Old Growth Redwood Root Burl

How It Started: secured a 6” thick by 72” L x 36” W accent growth California Redwood Burl Slab in September 2024 from a stash of a woodworker who had passed away. He got the slab almost thirty years ago and never got around to making anything from it. It is old growth or even ancient growth Redwood where the rings are less than a 1/32 of an inch wide. By my count, there are 400 rings radiating from the pith. The slab was dirty and stored under an overhand and not in a controlled environment.

So the first thing I did was to power wash it gently since it is a cross cut of the base of the tree. There is some inherent weakness in that. After the powerwash, I soaked the slab on both sides with borate to ensure no bugs were still in the piece and ensure no bugs would ever want to be in the piece.

How It’s Going: took the slab to a saw-mill to resaw into two 72” L x 36” W slabs that were kiln dried and flattened (along with scraps).

What It Will Be: two full slabs, cast with sea blue half inch base followed by clear epoxy to give a depth perception of the live edges from the root burl. And the scraps will be turned cast into a few charcuterie boards with the sea blue base coat and clear epoxy.

The first experiment was to take the scraps or cut offs and mill them down to get rid of the years and years of dirt and grime that were on the surface passing it through a drum sander. And to get a set of pieces all the same thickness. The cutoffs were only one inch thick, and again, because of the orientation of the slabs when it was cut as a cross cut there is an inherant weakness in the wood itself that needs to be addressed. I didn’t want to use an epoxy at this point to address the weakness because the epoxy would fill in the pores, which I didn’t want at this stage. i needed it to harden the wood without hardening the pores. So I used a product called PCPetrifier. This product soaked right through each fragment of cut off and when dried solidified any weakness or softness that would have been there.

Then, I did another round of standing to rough up the surface on both sides of each cut off piece that would be used in the first charcuterie board. Now, finally we can start the casting process in a HDPE mold form of 18” x 14”. First step of the epoxy was to mix up twenty-four ounces of a casting epoxy with some blue & pearly white pigment to lay down a one quarter inch base in the mold. And then press the six pieces in a pleasing pattern within the base coat. That resulted in the base coat adhering to the bottom of the cutoff and penetrating upward to a certain extent in any gaps. Resulting in a half inch base coat with the cut offs pressed in.

Next step, after four hours at seventy five degrees Farenheit was to pour a clear epoxy coat to get an interaction between the blue epoxy and the clear coat in what looked like almost a wave formation. And then with the requisite bubble pop being on every hour with a heat gun, the cast of the charcuterie board was set to cure.

Next Steps: take it out of the mold after 24 hours and then after 48 hours, pass it through a planer to get the excess clear epoxy shaved off. Then quite a bit of sanding from 80-120 grit to get the board ready for finish. Finish will be an osmo finish. And then I will add some base feet and some handles on the top. And it will be ready to serve that next fabulous spread!