Large Live Edge Cedar Shelf

The client for whom I made the cedar and walnut bar top had a follow-up project for me. He had another large piece of cedar that he wanted to use as a shelf on the wall behind the bar. It was about 9 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 to 2-1/2 inches thick with a live edge along one of the long edges.

The first step was to clean up the piece. I started outside with sanding discs in an angle grinder. I then moved inside and used a random orbital sander to smooth out the surface. At this point, I was really just trying to see what I had to work with.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Liberating Wood (@liberatingwood)

The cedar had a lot of knots and voids. I cleaned out as much of the loose material from those as I could. I could tell that at least some of those would go all the way through the wood. I decided that I would fill all of the holes with epoxy. This took 2 or 3 tries because the wood was very porous in places.

Once I was reasonably sure that I had the top surface sealed and the large holes filled, I used my CNC machine to resurface the top of the piece. With this complete, I could move on to the finish sanding.

The last major part of the project was the finishing. I decided to use a combination of shellac and polyurethane. Knowing how porous the wood was, I applied the first coat of shellac heavily with a brush. Next, I applied another light coat of shellac by wiping it on with a cloth. At this point, I felt like the wood was well sealed.

The final stage of finishing was done with Minwax Wipe-On Polyurethane in Warm Gloss. I applied 4 or 5 coats, lightly sanding between coats. I allowed the final coat to dry for a day and then buffed the top surface with a crumpled piece of a brown paper bag.

The finish came out great and the client was very pleased. I am hoping that he will send me a picture once he has it installed behind his bar.