Bookends from epoxy filled, bug damaged, oak.
I had some oak from a neighborhood tree. While it sat in my porch or in my workshop, developed a bit of a bug problem. I could see exist holes and little piles of sawdust coming from it, so I knew it had to go. I decided to run a piece of it through the bandsaw just to see how bad it was. It was so bad, it was cool. There were tunnels upon tunnels. So I cut a few pieces that I thought might be fun to make bookends or candle holders from.
You can see one of these beetles just above the piece of wood. They have little white dots that look like they are painted on.I knocked it out of one of the holes, took a photo then killed it so it could not spread.
The bug in question were Ivory Marked Longhorn Beetles, which are destructive to any tree they find their way into. They can live in the wood for a couple years as larvae and then turn into the beetle. The sawdust … errr… sawpoop fills in the holes as the bug moves forward.
Here is a larvae from the same piece of wood. To kill off anything in the wood, I put the pieces in the toaster oven in my shop for a few hours on 300 degrees.
After the wood came out of the oven I uses a pick and small chisel clear out many of the holes and tunnels as I could.
I used packing tape to tape off the bottom and sides of each piece.
Then I mixed up some metallic teal colored epoxy. I went real light with the pigment because I wanted it to be translucent.
First epoxy pour. I put the taped up pieces on top of a plastic bag, as double protection to keep from epoxying the thing to my workbench. It kept underestimating the amount of epoxy that I needed, because it is hard to imagine how many holes there are inside the wood.
The second epoxy pour got a little closer, but still had lost of voids.
The third pour was the charm. Finally got them all poured level.
Some spots on the epoxy were pretty deep so needed a lot of removal. I used my cordless angle grander with a flap disk on it. This worked pretty well as the wheel did not load up with epoxy. Is I got it closer to wood, then I switched to using an random orbit sander an going up through the grits.
For a finish, I went with my go to Pure Tung Oil (affiliate, not sponsored). Here is the first coat on the left. I like the color and the way the spalting is surfaced. Six more thin coats with full sunshine in-between and the bookends are complete.
The figure and spalting in the oak is beautiful all by itself, but then seeing it all mix among the chaos of the bug tunnels is even more cool.
The figure and spalting in the oak is pretty cool, but then seeing it all mix among the chaos of the bug tunnels is pretty cool.
Supports the books with a bit of style.
I like these bookends. They aren’t robust enough to hold up a large stack, but they do the job for a few books.
Note the exit holes on the outside of the wood.
I really hate the longhorn beetles, but I have to admit, the result is pretty cool.
Previously
- Sunset Heart Candle Holder
Back in February 2020 I was looking for a small fast project to make with my son. Some of my projects are kind of big and he loses interest, so I was looking for something small. I came up with the idea for a candle holder made from three pieces of wood laminated together. I […]
- Outdoor Cedar Bench – sawbench
I have a nice tiny patio outside the front door of my workshop. When I have been planing or sawing and worked up a sweat, I’d like to be able sit and rest while my heart settles down. I tried putting chairs there, but they are too comfortable and I settle too long. I need […]
- Multi-set drill index with guide
I have a bunch of drill bits. Anything over 1/4″ I don’t go through that rapidly, but anything under 1/4″ they are prone to breakage or other tip damage. As a result I have a bunch of these small packs of bits that are incomplete sets. It is a pain to rifle through them for […]
- Best woodworking pencil
I know a lot of people disrespect the mechanical pencil for the wood-shop because the lead is too thin and breaks too easily. I used to have similar complaints. I work with a lot of irregular wood with rough saw marks and things that would spell the end for the fragile lead on a mechanical […]
- Propane Forge Cart
We’ve been doing a bit more blacksmithing and the arrangement of the forge on my sawbenches has always been a bit troublesome. They are wood, so they have a tendency to burn. They are also low, so I have to stoop to see in the forge. I’m getting older and don’t stoop so good anymore. […]
- Convert Ball Peen to Straight Peen Hammer
We were on vacation in Murphy NC. Beautiful place. On one of my early walks with the dog, I saw a wood handle in sticking out from brush at the base of a utility pole. I pulled it out and found an old 24oz ball peen hammer. It was in pretty bad shape with rust […]
- Sun and Tung Oil
This is a simple project of making a live edge shelf for my son. I had nicely prepped a piece of Cypress with a plane. When I asked what color he wanted it, he said “Black, let’s torch it.” So we burned it with a weedburner, brushed it off with a blue nyalox drill brush, […]
- Bottlebrush Unicorn
My son had a project he wanted to make as a gift, so I turn this blog post over to him at this time. I went online to find a good picture of a unicorn. I found this one that was not too complicated to cut on the band saw. I cut a 14 inch […]
- Bottlebrush Tree
In October 2021 my neighbor wanted a Bottlebrush tree cut down and I was interested in the wood. So I offered to cut it down. As you can see, it had quite a lean to it. I was not concerned about hitting the house because it was fully leaning away from the house. I was […]
- Charcuterie Board – Planche?
Back in May 2020, my son made a serving tray as a gift for his teacher and wrote about it here. Fast forward to December 2022 and we get a call from his past teacher offering him his first commission for another one. Only now we can’t call it a serving tray, we have to […]
- What most Tung Oil articles get wrong
I have been using Tung oil as my go-to finish for a dozen years or so. As far as I am concerned it is a great finish for more things than it usually gets credit for. Thankfully its virtues are getting shared more often now in recent years. In my experience it is far […]
- A great woodworking weekend with Roy Underhill
I received and email a couple days ago informing me that this was going to be the last year of the the Woodwright School. This made me pretty sad as I had always meant to get back to it for another class. They fill up so fast it is hard to get the class you […]
- My favorite screwdriver
I am redoing my kitchen with new cabinets and as a result, was putting in a lot of screws. Some I could access with my drill driver, others were not easily accessed or were too small to work safely with the drill. My hands were getting a bit achy and so I was looking for […]
- Rustic corner shelf
My mother is a bird fan and several years ago she started collecting some very nicely carved birds. She is moving into a new place and could use somewhere to display her birds. I selected a section of a large limb that came from my neighbor’s gigantic ficus tree. I used an old chisel […]
- Pelican Salt Lamp
Christmas time brings a hunt for project ideas for something for my son to make for his mom. We started tossing around ideas including things she likes. She really likes Pelicans. We’ve been in Florida for over a decade now and they still make her smile. So we came up with the idea for a […]
- Kerfing a live edge joint
I am in the middle of working on a live edge table, but I have the live edges interior to the table rather than at the table edge. So I have one live edge that needs to join up to another piece of wood. A lot of woodworkers solve this with a river of epoxy. […]
- Forged knife
A few years ago, my son went on a school trip to St. Augustine FL. One of the things they visited was a blacksmith shop. He was intrigued, so we entered into adding some ironworking to our shop. Back in March 2019 we decided to make a propane bucket forge and then make a knife. […]
- Mountain Wall Light
As my son has gotten older, his homework time has stretched later into the evening when light is fading. He clearly needed more photons. We had a few requirements: It had to look good with his custom desk, and book cabinet. His desk is in our family room, so it had to look good. It […]
- Sliding Dovetailed Book Cabinet
My son has been schooling remotely due to COVID so we needed a place for him to stash all his books and papers that would normally be in his locker at school. The river desk we built back at the end of 2018 serves him well, but is has no storage either so I decided […]
Add your comment