СЛЭБЫ - плохая идея! Честно о работе с деревом.

In the 4 years of my channel, I haven’t had a

single video about working with slabs,

because I find this work

extremely boring

and difficult. Not that it’s complicated, but it’s

hard. But I have a pack of

naturally dried ash that my

friend and I prepared 5 years ago as an

investment in the future. The future

has arrived, but I don’t know what to do with this pack

. And today I want

to try to make my first product. It's been a long

time since I've done such simple

projects as today, but there are some advantages to this

. The simpler the form, the deeper the

content. That is, I can

tell you more about the process in detail. Well,

see for yourself. Today we'll talk about slabs

and wood buckling, how it happens,

and how to combat it. Let's talk about

aligning planes and vice versa, how to

preserve curved parts in a product.

And also about correcting wood defects,

sanding, how and what I cover

wood with, my favorite shades and

finishes, floating

joints and the aesthetics of natural

wood. We'll discuss epoxy resin,

do some editing work [music], and

even a little art. Yes, the product is

elementary, but that doesn’t make it any less

interesting. Enjoy watching.

Working with timber harvesting is

not an easy task. I would even say it’s heavy and

unbearable. Of course, the solution is to find

special equipment. Previously, I

limited myself to a small circle of acquaintances and

word of mouth in this matter, until a situation arose with

the unloading of my format printer. The loader

simply disappeared and never arrived. As a result,

while I was running around the factory grounds

looking for a replacement, the truck was completely

idle. The situation was, to put it mildly,

unpleasant and had consequences. And today,

so you don't repeat my mistakes, I'll

tell you about a truly effective

tool: Avitospec. [music] Everything

I need is now on my mobile

phone. Just like tools in a

workshop, equipment here is selected

for specific tasks. Well, for example,

I need a crane-manipulator. I set

filters by equipment type and

characteristics. This makes it

much faster to cut out all the unnecessary things and

find the right option. You can immediately

view the performer's rating and

compare different offers. The

platform offers a wide selection of equipment

from all over Russia. Excavators, cranes,

loaders, dump trucks, manipulators and

much more. But for me now the most

important thing is a responsible performer.

That's why I always look at the rating,

reviews, and pay attention to the following marks:

The company is verified and a reliable

contractor. Even now, during the construction

season, you can find equipment for any task

in one place. The link will be in

the description.

I chose two of the ugliest slabs.

Now it remains to decide which one

will be used. I think I'll take the

narrower one, because I

need to save space on the balcony. Here 50 60.

Well, the choice is obvious. I'll start with

something simpler. I need to make

two more shelves. And I have this

scrap. This slap is thinner, smaller, and

has a large, distinctive crack

in the middle. It will make two

great shelves with a natural edge.

One of them will be corner. And I think

that this piece along the crack will be just right

.

I also like this part. I'll

think now how to use it as a

shelf. If, for example, the shelf is like this

. I think it should be interesting.

And I continue to slowly master my

format. Many people have said that I

will quickly miss the classic carpenter's

saw, but I am not bored yet.

Dried boards cannot remain

as straight as those from a sawmill, and

some material must always be sacrificed

for straightening. And

our task is to

minimize the quantity. And if my corner shelf

fit on the jointer, which solved all

the problems, then the second shelf turned out to be

wider, but it still fits on

the thicknesser, but here you need to make a flat

base. For this,

any rough piece made of laminated chipboard will do.

The difficulty here is that one

of the sides has a cantilever overhang. And it would

seem that it is more logical and simpler to place the part

so that it rests on a larger

area. But actually, no.

The surface must be selected with the

next operation in mind. Where the part

will go into the dimensioning process on its own.

Now you can start bringing

the parts into the desired shape. And, as I said, you

need to leave the natural edge. The

only problem is that this

edge is not natural everywhere, and in some places I

have to imitate it.

I cut the bulk of the material on a

band saw at an angle.

Well, I refine the soft forms

using sanding.

The bark and rind of a dry tree peel off

quite easily. But the intermediate

layer before the wood, which

is called cambium, is quite difficult to sand off

, but still should not be

left. Insects love it, it

absorbs moisture, and over time, it will

most likely fall off on its own.

Minor defects can be repaired with

cyanoacrylate glue with

wood dust additive. In general, using

cyanoacrylate glue on wood is a

bad idea. As a glue, it hardly

works. Wood is elastic and

changes its size. And

when polymerized, cenocrylate glue becomes almost

glassy. These materials begin to live

their own lives and eventually the connection

is destroyed. Therefore, it is better to use it

only for quick restoration and only for

minor defects. Well,

I do the final sanding with 150 grit

by hand and only along the grain. After

this, you can move on to finishing.

I propose to talk about it. I often hear

questions about painting wood. Well,

first of all, I don't like dull color on

wood. I love toning.

Wood can be tinted using primer oils or

stains. I prefer oils for

objective reasons. And today I am

working with ash. And through experience I

came to the conclusion that ash only suits three

colors.

Well, four, to be more precise, because

I also like the natural ash color

. Here is ash simply under oil,

that’s already great. Well, first of all, my

favorite is antique oak. This color generally

suits ash very well, does not spoil its natural color in any way

and perfectly emphasizes

the texture. The result is this

noble dark wood. My second

favorite color is cognac oak. It really

highlights the pores of the wood and

at the same time blends perfectly with the natural

color of the ash, complementing it without

any unwanted colors showing through. It is in the

same color range, but

much much lighter. And I

will apply the third color in front of you now. I don't have a

sample, but it's a honey ash color. It

goes together perfectly. It remains just as

light, but at the same time

its shade changes slightly into a very pleasant,

also noble, warm color.

The choice of color is, of course,

the customer's prerogative, but I will have to

decide for myself. And I will probably choose the middle option in order to preserve

all the defects of this drawing and

other things. This

will be cognac oak. And here it will

look great. Let's

get started.

The oil dries to a

fairly matte finish, so if you want a

shinier

finish, you can

sand between coats, perhaps with 240 grit, and apply a

second coat.

The surface will be visually smoother, but I will go the other

way and cover the product with furniture wax,

after which I will polish them, and the effect will

definitely be no worse. Okay

, let the shelves dry, and we'll

move on to something more interesting, the

slab.

Well, okay, that's certainly a bit of a stretch.

I have a small tabletop, and the word

slap evokes associations with something very

large-scale, but the principles here are still the

same.

I will immediately cut off one edge with the bark, and the

other will also be natural.

As you can see, somewhere in the thickness of the wood this

tree began to branch out. Such places in

the tree are characterized by unpredictable

internal stresses. Well, it’s

not surprising that this slap cracked, but it was also

bent so badly. To

preserve the maximum amount of material, you need to

find some middle ground. I do

this the classic way, using wedges. We had just

finished a bar counter project on the chip

, and I timed the job

so that the slap could be glued directly to the

sacrificial table. He

has just served his purpose and is waiting for a replacement. Regardless

of whether you are aligning by hand or using a

CNC, you will need a cutter like this one. In general,

alignment is a mechanical task,

and creativity is minimal in it. And I

respect those who do this with a

hand router and a homemade

carriage. I would do something like this myself just

for the content. But according to all my estimates, it is more

rational and economical to

outsource this whole thing. In general, you don’t have to

have a CNC machine, but still

actively use it. It seems like a banal

idea, but for some reason people still argue about it

.

Don't forget that hot melt glue almost

completely loses its adhesive properties

when exposed to alcohol. And I

turn the slap over, and it lays down on its

new surface so tightly, as if it had

fallen into the textures. Here there is no

need to press it too hard.

It is enough to simply limit movement at

the edges. Well, in total I removed almost 2 cm

from the top point of the lying slab.

Perfectly smooth surface. All this is,

of course, very beautiful, but I still haven’t fallen

in love with slabs. And the second reason for this is that

he will definitely be

led. Warping is caused by

internal stresses in the wood,

which are generally unpredictable, but

we can foresee some of them.

For example, this shield will bend in the

direction of straightening of the annual rings.

There are many ways

to stabilize a slab. And I'll use a couple of them today

, but none of them provide a

100% guarantee against shipwreck. But

first we need to deal with the defects of the

wood. I do

n't even know how to properly light the

next block, since I am not a

professional working with epoxy

resin. There are a lot of different nuances and

there are specialized channels about this.

However, I haven't had any major fails with it

, so I'm probably doing everything

right. And sealing the cracks is not

that difficult. The rules are the same:

ensure maximum adhesion to the

material and prevent spillage.

And the second thing is, of course, the most difficult.

I have a lot of knots and cracks that go through, and you

need to look very carefully. Even the

smallest unsealed crack

will cause all the resin to leak out. And

this tape that I’m gluing now

is, of course, a lottery. A

truly crazy fact that is

truly hard to believe.

This is why some people still buy

river tables,

and some even make them.

But maybe it’s just that I don’t like

epoxy and volumetric fillings.

However, I use it to

repair defects like these. I

will be using a simple

two-part resin. You can

use it in transparent form, or you can

tint it slightly. In general, as far as

painting epoxy goes, I am

categorically against it. I don’t like

using any bright shades,

like green, blue, red,

especially. I once saw how

such defects were repaired with resin

painted white. This is an abomination. It would be

better to leave it transparent or

slightly tint it in a dark color. That's

exactly what I'll do. I just

ran out of dye. But fortunately this is not a

problem. Resin can be tinted with

anything.

For example, spray a little spray

paint.

As I already said, there is not much hope for scotch tape

, and here it is probably better to play it

safe and first treat

the defects superficially. And even this won't

protect against leaks. That's why

I did the main pouring in the morning and monitored

it until lunch. In a couple of places we

actually had to fix leaks on the fly

.

To avoid having to align everything on the CNC again, I

simply sanded the surface.

Let's move on. There is still a lot of work to do.

Now I'm going to sand. And so, slabs,

panels and other wooden surfaces are

best sanded, of course, with a belt

sander, because it

allows you to do this along the grain,

unlike the same orbital sander, and it is more

productive. On slabs this is especially

important.

But let's not forget about protective equipment.

Well, the surface turns out

smoother, even on a large image.

Well, now we can talk about

wood stabilization. And by looking at

the end, it is quite predictable

to determine in which direction this

deformation will occur. Wood most

often tends to straighten its rings, the

annual rings, and, accordingly,

this boat-shaped bend is obtained

. No matter which side we

have the front side on, either this

side or the other, this problem

is solved by simple longitudinal

cuts along the wood. This

operation cuts the fibers and releases

internal tension. Accordingly,

[snorts]

our wood straightens out. And it doesn’t

matter which side you do it from.

If we do this from above, then, a, the

surface tension from above

will decrease, the wood will straighten out. If

we do this from below, then

some of the material will be released from below, and the stressed material can be moved into this place

. She

will deal with it too. That is, it doesn’t matter

which side of the rings we make the cuts on.

The main thing is that they are not visually

visible. For some reason, it has become common practice that this

operation is already being performed on curved slabs

in order to cure them. Why

not do this operation in advance?

At the same time, longitudinal cuts will not

affect the strength characteristics of

the wood in any way, because, a, the

bending load is still carried

by the longitudinal fibers. And

in theory, this tabletop will withstand the same

load. And for the same

reason, it is not advisable to make cross

cuts, because by making cross

cuts we will get a cut in the table top

in that direction. If you don't have a

rigid frame around the outline, this

option won't work. Well, if this is a

tabletop for something like, for example, a

dressing table, which will

stand on a frame, then why

not make cuts diagonally or

even crosswise? This will add stability to the

tabletop. Moreover, cutting

along the length will practically not help us

get rid of the twisting of the wood and

if it suddenly starts to move like a

rocker. How deep should

these cuts be made?

Ae I would recommend a depth of no more than

half the wood, but 2/3 is also acceptable

. I believe that there is no need to cut very deeply

, especially thick pieces,

because this will, of course, relieve the internal stress

, but this will not eliminate the possibility of

additional cracks appearing,

because the loads will be distributed in the weakened areas

, and it is possible that this will lead to

some new defect. And most

importantly, don't forget that

longitudinal cuts are not a panacea, and the

wood does not lose its

ability to expand across the grain,

like an accordion. This means we still need to

use floating

joinery. Well, more on that later.

And for my table top I will

simply use rip cuts.

Moreover, I will make them through and through with an

outlet at the ends. In principle, cuts

can be made in the middle of the material. It's

easy to do this with a plunge saw.

We don’t make the cut all the way through, and the end will be

clean. But since my ends will be

closed, that is, the tabletop is between two

walls, they are not visible, so it is simpler and more

correct to make a cut through. That's what

I'll do. Oh yes, one more thing:

how often should these cuts be made?

Well, there are no clear rules, but we can

assume that we are essentially

imitating a glued board from the plots.

Therefore, you can choose the same cutting width

as you choose for the plot width

for a given thickness. Well, and the one to

two rule hasn't been cancelled either. Therefore

, in principle, you can use a

cutting width from 50 to 100 mm

without any problems. For my work I will

use a spacing of 80mm. This will be

quite enough. Well, let's get started.

I will attach the table top with crackers. This is an

ancient and very reliable connection.

Rusks are very elegant in their simplicity

and technological advancement. In fact,

they are called crackers for a reason. The

point is that they allow for a

dry connection between the table top and the

base, that is, without the use of

glue. As we know, wooden products,

wide wooden products, shields or

solid slabs, it doesn’t matter, they will

live their own life. They need to be given the

opportunity to expand and

contract with changes in humidity. This is an

inevitable seasonal phenomenon. And

croutons compensate for these phenomena

. I won't have

any kind of base, but the capital table will

lie on wooden planks like these,

which will be attached to the wall, and the

croutons will live in the milled

grooves. The

tabletop requires more

strength from the surface,

so I apply two coats of finish,

sanding and Scotchbrite in between.

Well, for the finish this time I chose

carnouba wax. some amazing

shots that I took 3 years

ago. This is about this board.

Yes, I've been waiting for a long time for an opportunity to use

these cool lines somewhere. They

attract the eye, so strictly

outlined and almost unreal. I

don’t know about you, but I see a landscape in these

interweavings. Of course, I immediately

wanted to hang it on the wall. What we see before

us is so-called spalted

wood. Spalt is actually a

wood defect. This defect

is also called marble rot due to its

resemblance to marble pattern. In general,

such a pattern appears due to the

activity of bacteria and fungi.

Yes, fungus. But there is no need to be afraid of this,

because the wood is like this in its finished

form; it does not pose any

danger to human health. But

during processing it is still worth wearing a

respirator. Basically, the fungus attacks the

wood fibers and creates a completely

unique pattern. A sharp black

line, as if someone had drawn

on the surface with a gel pen. And I want to

use and preserve this drawing,

because it is definitely a

natural creation. And why not

use it as a piece of art

to hang on the wall?

Oh yeah, it's amazing, but

I need to build it up to be a rectangular shape

. And of course, I will use

epoxy resin, despite the

contradiction with myself. Unfortunately,

the footage you see now does not

match what you will see in the

finale. I used some

leftover resin that was expired and unfortunately it did

n't work. I had to tear off this

soft caramel-like substance and

pour it all over again. Well, the color also began

to differ.

I decided to level this board

using a planer, since it

fits there. Valhel can easily handle

this task, but you need to be

careful because there is a risk of

chipping. I had a couple of these,

but it’s not critical.

After sanding, the

fun begins. I will use the

existing drawing as a coloring book, but

my paints are not simple. This is colored

wax. The palette is also limited, but

fortunately I know how to mix colors. Well,

then the improvisation began.

From what I

have, I want to get something

like a sunset sky. The

whole job took about 40 minutes, and

after another 40 minutes I picked up the scraper. I need to

completely remove the top layer of paint

to reveal the wood grain. And,

of course, those same black lines.

The effect turned out to be quite abstract. It didn't

turn out exactly as I

planned, but I like it. There is

some positive meaning in this picture.

I covered the whole thing with the remains of the varnish from the

spray can. And as is typical of

wood, it became even warmer.

It could very well exist on

its own, but I still made a

frame for it, and there are reasons for that.

I also noticed a very cool effect.

If we look at this board not as a

sunset over a river, but turn it over, we will

see a cosmic landscape with a

thinking ocean. However, all of this needs

to be viewed on the wall, so let's

move on to the installation work. But let

's start with dismantling. There was already a table in this place

, which I made

from a spruce board from Leroy 8 years ago. He did

n't perform well, largely

due to the huge resin pockets. And now

his replacement has arrived.

As you can see, everything is simple here. The

only innovations are those same crackers. There are no

problems with installing the shelves either

. This time I didn't make them

hover, but chose brackets as fasteners

. True, I had to

rework one a little, that is, shorten it,

and all because of that very natural

edge. They will be quite appropriate in this interior

.

In short, the brackets definitely don't

bother me, but don't worry about the screws,

I replaced them with black ones.

As many of you have probably already realized,

I hang the painting on a French bar. I

made it in Patai, so the frame

fits tightly to the wall. I wish I could say

that this is the icing on the cake of my finished

balcony, but no. All the items, in my

opinion, are in harmony, except one.

Now we need to come up with something about the

windowsill. I once viewed

the balcony as an extension of my

workspace. I even held

some webinars here, but now it’s unlikely to be

used for its intended purpose. I'm

sure this table will be

used as another surface

for more vegetation, which

I have nothing to do with. Well, one

last touch for those who are still

here. The surface of the water, of course, should

reflect the light from the sunset sky.

Of course, backlighting was a given here

, and the

natural edge of the wood, visible through the epoxy, perfectly

complements the shadowy shoreline.

Thank you all for watching and supporting this

video. And in the traditional post-

credits scene, I'll spoil the next one for you.

[snorts]

So, the wooden panel that I

showed you today actually

appeared at the very last moment. But

I'll show you the panel that was originally intended for this in the next

video. I think this will be a great opportunity

to celebrate the channel's fifth anniversary and remember its

most iconic projects. A huge thank you to

my subscribers on Boost. You have no

idea how important your contribution is

to the fact that the channel still

exists. Don't forget about my

Telegram channel, which I still run and have

no plans to move anywhere. Well, that's

definitely all. See you soon.