(upbeat music) - Hey.

Welcome to "The American Woodshop."

I'm Scott Phillips, and today we're going to make a live edge plant stand whatnot out of beautiful hard maple, and we're getting into all the details you need to do in order to make your own.

So stay with us.

- [Narrator] "The American Woodshop" with Scott Phillips is brought to you by- - [Announcer] Since 1928, Woodcraft has been providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

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- This is a slab of hard maple that's an 1 3/8-inch thick that came from a tree that came down in a tornado here 15 years ago, and I've been saving it for something special.

Wait until you see how this all slabs out.

And whatever you do, be sure to read, understand, and follow all the instructions that come with the tools and products you use in your wood shop.

Work safely.

So now I've got a Sharpie line drawn in on this slab and I've got one, two, three pieces, a little trim at the top, trim at the bottom.

And by measuring from this line down to the edge of this track, I can make these two cuts parallel.

And this is on dust extraction.

Now I'll make the cut.

And this blade, when it comes down, just barely nicks the surface of this MDF.

So let's make that cut.

(saw buzzing) Let that come to a stop.

And now, that's some good looking hard maple, let me tell you, I will show you what's really amazing about this setup.

Bring that up, bring this slab down, which is quite heavy, like so, and bring it to that line.

And now I can bring this down.

And this track has a notch in it, so it locks in to the track.

That's solid.

And I slide this back until I just barely see that line.

And it's even with this zero fuzz strip.

Other words, this strip holds the wood fibers down so there's no fuzz when you make this cut, technical term.

So here we go, make the cut.

(saw buzzing) I'm all the way through.

And now, I love this system when you're working with slabs.

That's perfect.

How about that?

So I will finish cutting this into the pieces that we need, and we'll get into all the nuances in a second on how to make your own live edge slabs that are made out of resin.

So I'll just keep milling this down.

I've got some surprises in this piece.

It's pretty amazing.

(saw buzzing) (wood whooshing) Now this is a backer, okay?

And it's going to be the vertical, and I'm going to have this shelf right here and this shelf right here sticking straight out.

And this will be a plant stand.

It also would be great by couches in your living room.

And at the very bottom, all this is brought together by a piece of MDF and some gnarly roots.

But look at this.

This is the very amazing thing about using resins.

You can see this knot hole open that goes all the way through to the back.

Well, I set that with Petoskey stones and a couple pieces of granite.

And over here you'll be able to see we're going to have this LED light system that's going to be between the two shelves with this light column, but it will illuminate the stones that come through the resin.

Now, that's going to all come together soon, but now we have a slab right here that we're going to head outside.

I'm going to use a handheld planer 'cause this is too wide to run through a planer, and we'll plane it down with a handheld running with the grain, and then use a wide belt sander, well, a handheld sander, a 4 by 24, to sand that smooth.

And then I'll show you how to use resins.

Okay, we're going to coat this with resin because there's somebody on set that just loves to see that done, and we're going to get that done for Meghan.

Okay, so outside we go.

(planer buzzing) Okay, now these handheld power planers are wonderful as long as you use the flat of the sole flat to the work piece.

And you're going to have hit or miss because this board is still wavy.

So I'll take this down, and once we have this planed very closely we'll use a wide belt 4 by 24 sander with dust extraction.

Take your time.

Let this tool on the hard maple make the cut.

(planer buzzing) Okay, now that's done with the power planer.

So carefully, I'm going to unplug that and plug in the big belt sander and hook it up to dust extraction, because I can.

And even though I'm outside with an N95, I'm very sensitive to maple.

(sander buzzing) (wood whooshing) When it comes to doing resins, know that it's an epoxy.

There are a million different brands.

I like to use the very low odor brand, and I use these mixing buckets right there.

That's two parts of part A.

Get the keep cap back on and squeeze out as much air as you can before you tighten it down.

That makes it last longer.

And this is the hardener, part B.

And I just bring it up to the line right here on the bucket that says two.

And you want to get the mix ratios just exactly right.

And now what I'm going to do is stir that thoroughly.

And you want a good clean stir stick, and you try to get a uniform blend.

If you push too much up on the side wall and don't get a thorough mix of A and B, it can affect the cure time.

The other thing for cure is temperature is very important.

Should be at least 70 degrees.

Now there it started to turn color.

That's a chemical reaction, which is what we want, okay?

So it's actually 72 degrees in here.

And this is something I always do inside because I'm using the low odor epoxy.

And the other thing is you want a good disposable brush.

Don't be using that rare brush that's, you know, high dollar because you aren't going to save, you aren't going to clean this brush.

And that looks just about right, right there.

And so now on this hard maple that's been cleaned off thoroughly, okay, what you can do, including with the bark inclusions or the knots, this is MirrorCast.

There are different styles of epoxy.

This is going to be for thin surface pour up to half an inch.

This is what you see on bar tops.

And here we go.

And this is a rare deal in that I never pour finishes on the wood.

Well, this is the exception.

Here's a knot.

I'm going to fill that knot.

Even though this is for thinner pours, like if I was doing very thick pours where the material was up to two inches thick, I'd be using something called RiverCast.

And that's about right, right there.

That looks good.

And the hardener, the part B, is something that people when they say, "You know, I used it "and it didn't get hard."

Well, it could be old, but in all probability you didn't get the mix ratio right.

Now before it has a chance to really start to get hard, and this is curing quickly today, and it varies from time to time, temperature and humidity affect the cure, but I'll brush this out.

And this will take a good two days to cure, but I wanted you to see how to do it.

And I'm staying up on the good clean wood right now and I'm pushing that epoxy out, getting it covered.

And then once the good white wood that you saw me plane and then sand is level on the board, I'll work the bark edges.

If you go the other way around, you're going to push contaminants, there's a piece of bark right there, into the clear pour.

So I'll just brush this out, let it cure thoroughly.

And that's pretty much all there is to it.

I will warn you, if you do not seal the knots thoroughly, it will leak out the bottom if there's a cup pour.

So make sure you seal the knots on the bottom side with a clear silicone.

And that's all there is to it.

You'll see this once this is cured out.

And I'm going to set this aside now, let it cure, and then we can get back to assembling the pieces that we've already cast.

That's it.

Any questions?

(chuckles) I guess it's good.

If everything goes right now, I'm using a mega square driver, a big one, to join these heavy duty washer head fasteners into pre-drilled pilot holes.

And this is the bottom of a 7/8-inch thick MDF board.

And that looks really good right there.

And you go, "What's going on, Scott?

I'm confused."

Well, take a look at that.

Now this is the base of the shelves.

And so this is a shelf support that goes about in that position right there.

This is the top of the backboard, this is the bottom board that gets feet.

So let's move that over there.

And then you can see in the very center of the end of this work piece, and this is 16 1/2 inches long, 2 1/2 inches square, I have drilled a pilot hole that's going to take what is called a dowel screw.

Instead of a wood dowel, it's a metal dowel.

And they have this driver that goes on like this (drill whirring) and it threads onto this piece right here.

(drill whirring) And you want to make sure that it goes into the bottom of that hole because that little piece right there can't go through this next board, which is another shelf.

See, this is the top of the shelf.

Beautiful.

I love that character.

Some people say, "Oh, those knots."

No, I love those knots.

And now I can thread this post into position like so and tighten it.

And then what comes next is again here's another fastener to the back of this shelf.

It's always fun to see all these pieces come together.

So I have the new driver in for that mega fastener, 2 1/2 inches long.

I bring that up through the pre-drilled pilot hole.

I have my leveling marks there so that I know where to put that shelf.

Now there's that post, and up this comes into the pre-drilled hole like so.

I'm lining it up.

(drill whirring) That's perfect just like that.

And then I want that quarter-sawn grain forward, so I twist that.

I don't keep this square to the edge, I want it canted.

And then what I can do now is, with this piece that has the resin cast stones in the knot hole, this will be the top shelf, and I'll just do the same technique with that.

And off to the races we go.

Right there is the hole.

Okay, dowel screw comes up and in.

And I just love oak and maple.

It's a great combination.

And these dowel screwdrivers right here are really great.

Now I'll get this done, and I will fasten the piece to the backboard.

And also I wanted to show you one other thing.

I have three holes pre-drilled in this work piece.

There's the face I want right there.

Look at that quarter ray fleck.

Those are two fasteners to hold the light, and then that center hole is for the cord.

So I'll just get this lined up and put in place.

Yeah, that's looking good.

(wood whooshing) Okay, now it's starting to shape up and you can see how everything lines up and it's important that the holes for the light are lined up so that when the light is mounted it's going to project light up through that resin casting.

And then the other thing now is with the shelves, I've pre-marked holes here that need pilot holes into that shelving system, the live edge.

And in hard maple, you definitely want to use a sharp brad point bit.

And this is 3/16 of an inch in diameter.

And I've got my drill locations marked.

You see that smoke?

That's hard maple for you.

I love that smell, but does help when you're drilling the pilot holes to evacuate the chips so it doesn't jam into that twist.

It's the little things in life that you learn.

And of course, these live edges boards, they aren't perfectly flat, and I like that, but that makes marking the hole locations by sighting down the board and then putting a Sharpie marker point on that very critical to drawing these heavy duty square drive fasteners.

I'll tell you, I rarely use a Phillips style.

Square drive is far superior.

And even star drive is good.

Now once this is done in those locations, that's there to stay for the shelf.

So you could tell the assembly is very easy, okay?

But then just about done with this, and I'll show you what's next with the posts because everything is drawn tight now on the back and on this hard maple.

The posts need to be locked in place now.

Swing this back around, and that's a rock solid assembly.

And hang that front post over the edge slightly, line it up perfectly, get the grain lined up, that quarter-sawn there, quarter-sawn this way under the light.

And now I can lock in the posts.

And they're staggered, so I can drill pilot holes underneath.

Want that just flush all the way around.

Again, the warp surface of these slabs means you have to line this up by eye.

That's it right there.

And I'll get these secured, both posts, Everything's lined up to perfection.

That's pre-drilled right there.

Same thing down below, I pre-drill the hole here.

That looks good.

And swap out the driver, get the square driver here.

And now I draw it tight.

And I only use one screw at this point in the bottom of each post, boy, that's there, because that way I can toggle the post just a little bit once we're ready for the final assembly.

That looks good right there.

So that's solid.

Now what I need to do is flip all of this over and set it on the ground.

And this is heavy and there's some sharp edges on that live edge stuff, so, but that is rock, rock solid.

Now, why am I flipping this over?

We have to make the feet now.

Off to the bandsaw all we go.

(wood whooshing) (saw buzzing) Now let's turn off that dust collector and hit the brake.

And look at that.

That is a foot.

Now I want to show you what you do with the feet.

Come over here to the drill press.

And you lock this piece down with three clamps, one clamp to hold the sacrificial table, one clamp to hold the other clamp that holds that block of wood square to the table, and you line it up with a 3/4-inch inch bit.

And what you do is you countersink that just, or counterbore rather, just enough so that when you swap this out, now that you have that nice and deep, that will take this heavy duty fastener through the middle.

And I'll release that and I'll change out the drill bit, and then I'll drill the hole all the way through for that fastener slightly oversized.

A lot of steps to this, but it's worth it.

It'll get it just right.

And I'll drill that hole, then we'll put the legs on.

(drill press screeching) (wood whooshing) So that is how you make the back feet.

These are the front feet.

These are chunks of scrap from a turning blank, big leaf maple burl.

And I line that up on my pre-drilled hole and back that off now.

Whoop.

Has a mind of its own.

Then I can draw that on nice and tight.

And once it's in position like that, (drill whirring) draw it tight.

Now there's a spot of glue underneath this, just like these are going to get glued on the end grain going onto that MDF, which will be stable.

And some people might say, well, that screw isn't going to hold it.

It doesn't have to.

All it has to do is position it so that when that draws it tight and the glue cures it will stay there best grain out.

Get that tight, and then we'll flip it over and talk about finishing.

(drill tapping) Now I want to ask you a question.

Where can you go to buy a plant stand like this?

I think the answer is you can't, and that's why you have to make your own things like this or whatever floats your boat.

Now the finish is American Oak gel stain, if you want to match the hard maple look.

And then once that dries overnight, gel top coat.

It wants to be the American Oak to match the colors.

But the way the light comes through from this really cool solid glass fixture LED, it's just magical.

Petoskey stones brings you good luck.

Which brings me to 31 years of doing "The American Woodshop."

My hat's off to each and every one of you for years of support.

All the underwriters, thank you, heartfelt thanks from Suzy and myself.

And she's off working right now.

Yes, she has a day job.

But that's it from "The American Woodshop" season 31.

Season 32, it's all about curve balls.

So stay with us.

I think you'll enjoy us.

And by the way, to my sponsor station, a huge thank you to Meghan and Kaitlyn for putting up with me all of these years.

See ya!

Get busy in your wood shop.

That's a wrap.

- [Announcer] Since 1928, Woodcraft has been providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmans.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

(dramatic music) - [Announcer] Pro tools (dramatic music) for tool pros.

(dramatic music) Rikon tools.

- [Announcer] "Woodcraft" magazine, projects, plans, and web links designed to help you make wood work.

- [Announcer] PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf Swedish silicon steel bandsaw blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

- [Announcer] A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- For more information about "The American Woodshop," you can watch free episodes 24/7 on our website, and you can find us on these social media platforms.

(upbeat music)