Two builds at a glance
| Build | Difficulty | Time | Stock | Finished size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving board | Beginner | An afternoon, plus finish drying | One 5/4 live-edge offcut, about 10 × 22 in | 3/4 × about 8 × 18 in |
| Bookends, a pair | Beginner | An afternoon | 8/4 live-edge offcut for the uprights; 4/4 for the bases | Each 5 in wide, 7-3/4 in tall, 6 in deep |
BenchRoot designs. Times are for a first build with ordinary shop tools.
What every live-edge piece needs first
- Moisture. Slabs are often sold air-dried, and air-dried wood can be well above the 6–10% the Wood Handbook recommends for indoor pieces in most of the United States. Measure: weigh a sliver, dry it in an oven and weigh it again, and the wood movement calculator gives the moisture content. A piece cut too wet will shrink and may check as it dries.
- Bark. The live edge is the outside of the wood. Outside it lie the cambium, the inner bark and the outer bark; take all of them off, down to clean wood, before sanding and finishing.
- Checks. End checks and surface checks are drying cracks. Cut the piece from beyond them, rather than hoping a finish will hold them closed.
- Flat and stable. Slabs cup and twist as they dry, more so when the rings run across the width. Small offcuts are easy to flatten with a hand plane, or a planer if they fit it; choose a flat, quartersawn-looking piece if you have a choice.
- Movement. The board will keep moving across its width with the seasons. Neither build fixes the width of the live-edge piece, so nothing restrains it.
Build 1: a live-edge serving board
| Part | Qty | Stock | Finished size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Board | 1 | 5/4 hardwood offcut with one live edge, about 10 × 22 in | 3/4 × about 8 × 18 in |
Any hardwood offcut whose look you like will do. Allow length to cut off end checks.
Making the serving board
Check the moisture and the piece
Measure the moisture content, then find the checks, knots and loose areas along the live edge. Mark the 18 in length clear of end checks.
Strip the bark
Peel or pare off the bark with a drawknife or chisel, bevel down, down to clean wood. Follow the edge's shape; do not try to make it even.
Flatten one face, then the other
Hand-plane or plane the offcut flat, then to 3/4 in. A 5/4 board surfaced two sides is 1-1/16 in, so there is room to take out a little cup.
Cut to length and straighten the sawn edge
Crosscut both ends square, then rip the edge opposite the live edge straight, leaving the board about 8 in wide where the edge allows.
Round the corners
Mark a 1 in radius at the two sawn corners, cut and file to the line.
Sand the live edge by hand
With the faces machine-sanded, sand the live edge by hand to keep its shape, working down the grits until it is smooth to the touch.
Finish for food contact
Choose a finish whose maker states it is suitable; what 'food safe' means for finishes, and what the labels say, is set out in food-safe finishes.
Note— How much will it move?
An 8 in flatsawn walnut board that goes from 6% to 12% moisture content swells by about 0.13 in across its width (Eqs. 13–2 and 13–3 with Table 4–3). On a board that is free to move, that is harmless; it is why the next build does not glue across the grain.
Build 2: live-edge bookends
| Part | Qty | Stock | Finished size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upright | 2 | 8/4 live-edge offcut (1-3/4 in S2S) | 1-3/4 × 5 × 7 in, the 5 in along the live edge |
| Base | 2 | 4/4 hardwood, planed | 3/4 × 5 × 6 in, grain along the 6 in |
| Screws | 4 | #8 × 2 in wood screws | Two per bookend |
| Pads | 2 | Felt or cork sheet | To fit under each base |
A 5 in length of the live edge gives one upright; cut both from the same offcut so the pair match.
Making the bookends
Lay out the uprights
On the 8/4 offcut, mark two pieces 5 in along the live edge and 7 in in from it, clear of checks. Strip the bark from that edge as for the board.
Cut the uprights
Crosscut to 5 in, then rip each to 7 in from the live edge, keeping the bottom edge straight and square to the faces so the upright stands plumb.
Make the bases
Plane 4/4 stock to 3/4 in and cut two pieces 5 in wide and 6 in long, with the grain along the 6 in.
Screw, do not glue
Set each upright on one end of its base. Drill pilot and countersunk clearance holes as your screw maker recommends, two per base, about 1 in from each side, and drive the screws up into the upright's long-grain bottom edge. The base's 5 in runs across its grain and the upright's 5 in runs along its grain: glued, the two would fight as the base moves with the seasons.
Sand and finish
Hand-sand the live edges, finish both pieces, and stick felt or cork under the base to protect the shelf.
Weight. A white oak upright of this size weighs about 1.7 lb at 8% moisture content — the wood weight calculator works it out for any species. On its own that holds back little; the books standing on the base do most of the holding, which is why the base is 6 in deep.
Before cutting a live-edge offcut
- Moisture content close to 6–10% for an indoor piece
- All bark, inner bark and cambium off the live edge
- Parts laid out clear of end checks and surface checks
- Faces flat before cutting parts to size
- No glue across the grain; screws into long grain
- A food-contact finish only where its maker says so
Choosing boards and reading them for defects is in choosing lumber; grain and figure in wood grain; grades and rough sizes in the lumber guide. Board feet for buying slabs are on the board foot calculator and the cost of an order on the lumber calculator; if you saw your own logs, the log board foot calculator scales them first.
Sources
Both builds are BenchRoot designs; their dimensions are ours. Moisture targets and wood behaviour are the Wood Handbook's. Food-contact finishes are covered on their own page and not repeated here.
- 1.
Chapter 3: Structure and Function of Wood. USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory — Wood Handbook, FPL-GTR-282, 2021.
Used for: The layers at the outside of a trunk — outer bark, inner bark, vascular cambium, sapwood — and heartwood; knots; spiral and interlocked grain.
- 2.
Chapter 4: Moisture Relations and Physical Properties of Wood. USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory — Wood Handbook, FPL-GTR-282, 2021.
Used for: Wood shrinking and swelling below fiber saturation, tangentially about twice radially; distortion by ring orientation; moisture content from an ovendry sample (Eq. 4–2).
- 3.
Chapter 13: Drying and Control of Moisture Content and Dimensional Changes. USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory — Wood Handbook, FPL-GTR-282, 2021.
Used for: Recommended moisture content for interior woodwork and furniture (Table 13–2): 8% average, 6–10% for individual pieces, in most of the United States; end checks and surface checks as drying defects.
- 4.
Chapter 6: Commercial Lumber, Round Timbers, and Ties. USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory — Wood Handbook, FPL-GTR-282, 2021.
Used for: Rough and S2S hardwood thicknesses: 5/4 rough is 1-1/16 in S2S, 8/4 is 1-3/4 in (Table 6–4).
About this guide
Written by BenchRoot Editorial. How BenchRoot sources, checks and corrects its pages is set out in the Editorial Policy. If something here is wrong or unclear, the contact page explains how to tell us.