Live edge Problems... How NOT to do a Live edge Project. pt1

alright guys we got a big one today because we're gonna be taking an ordinary kitchen and transforming it with a rustic renovation but this project didn't go the way we wanted it to in any way shape or form and so we're actually going to be showing you all of the things that we did right and then some of the things that we did wrong actually not some of them all of them because if you guys are going to start to tackle a project like this I want to make sure that you're well prepared for what lies ahead now before we dive too deep into today's video series I'm gonna tell you straight up we screwed up a lot on this thing and yet it still turned out absolutely gorgeous and I know some of you guys are gonna say well why should we watch you you made so many mistakes well here's my answer to you don't I don't care if you do or if you don't but for the people that want to duplicate what we did but don't want to duplicate the problems well then maybe those guys this video is meant for or something like that because we're gonna show you absolutely everything good bad and in between that happened to us on this project including where we purchased materials what we did right what we did wrong and would never do again and hopefully if you guys are gonna go out and try to tackle something like this on your own you can just learn from us so here we go okay guys here's one of the problems you have when you use a heat gun versus a torch well there's going quite right because there I think it's gonna spontaneously combust that's 235 degrees the very first thing you need to do before starting any project like this is to get your wood from the right source I've heard horror stories of guys trying to order live-edge wood and getting it cracked broken to the wrong dimensions and just not working I picked my pieces up from Minnesota milling they've got a fabulous website but for me luckily they're located right in Farmington Minnesota so I went to their yard and was able to Hansel liked the wood I needed for my project and I found a large assortment of not only awesome wood but some cool pieces that I would have never seen if I hadn't actually gone out there so if you guys are looking to source your wood I'm going to tell you straight up Minnesota milling I've had multiple good experiences with them go to their website check them out with full confidence I can recommend them that's your first step get the right wood and that gets you off to the right start [Applause] you get the log perfectly level that one Timbers like almost as big as you are Frankie I mean just clip the thickness of it what kind of wood is that Alex those are red oak so you've got a whole shed full that is that you're cut pieces right there yeah you got them all stacked up all over out here you got trees everywhere I look hey guys here's something I want to point out when you're picking up the wood for your specific project you don't just think about the species that you want but you actually want to have the individual piece of wood because every piece of wood has its own character and that's really what's going to make or break your project so be particular at this stage make sure you get the right piece of wood for your project now this piece of wood here is over 17 feet long and three and a half inches thick [Applause] this is where I show customers all and finished product you know typically the would I sell looks really gray and rough like this so I always sand it or I you know show people it's real easy to just sand it poly it it really doesn't take much so book man show me book man yeah so this piece here's book match it's where you take two slabs that come from on top of each other when you cut the tree you can flip them end to end which what is what I think we're going to do with your project here we did them side to side but there's a seam down the center here which you really can't see then all these knots will match up perfectly so that's how you got wider so that we don't have the will you can flip them side to side together with Tucker you got something to say huh had something to say what what you think this is a good idea yeah same thing just both mash them end to end instead of you know side to side okay what kind of wood is this no those are white white oak what do we got right here this is ash ash okay and what have we got against the wall here these are two got some cherry here some more black walnut so this is black walnut this is black walnut what is this this is not black walnut is it it is right on that it just has a different finish on it so you actually this is just a just wass clear gloss on these two pieces right here right yeah so all I did was take the wrong one sand it down and put a couple coats of polyurethane on it all right you know what it's just gonna be easier for me to show you what I'm talking about when I say be careful about the species you select because this is black walnut here and it has zero processing done on it except for a coat of poly put over the top of it and what you see behind me is maple and we had to work the heck out of it to achieve this look in fact this maple countertop has two coats of red oak stain and then three coats of poly over the top of that to achieve this look so whatever species you start off with is pretty important because it's going to impact the way that it ultimately look looks and how much work we have to do to achieve that line all right so for the record Frankie doesn't think battery is gonna cut this 3-inch wet what is this maple boy yeah all right so we got the makita worm Drive and it's battery we're gonna see if it'll do it you know it's more important than will this saw make the cut is how do you actually make the cut because remember now you've got a live edge that wool moves in and out and you've got a perfectly straight wall that you've got to match up to so the most important thing to remember when you're attempting to snap your back chalk line is to take the most inward measurement of your live edge and measure back the distance that you need to your wall the reason I say this is because when you actually cut that back edge it's going to butt up against the wall the front of your countertop some of its going to come out more some of its going to go in but you never want it to go so far in that it exposes your cabinet fronts so make sure that you take the skinniest part of your live edge as it works its way in and measure that back to the wall now Frankie's tapping wedges in to help keep the cut open as he makes the cut that keeps us off from binding up but she's not buying enough no I actually it impresses me this far yeah the other side you use bound up twice before it got two feet used to before got 10 inches I'd call this the devil's cut maybe that's being dramatic but this is about as hard of a cut as you could make isn't it well yeah I could do is whack and yeah now this excess material doesn't go to waste because we're actually going to be converting that into the backstop that goes up against the back wall of the counter top yeah where's our test piece oh right here okay so here's our different kinky there we go okay this is the rough edge okay let's not only let me focus in on this because a little tough to see so there's sanded live-edge there's wire wheel blyve edge and then we also did the other side without any live edge right yep so that's the and that's three inch thick material so you guys let me know down below in the comments what's your vote do you vote for sanded live edge why are we alive edge or no live edge all right good to know I want to hear from you guys which one do you like Frankie I like that just a clay you like the straight cut yeah because just because you can see the grain grained I think that looked nice once we put a clear coat on there well we'll know more once we give it because we're gonna give the whole thing a tough test coat [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right so Frankie what are you up to right now you're cleaning this up just cleaning this up so you're not getting the gray off yep very often any kind of like where the where the forklift if something might have hit that no the damn they're just kind of fixing it making it look great okay the bandsaw marks out of it I'm just using a heavy course paper and sandpaper and just cut it down until you get it all top marks out of it and then do the final standings thinner finer so you're using a belt sander for the top one right yeah okay cuz that's your that's our heaviest Duty one yeah and then what's the what you what you're playing with the Sanders after that easy the orbital and then the vibrator [Music] and because so as this wood comes inside and dries this has already been dried for a year outside so we need to make sure that people understand this you can't just cut it and then use it right away it literally has to dry for about a year and then you should actually put a moisture reader on to the wood to know where the moisture is at now this has already all been done but we still anticipate more moisture coming out of the wood because once it's inside and warm year-round it tends to do the final drying right yeah but what I was just gonna also tell these guys is look at the pattern like this is maple and this is not my first choice of wood I just not a big fan of maple until I seen this pattern in it I've never personally seen maple with this crazy of a pattern in it what about you Frankie and the way to see what it'll look like with the gloss is to simply wet it down a little bit but I'm saying if these guys don't don't have a piece that they can sample it on yeah just get it wet just get it wet and that'll help I mean it won't it won't help you with staining options guys but it will help you with if you're just gonna clearcoat it that's kind of similar isn't it alright Frankie I want to talk about before you make this cut I want to talk about your chalk lines because you got a live edge slab on both sides and you got a lot of wall that's a straight wall see we had to cut the live edge off from one side oh yeah and that makes it a little bit tricky so can you walk us through how you did that to determine to get the right amount of overhang going to my my narrowest points and then come back an inch and a half wide here but I mean I went to my narrow point here and back into and a half snapped my line that'll be my overhang so this is your live edge overhang this stays this side stays on yeah Kate and I just measured back from that line the width I wanted my okay so just to be clear guys this line is not where he's cutting this is just to create the straight edge so that when he cuts back to the wall which this is the side that gets cut he's got a true straight edge right go okay all right let's see it Frankie Frankie thinks it'll do it won't do it you put the blade on backwards until Frankie's actually got his on backwards on the other one you can see that's the right way and this is the wrong way it'll still cut you just push a heck of a lot harder so if you guys never know this this isn't going the way I want it to maybe hey blade down backwards there you know and it's easy to do because they got writing on both sides yeah normally you can start the writing on the one side wait let's see writing and writing don't put your underwear on backwards and don't put your saw blade on backwards that's a dirt monkey hot tip for you [Music] okay so something I want to point out is that piece you just cut off right there Frankie is not waste that's actually going to be turned into the backsplash we now have the countertop cut to the right width and now we rotate it I'll sand the bottom first and then so you can see on the bottom the bottom corner the rough edges off you don't have to do it which bottom corner are you talking about it slivers when we're carrying it okay okay good all right well then that makes sense cuz singing away nobody's gonna crawl under cuz that's the bottom corner inside most of the nobody's gonna crawl underneath there and be going Salad Fingers Salad Fingers you haven't seen that video don't know salad fingers it is the weirdest video somebody ever showed me oh speaking of weird videos they showed me that because I actually kind of like weird videos so tell me your favorite weird video mine is Charlie the Unicorn and I think I actually kind of like salad fingers and I want to hear for me what is yours [Music] okay so here's our test piece we've got three different stains on it and there's a couple things that we learned during this process I'm glad we did this test piece for sure before we went with the main piece right first thing that we both seen on this test piece is the bandsaw marks even though this is sanded out you can still clearly see them look at oh oh it's dry Frankie yeah I mean so this is this is first call okay and you can really easily see them especially in this stain but in all three so and it's you can't feel them no yeah yep so this is first coat so what we're going to end up doing is because this is our test piece we're gonna second coat only half of each piece with each stain so so we're gonna stain it this way this way and this way and the reason we're doing it instead of doing it this way is we want to see the finished result on the face so one coat to coat one coat to coat you loose one coat to cold and then when we're done with that we've got a poly it cuz that's really gonna be and we're gonna do this one too but then we're doing this one just poly no nothing on it then I used to be my ink so what I did see where he used it one two and three and then I marked my cans one two three surely I would have made a mistake use the wrong one some okay alright makes sense [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so this is our sample piece with one and two coats of three different stains next we'll remove the tape and apply our clear poly coat over the top of it and see how the final product looks and know which one we want for our main counter top [Music] [Applause] [Music] alright guys coming up next things go from bad to worse to terrible and that's coming up right down the pipeline so make sure you guys stick around cuz see exactly what I'm talking about cuz stuff gets really interesting really fast guess that's one way of putting it