Mulberry Wood Rounds Stand
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Power Tools
Hardware
Resin dye
Sanding
Finish
Coming from a family of what I would call light hoarders, I’ve collected and kept several items for having varying degrees of sentimental significance or simply due to the mere thought of “I can do something with that.” As a result, I now have a lovely storage room filling up with collected things for which I have yet to find the right “something” they are meant for. This was the case for a section of trunk that I cut from a Mulberry tree planted in the back yard of my grandparent’s home.
I was partially raised in the house with that tree. My grandmother babysat me as I grew up in the house with that tree. My grandfather takes credit for teaching me how to walk under that tree. A swing hung from that tree (that I also hoarded) where my brothers, many of my cousins, and I swung from as children. My brothers, cousins, and I climbed the tree, found Easter eggs hidden in that tree, dared each other to see who could go higher in that tree. We would see how far out we could go on the longest branch. We fell from that tree and scraped up the skin outside all our joints on that tree’s bark. We had our spots up in that tree where we would go to just sit with our imaginations. We sat under that tree and used its shade to hide from the sun when family gatherings were held outside on those hot summer days. As adults, my older brother and I lived in the house with that tree for a couple of years. The tree had died by then, and I was the one to cut it down. I had kept several pieces from that tree, branches, logs, and trunk. As time passed, it got slowly thrown away as it seemed more like trash than anything else. Except for this last section. It was in a haul-away pile of junk when I moved out of that home to a house of my own. But I couldn’t let it go, so it is the last remaining section of that modestly great mulberry tree.
After letting it sit in the sun, rain, and snow for about four years, I finally thought of a few “somethings” I could do with the log. I was at the very least confident that it had had enough time to dry out thoroughly. Ready to do something with it, I dragged the log to my workbench and secured it in place by wedging some 2×4’s under it and clamping them in place. I was going to slice out some wood rounds, wood discs, wood slices, wood whatever you call them. I cut away several roughly 1 – 1.5 inch slices of wood from the log. I did this using a reciprocating saw as my electric chain saw was busted. It wasn’t too bad, and the wood rounds came out looking well enough.
Due to the prolonged storage in less than ideal conditions, many cracks had appeared in the wood. I decided to use this as an opportunity to give the wood a bit more aesthetically pleasing appearance and practice using epoxy resin. I’d always wanted to use it but had just never found anything to try it on; this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I bought some epoxy resin and some dye powder to give it a nice color. I was able to find some with a green color that was close to the infamous green that my grandfather and my father after that kept the house painted.
I taped up the bottom and sides of the cracks on the wood. I reinforced the tape with some plastalinne clay on and around the cracks. This has been the best working method I’ve tried to prevent leakage of the resin. I mixed the epoxy resin as per the instructions and added the dye (emerald green and chartreuse). I made sure to mix them thoroughly and then poured them into the cracks. You may need to do this two or three times if you get leaks or the dried wood soaks some of it in. But after a bit of patience during the filling and refilling of the cracks, the epoxy resin gave the darker wood a lovely accent.
The resin did not come out precisely flush with the wood, and it still needed a bit of work. After letting them cure for 72 hours, I wanted to get the wood and epoxy nice and flush. I also wanted to get the wood rounds themselves as level as possible. To do this, I slapped together a makeshift router jig to level the wood as best as I could. The idea is to have a level surface that guides the router back and forth over the piece to get a level and even surface. I did this on both sides of each round a few times to get them roughly to the same thickness. After doing so, I ran them through a new tabletop planer I’ve been saving up for. This was the first project I would use it for, and I couldn’t have been more excited. After routing and planning, the wood rounds came out great. Nice and level on both sides, at least much more level than I would have been able to manage otherwise. After cleaning them up, I sanded them down to 3000 grit with my orbital palm sander, my sanding block, and wet sandpaper. This made the wood super smooth but also helped polish up the epoxy resin parts
Once I had them even and level, I picked the sides that I wanted to face up, the sides that others would see. I put those sides faced down and arranged three of the wood rounds together in rough triangle arrangements. I secured them together using some straight braces. I am not sure how much weight these can take in this configuration, so I wouldn’t recommend putting anything heavy on something assembled like this. They held well enough with the braces, so I went ahead and attached some hairpin legs to them as well. I always drill a pilot hole before driving screws into anything I make, especially with wood prone to cracking.
After I assembled them, I rubbed some Danish oil on them to bring the beautiful wood grains. I never knew mulberry wood had such lovely colors and patterns. I let it dry for about three days for the oil to cure, then I added a polyurethane finish over it. I had never tried this before either, and I wanted to see how it might look. I was pleased with the finish and figured it would be necessary. With a horde of three granddaughters running a lot through my parent’s house, I expect this to get some bangs, so I wanted to protect it as best as possible. Another option would have been to do a resin pour over the face of the wood; however, I like a more satin finish instead of the glossy finish the epoxy resin would give.
After letting the polyurethane dry, the finished product came out great! I was able to finish this stand in time to give them to my father for his birthday. He was very appreciative of the gesture and where the materials came from. I was just glad to use this as an example of when hoarding can be a good thing.
