Cedar Slab Desk, first time leaving the bark on questions
I have a cedar Slab that’s going to be a large desk 60×20″. For most of my tables and desks I strip the bark off, plane the surface and clean up any excess material. Then sand to about 300 and add 3 coats of dewaxed shellac and 3 coats of water based poly, sanding between coats. This customer wants the desk to be more “rustic”. So I didn’t plain the surface entirely flat, and they also want to leave the bark on. This slab was winter harvested and the bark is extremely secure currently. I went over the entire edge with a wire brush to knock off anything that’s loose and over 95% is very much intact. I’m curious if my current regiment of shellac and poly will hold the bark on. The moisture content was around 10% when I started working it, which is about as low as I can usually get here in Washington during this time of year. Any suggestions for other finishes to help hold the bark? Would wood gluing it first help and will that work with the shellac and poly? I don’t particularly care for epoxy or resin as this is a very large table and don’t really want to setup for that. But could do it if it’s the only option. Thanks in advance!
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Someday I fear the bark will dry sufficiently and fall off. But maybe not in your humid environment, and maybe not all of it. But think of the dust that edge will attract? Seal it well, and hope for the best. I would leave a nicely drawknifed rustic edge, more beautiful and you don’t have to worry.
That's kind of where I was at. I did raise those points to the person who wants the desk. I figured worst case if it does degrade, removing the poly and shellac later would be much easier than resin or epoxy.
I would apply low viscosity epoxy liberally with a wide brush to the bark up to the wood to bark line making it penetrate with a heat gun for the first coat and overcoat after the gel time to get a good thick protection of the outer bark. Then I would plane or sand the top and bottom leaving epoxy only on the outer bark and voids and finish with your usual method.
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