hey it’s Jordan with studio gbk and

today I take a slab of silver maple Bust

It Down burn it and turn it into a lava

table everything went pretty well until

I got the worst leak I’ve ever had

during a por so stay tuned for that now

I bought this slab in March of 2023 for

only $50 and the fact that it’s cracked

is what made it so cheap I was actually

buying some Walnut when I noticed this

piece on the side and she was damaged

and looked like she’d been through a lot

but I saw potential and decided to give

it a chance as you can see I removed all

of the bark from this slab first and I

wasn’t sure on how I was going to break

this up and some of you might be

wondering why I wanted this breakup in

the first place well number one is

because it’s fun to break things but

jokes aside I saw this beautiful table

on Instagram that inspired this design

along with Woodworkers in Russia or some

country that I don’t speak the language

making amazing volcanic tables along

with these patio tables kitchen islands

and even rugs which aren’t real they’re

AI generated but I believe I’m capable

of making something very close to it and

I will so here’s my first attempt I

thought of using a bat or a mallet but

instead I tightened this clamp to the

side of my workt and smashed the pieces

on top of it I took the broken pieces

and rearranged them in the same order as

they were before I broke the slab to

give it that explosion effect and I put

them on top of a piece of cardboard so I

could trace this awkward shape and cut

it out and begin making mold now this is

the strangest and most difficult mold

I’ve ever built because it isn’t square

or rectangular like most molds typically

are it’s Live Edge all the way around so

I wasn’t sure how this would work out

but I put that cardboard stencil on top

of the white MDF board trace the same

shape all the way around and cut along

that line with my jigsaw I just used

some extra MDF that I had on hand and I

ended up using two different pieces to

make that full shape and I was actually

pretty pleased with how close I was able

to get it to the actual shape of the

wood I came back with my torch and

burned all these pieces individually on

the top bottom and sides this took me

like8 hours in total and I could have

used a more powerful torch to speed up

the process but I didn’t want the pieces

to warp so I used this little torch

which stopped working Midway through the

process after taking it apart and still

having trouble I bought a new one and

managed to get all the pieces to that

natural charred black color that I

wanted I sealed them with art resin to

preserve that color and protect them

from moisture and water and here’s what

they looked like when I finished I let

them dry for 72 hours and as you can see

the little drips and excess hardened at

the bottom but I just removed it with a

chisel and the rest of it I sanded after

that I was ready to build the mold so I

cocked in between those two pieces and

connected them well actually three

pieces with that little guy there I

covered the entire surface with tuck

tape so the epoxy doesn’t bond to that

white MDF board then I used this

flexible garden edging to go around the

perimeter of this mold no I did not come

up with that idea myself it was a tip

from another woodworker I put a bunch of

cocking around the entire edge of the

mold and used these drywall screws to

attach it it took a lot of them but I

was more worried about this thing

leaking than I was about wasting screws

so I went pretty crazy with the screwing

on this one I was so worried about a

leak that I came back with an extra beat

of after it was already screwed

just to make sure that this was sealed

to Perfection and if you’re thinking

about anything other than this mold

right now and the wood that’s about to

go inside of it you should probably get

some help um I cleaned off my finger and

put those pieces back inside the mold

they fit pretty well but the Live Edge

is not shaped at a perfect 90° angle so

there were areas that I had to bend the

garden edging so the pieces could sit

flat I used my torch to heat it and bend

it and I even cut it in some are areas

and then used a bunch of Tuck tape to

control where the epoxy would go and

attempted to make the perfect Edge that

I was going for and at that point I

really didn’t know if this would work or

not but I’m going for it I used clamps

and wood and red tape to hold these

pieces and stop them from moving once I

pour probably not the textbook way to do

this but feel free to comment with any

ideas that you have at this point I’m

ready to pour the table now my goal here

is to color the epoxy as close to a

volcanic lava fire color as possible and

this is my first attempt at a volcano

table so I’m hoping for the best after

looking at some pictures online I

remixed these high flow acrylics from

Golden pigment I used napthol redl and

mixed it with pyro orange and that just

sounds like Fire doesn’t it so I mixed

them all together with epoxy and to be

honest this turned out to be a bit more

red than I wanted and I would would have

added more orange but I had already

mixed in too much dye which can affect

the consistency and how well the epoxy

dries so I just poured it as is and

hoped for the best I also put some of

that same epoxy in this ketchup looking

bottle that you see here and use that to

fill in these cracks and voids in the

surface of the table I could have just

used clear but I want the little cracks

and veins in the wood to match these

lava rivers that the table is made up of

and I wasn’t too worried about getting

it neat because I’ll sand it later

anyway I just want to make sure the

voids are all the way full and as I did

this on the surface it started looking a

bit more orange and lava like so I was

actually pleased with how that color

combination turned out I also added some

yellow pigment into the mix and spread

it around with a piece of this Popsicle

stick and at this point I kind of wish

that I’d given myself more space to work

with because trying to swirl these lava

designs into the epoxy with hardly any

space was very challenging and even

irritating later on when tons of it

dried on my live edges and I had to come

back and scrape it all off which took

hours and I wanted to just let it go but

the perfectionist in me just wouldn’t

allow it so I scraped and sanded and

even recolored these black edges with a

marker after that I mixed and poured the

clear layer and as you can see this had

way too many bubbles but I was able to

use my torch and heat gun to eliminate

them and I could have used that lava

color all the way through but my goal

was to keep as much of the Live Edge

visible as possible which is why I

poured the clear over the top of that

Lava River and during this clear pour

was when it started to leak oh my

gosh

why and this is my first time dealing

with a leak so I wasn’t sure what to do

here I’ve heard Flex Seal works but I

didn’t have any on hand and I didn’t

have time to go grab it so I just

started covering that area with red tape

as fast as I could and after using a

bunch of tape it still kept on

leaking oh this is

bad oh this is

bad so I added more tape and more tape

and layered tape on top of tape until I

couldn’t add any more and after all that

it still dripped a little but my tape

job did minimize the leak and I covered

it to prevent dust or bugs from ruining

the clear layer and left it to dry when

I came back it actually dried fairly

well and clear and I was glad all my

resin didn’t leak out onto the floor but

it did have these clusters of bubbles

that dried onto the surface and you know

bubbles are cool and all when you’re a

kid but in the epoxy game they’re the

last thing you want to see in your

finish they’re also permanent just like

face tats so I actually cut out this

area that was really bad and filled it

with black epoxy to make it look like it

was a part of the wood rather than me

being an amateur at pouring clear epoxy

and if you can’t tell by now I was

really starting to regret this clear

layer idea and to top it off when I

poured the final layer of clear it had

even more bubbles than the previous

layer and ruined any chances that I have

of this looking like clear glass and at

this point I just want to throw the

whole thing away but I kept going and

removed all the screws peeled off the

garden edging and took this out of the

mold removing it from the mold was

pretty

easy but I did have to cut off a bunch

of excess clear epoxy that dried around

the edges luckily it was pretty soft

because it hadn’t fully cured and after

cleaning up those edges I threw it in

the back of my truck along with some

other projects and took it to Ponderosa

Mill Works in Oakland to send it through

the the wide belt

sander

all right these machines can cost

well over

$100,000 so being able to use this for

$200 an hour is actually a really good

deal so when people ask me hey bro can I

have a table for

$200 I say yeah you can go to IKEA they

sell tables for 200 bucks maybe less um

anyways after sending it through the

planer a couple times it completely

removed the black charred layer that I

had worked so hard to burn and I did not

see this one coming and this was just

another issue out of many with this

table so I took it back to my shop and

cut off more of that clear epoxy that

had dried around the edges and I sanded

both sides down as smooth as possible to

remove those lines but at this point I

was just done with this table and I felt

like cutting it up and throwing it away

but instead of doing that I let it sit

in my shop for months started some new

projects and just recently decided that

I do my best to finish it even though

it’s not exactly what I want so I

flipped it over and decided to use the

bottom side as the surface even though

this wasn’t the original plan and this

led to me cutting off even more of that

clear epoxy from the edges and I just

wondered is this still considered a

natural Live Edge or is it considered a

GMO unnatural Edge now that I’ve

interfered with it let me know in the

comments I sanded the whole thing down

some of it by hand the rest with my

orbital sander and after sanding it all

the way up to 400 grit I used this true

black wood stain from Home Depot to

stain the wood black and bring it back

to that original color that I wanted

when I first started started burning it

now this is obviously artificial but I’m

happy with how close this color is to

the original color that I had wanted I

stained the bottom first to get some

practice strokes in and the bottom won’t

really be seen much but you never know

when someone might have their face down

there cleaning or whatever and if they

do I would want them to be

impressed I flipped it over and stained

the top of this table which used to be

the bottom and this really brought out

my artistic side more than any other

project that I’ve done I used a tiny

paintbrush to make sure I stayed inside

the lines and I remember being forced to

color things back in elementary school

which I always thought was stupid but

little did I know this was a valuable

skill that would be very useful later in

life after staining the whole thing this

is how it looked which is not bad for a

piece that I almost gave up on um the

stain dried a little rougher than I

wanted and I didn’t want to sand it off

and ruin that black finish again again

so I just went over it with this 3000

grit sanding pad to make it smooth again

and this actually worked out pretty well

after that I was ready to attach the

legs I used these 28 in hair pin legs

and I could have done something much

fancier but at this point I just want to

be done I spread these legs out exactly

where I want them to be and used framing

squares to make them somewhat

symmetrical this is to help with balance

I marked the location of the holes with

a sharp ice pick because marker or

pencil would be hard to see on this

black finish and then I drilled the

holes for my threaded inserts a threaded

insert basically allows the legs to be

removed and reattached hundreds or

thousands of times versus screwing

straight into wood you can only remove

them a small amount of times now when I

went to screw them in they busted

prematurely before they were even all

the way in which is never a good thing

the big mistake here is that I used

brass threaded inserts when I should

have used steel silver maple is a hard

wood plus this has tons of epoxy in it

so these soft brass threaded inserts

just couldn’t take the pressure I

drilled bigger holes and was able to get

some of them in but others broke off and

I had to remove them with vice grips

some were in deep enough that I just

sanded them down and after messing with

this table for a whole year here I am

cursing at it and calling it names which

is really not how I wanted this to end

but after fighting with these inserts I

managed to get them all in and attach

the leg successfully and if you’re

wondering this is how it

felt after that I finished this off

using mineral oil and a rag I thought of

doing a clear coat but I refused to give

this table any more of my time and after

all the struggle I’m really happy with

how this one turned out and how much it

resembles lava in certain places a

volcano was the goal but my girl said

it’s a Darth Vader table and using AI

here’s how it would look in your house

or maybe even a private beach let me

know what you think in the comments and

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