A few weeks ago upon hauling another awesome log up off of the beach, I realized that there was in fact nowhere to put it. Every mostly-out-of-the-rain nook and cranny on our property was full up with logs and branches and stumps waiting to be made into, well, something cool. Time to use up some inventory.
I was in the mood to practice some large motor skills — rough-hewn, useful projects that embrace their loggy-ness. Of course that meant the chainsaw, but also a first go-around with the Scary Wheel of Death (SWOD). Advertised as “extremely sharp” and sold together with (I kid you not) a chainsaw attachment for an angle grinder, this thing means business. Amazingly cool but seriously dangerous. I would not get anywhere near it without my Kevlar gloves and leather apron and a bunch of face-related PPE. That said, it does its job and does it well.
Three projects — a footstool for the sun nook, a shallow washbasin for cleaning up sandy dog paws, and a “sidecar” add-on to the towel stand for holding sunscreen and such:
The biggest hassle about working with logs is the checks / cracks that show up as they dry out. I have varying degrees of patience waiting for this — the “gold standard” is to coat the endgrain with wax emulsion (to even out escaping moisture) and wait a year or more. There are quicker methods too (e.g., denatured alcohol or an oven), but at the end of the day logs are just perfectly constructed to split as they shrink. I usually just roll with it.
The Footstool
OK, so let’s look at the stool first. It was inspired by a bunch of Pinterest-pushed videos of barefoot old men smoking cigarettes while carving furniture with their chainsaws. Surely I can do that! So I sharpened up the Greenworks (such a great tool) and set to. The piece came from a nice long tree on the beach; of course I misjudged the angles and got the blade all bound up making the cut. Nothing like working to free a saw as the tide marches steadily towards your spot! Also I was really bad about drying this one. I thought I could get away with it because I was going to remove a bunch of material which should have reduced the internal stress (spoiler alert, it did not).
Step one was to cut a tic-tac-toe shape from the bottom up. I then could push the end of the blade directly in from the sides, freeing all but the corner pieces to make the legs. A bit of shaping and sanding and it was good to go — except for a big crack that developed next to one leg. Because the stool was going to have a cushion on top, this wasn’t a comfort issue; I just needed to keep it from continuing to grow. A perfect opportunity for my first attempt at a “bowtie” inset.
Bowties are really neat — a decorative way to add strength across checks. It’s one of those approaches that is elegant in both form and function — the shape looks nice, the angles are perfectly suited to hold strong tension without ripping through the wood, and it’s pretty straightforward to create. I particularly like it when folks use a series of them to make a “zipper” like they’ve done here. The basic process is:
- Cut an appropriately-sized bowtie (I used the bandsaw). Be sure the sides are vertical, the piece is tall enough, and that the grain runs lengthwise!
- Trace it onto the log and use a plunge router to rough out the inlay. You might have to do this in a few passes to get the right depth.
- Clean up the edges with a sharp chisel.
- Inset the bowtie with wood glue on all sides. Tap it in with something like a rubber mallet.
- Use a hand planer and/or sander to even out the surface.
- Cool tip: if you end up with small gaps around the inlay, spread a bit of wood glue along the edges and then sand with 120 grit paper while it’s wet. Dust from the sanding mixes with the glue and gets pushed into the gap — ends up color-matching perfectly!
A little citrus paste wax, and an 11” chair pad affixed with Velcro tape and this one was in the bag. Woot!
The Washbasin
Next up the washbasin, and the first go-around with the SWOD. This big guy washed up in front of the house almost ready to go — just needed to cut it in half to get the right height (the other half is still waiting for a project). I wanted stubby legs this time, so instead of plunge-cutting with the saw I just used the router to remove about an inch all around. LOTS of sawdust in this step!
For the basin, I basically wanted to hollow it out to about a 3” depth and then curve the bottom towards a drain in the middle. Hollowing out wood from the end-grain is a HUGE pain — I am still on the hunt for a technique that I really like. What ended up working the best in this case was:
- Use the router to get down about an inch or so.
- Put a 1-3/8” Forstner bit onto the impact drill and just drill a million holes to about three inches. Hello my old friend repetitive stress.
- Chisel out the leftovers between the holes.
- Use the SWOD to clean it up and carve in the bowl shape at the bottom.
- Use the same bit to drill through the bottom center to make the drain.
This was all pretty messy, especially at the edges. But it worked! To make the bowl waterproof, I coated the inside with a few rounds of tabletop epoxy. This not only will keep moisture out of the wood, but closed up two huge and one smaller cracks that had developed. I added a few braces underneath the bowl to reinforce this, because believe it or not I’ve had ongoing shrinkage rip solid epoxy apart like it was nothing. Crazy.
Spar varnish on the rest of the piece should keep it pretty weatherproof. Added a rubber stopper, and that’s another project done and dusted.
The Sidecar
Last up, a piece to sit next to the back door holding sunscreen and other important goo. Proving once again that good behavior is overrated, I actually waxed this log and let it dry for seven months and it still cracked on me. But I’m not bitter, really.
First job on this one was to carve out the side so that it would snuggle up to the larger towel holder already in place by the door. Connor got me this super cool set of contour gauges that was perfect for the task (similar to this one). They work kind of like those old “pin art” toys — little plastic fingers contour to an irregular shape so it’s easy to cut a piece that will mate perfectly. Once again I roughed out the cut with the chainsaw, and then used the SWOD for the finer shaping and smoothing. No lie, that thing is just wicked fun to work with.
Then back to the grind hollowing out the storage area. Much too small for most of my tools, this one was again a bunch of Forstner bit drilling and chisel work. I was able to get the oscillating tool in there for some of it, but mostly it was just elbow grease and time. Luckily I could leave the bottom ugly and uneven because I poured in an opaque, self-leveling epoxy layer to make a solid bottom anyways (beautiful mahogany-colored mica pigment, the same as the top of the towel stand).
The epoxy also covered up bracing I added to keep the crack from widening. I inset two additional braces on the inside curve; we’ll see how that works. Don’t love the treatment there but it is hidden most of the time, so I guess that’s ok. A few coats of tung oil and a felt pad on the bottom — three for three!
A bunch of useful stuff for the beach house, and even better, freed up a little space to store new treasures. Time to get back on the hunt!