/4 bark, it had a nasty twist to it that I didn’t think I’d be able to flatten out without getting into the bark layer. Wouldn’t have any strength left at that point. Also with the wife getting on me about the cost of epoxy I decided to make due with what we have in the original slab. 

Made a simple slab flattening router jig. Just glued and nailed it together and shot in a few pocket screws to add some beef. Made the jig rails 2 3/4” x 2”, thought behind making them those sizes was if in future needs, basically to accommodate different thickness slabs or pieces that need to be flattened. Made the jig 8’ long for future use as well. The router sled I’ll call it is 4’ in length. To accommodate the router bit grove I took some measurements and added a little space and cut it on the table saw by raising the blade up into the piece and finished it off with a jig saw. Then gave the sled a waxing along with the rails where the sled rests. Did end up nailing on a stop on one end of the sled to prevent pulling the sled off the rail as I pulled the router towards me to make the cuts. 

Here is the slab after making a pass or two. I set the plunge base for the initial cut at my high point of the slab, then using the stops I could lower the bit about 1/16 of a inch per pass. I didn’t snap many pictures of this process as it was just way to much fun to stop!  I did figure out after the first pass that most of the dust was spraying at one corner of my bench, decided to set a dust hose there to try to eliminate some of the dust. Did a fairly good job of grabbing dust, after every pass I would just sweep a bulk of the chips to the hose. This worked really well till I plugged the pipe! Of course it plugged behind the miter saw stand. Tried using a sewer tape to get it freed up with no luck. Ended up taking my shop vac and shoved the hose up the pipe which is a 4” pipe that runs horizontally behind the miter stand then hits an elbow to go up the wall. Is a 5 or 6’ length of pipe that the shop vac hose just reached the elbow. To my surprise there was some bigger chunks of off cuts in there, not sure where they came from but the shop vac cleaned them right out. The hose that plugged is the hose beside my dust collector that I use for cleaning around the bench, also my daughter likes to use it to help clean. Thinking a few little chunks got sucked up when I wasn’t looking.

 
Here is a picture of the flattened slab. The bit I used was a cnc bit from amazon, 2” diameter 4 wing cutter. Was under $20. Have to say it out preformed expectations. I did sharpen it when I flipped the slab. Never have I before sharpened a router bit and was shocked how easy it was. Just made a few stokes of the face of the cutter on a 400grit stone. Was like new!

With the slab flat and waiting on some shipments I gave the shop a deep cleaning.  It was an absolute disaster with the work on this slab.  The walnut dust has a disturbing odor to me, had to get it out of the shop! Even pulled the floor mats up to get as much as the winter dust buildup out.  I used the m18 leaf blower to handle quite a bit of that project, open the garage door and blow it out and let the wind do the rest! 

Did quite a bit more planing on this one with the angled legs.  Taking lessons from the chair build to give me a full scale drawing to work off of.  Really think going full scale helps with laying out the joints.  With the slab being different on both ends width wise there is a lot going on in this drawing.  Still a few details to work out but am almost complete with it.  
 

Waiting on the epoxy to show up along with a inlay router set.  Have an idea of cutting a butterfly shaped inlay in the crack of the slab.  Figured since it’s for my daughter I’d go that route other than a bow tie.

 

[Chet]

A leaf blower and an open garage door is the way to go.

[Coop]

The slab cleaned up nicely! What epoxy did you choose?

[Jamie]

6 hours ago, Coop said:

The slab cleaned up nicely! What epoxy did you choose?

Thank you sir! It ended up a little thinner and has a little ways to go. Currently it is at 1 3/8” think. 
 

I went with liquid glass deep pour. Nice thing I didn’t realize till I ordered it is that it was 25% off! Perfect for my cheap ass. 

 

Emmi wanted a turquoise color, we decided on this one.....

Was kinda surprised how much came in the package. Will be enough peacock teal to last me a lifetime. 
 

 

Question for the group.....I was thinking of doing the inlays before pouring the epoxy. Would anyone do it after?

[Coop]

Good question. As I’m not sure how the epoxy would react to the router bit for the inlay, I think doing the inlay first would be my choice with no past experience. 

[Chet]

If you are talking about your dutchmans or I think you said you were going to make them look like butterflies for your daughter, I would definitely do those before the epoxy.  When you do the inlays, you want to leave them just a fuze proud and sand them flush with the surface.  They will look better this way instead of trying to glue them in flush.  Because you will be sanding you want that done before the pour.

[Bob]

Definitely do the inlay first.   Have you checked the slab for moisture content?  Moisture is a killer on resin.  I would "paint" and exposed end/edge gain with shellac prior to the resin.  It will do 2 things, prevent any moisture from escaping during the curing process along with reducing the amount of air escaping.  Both the moisture and air will prevent adhesion of the wood to the resin.  

[Jamie]

10 minutes ago, Bob said:

Definitely do the inlay first.   Have you checked the slab for moisture content?  Moisture is a killer on resin.  I would "paint" and exposed end/edge gain with shellac prior to the resin.  It will do 2 things, prevent any moisture from escaping during the curing process along with reducing the amount of air escaping.  Both the moisture and air will prevent adhesion of the wood to the resin.  

I honestly haven’t checked the moisture content, it did come from a trusted source and would assume that he checked it before putting them up for sale.  I might just have to hunt down a moisture meter now. 
As far as coating the edge, I was thinking about putting some clear epoxy on it to seal it up. Just not sure if I should wait for that to completely dry before doing the pour?

[Kev]

7 hours ago, Jamie said:

As far as coating the edge, I was thinking about putting some clear epoxy on it to seal it up. Just not sure if I should wait for that to completely dry before doing the pour?

You could put that on now..  I nearly always epoxy the edge of live edge stuff and let it cure before I move on to finish..

[Bob]

Epoxy should work well and I would let the epoxy cure.  I don't have any practical knowledge on using epoxy, it just make sense to me.

[Kev]

I should expand on my above comment..  I usually apply before finish sanding..  Reason being is that there is always a little that gets on the top and bottom surfaces so, this allows me to sand that off before finishing.

[Jamie]

Did a little inlay practice last night. Haven’t done one of these for a long time so thought we would start on some scrap. Wife talked me out of the butterfly inlay idea.....she thought that it would be neat for emmi considering she is 8 but in a few years butterflies won’t be so cool. Not sure that I agree with her on it but am going to take her advice and stick to just bow ties. 
 

 

Made a quick template by drawing a design out on some 1/4 ply and cut it out using a jigsaw. Did use the Freud inlay router kit to cut the parts. Did fit together pretty well! Didn’t quite like the shape of this attempt so did a little modification to the template and ended up with better results. 

 

I purposely didn’t make the tie symmetrical, I do like the look of it. I am thinking putting 3 inlays in the length of the crack. Might make each one a little different size to better if the look.