Dragon's Breath Table Build

sometimes you just can't improve on what

nature did perfectly however sometimes

you can although sometimes you can try

and make it much worse that is more

yellow than I was

expecting my name's Cam and I can't draw

if it doesn't involve a ruler it is a

shape that I am incapable of creating

but for this build I wanted a really

unique design so I decided to get out of

my comfort zone and try to draw

something without a straight line line

so made a handful of sketches and I

really did my best to convince myself

that these were just a little Avant

guard but after looking at them for long

enough I realized that a Jackson poock

painting would probably make a better

jumping off point for a piece of

furniture so I reached out to a friend

of mine that does not need a ruler to

make a cool design he can do anything

including straight lines although he

does have a hard time cutting straight

lines if you saw his last

video turn it off sorry if that's too

soon Chris but I asked Chris from Force

Furniture if he could help me create a

design and he came up with this and I

think this is a fantastic design now I

just have to figure out how to cut it

out and make it look exactly like the

way he designed it which wasn't too hard

but it was a little bit tricky without

using a

CNC I probably should clarify that I'm

not actually building the table out of

this/ Quin thick MDF what I'm building

here is a template and building a

template is going to enable me to take a

little bit more time shaping it to

hopefully as close to Chris's drawing as

possible and then I'll copy that shape

directly on onto the wood slab and it'll

be hopefully a perfect copy most of it

was pretty straightforward Chris gave me

a drawing with a bunch of different

angles and distances that I was able to

refer to the big sweep there I made with

those fiberglass rods that are actually

called fish sticks cuz they're used for

fishing electrical wires these Corners I

had to play around a little bit with

some coffee mugs and just different

shapes to get as close to the drawing as

possible and I just kind of smoothed

everything out with a hand sander and

was actually surprised at how well all

this went because i' never done anything

like this before

as exciting as Quin MDF is I think

you'll like the slab of wood that I'm

going to use even more this particular

slab of wood is a $3,000 slab of mapa

Burl which yes it's different than maple

Burl this is actually a type of popper

tree and this one was salvaged by a

local company called Hamilton Le Supply

and I had two slabs from the same tree

there was one problem here is this whole

area that's a little bit lighter was

basically rotted they said that it sat

out in the rain a little bit too long so

this is really really soft the wood in

general is incredibly soft but this part

was really concerning and since I wanted

to try to add color to it I wanted to

make sure that this doesn't just soak it

up like a gram cracker and so I pulled

some dye out just a random color and I

saw it it wasn't terrible it wasn't

ideal but I think it's going to be

workable I have always struggled with

design and I'm not just figting humility

here I genuinely believe I'm pretty

terrible at it but I also don't believe

that it's impossible for me to get

better so I work at it I study it I look

for inspiration elsewhere follow a ton

of different design pages on social

media and I recently came upon this guy

who is immensely talented and tragically

named we'll just call him Paul but Paul

had some of the coolest most original

designs that I've ever seen and I really

want to know how does a guy like Paul

come up with this inspiration what does

great design take and I didn't think

he'd respond to me on social media so I

did was kind of as a joke I asked chat

GTP I was like Hey respond as if you're

Paul and tell me the elements that it

takes to create great design and not

really expecting much and they came up

with this list and I read through I'm

like that's actually a pretty great list

so I am going to do my best to use this

list in this project and future projects

to help me create better

designs now I have to say that my

favorite point on that list is the

collaboration bullet point because

initially I thought that using Chris for

the design was kind of cheating but

apparently I am just a great designer

because we did collaborate on it we sat

down on a video call he gave me a bunch

of shapes we kind of moved the lines

around I'd say wider shorter longer

smoother things like that and eventually

the two of us collaboratively came up

with this design together as great

designers do I just wish I knew about

this when I was in school because I

can't tell you how many times I

collaborated on a final exam wasn't

always consensual but I could have just

told the teacher that I am just taking

design inspiration it's not actually

cheating it's like the moth in

uh uh sounds to the lamps you don't get

the reference some some of the viewers

[Music]

will Scott never understands my movie

references because he hasn't seen any

movies so hopefully one of you out there

actually appreciates it and anyway the

first point on that what makes great

design list was purpose does your design

actually serve a function and I'm

thrilled to say this does have a purpose

first off it's going to become a desk

but I think it has an even greater

purpose than that because it's going to

become a desk that belongs to one of you

guys out there because I'm giving it

away in the end and everything about

this giveaway is free it's free to enter

shipping will be free everything is free

so don't let anybody scam you in the

comments saying that you've won

something and all you have to do is pay

for shipping because that happens all

the time and it's really really sad

actually so if you see it happening feel

free to help people out because I will

never ask for any money from anybody for

one of these giveaways also this is

going to be the biggest giveaway I've

ever done there's a ton of other stuff I

don't want to spoil all the details now

but there is a link in the description

if you want all those details on this

giveaway it's

close fortunately for me that list on

great design did not say anything about

craftsmanship so you can safely

disregard the fact that that board was

cut 6 in is short and all of the

excessive use of caulk because I am

still in design mode here I haven't

quite switched gears into Craftsman mode

but to fill this crack I'm using kind of

a faster curing epoxy than the Deep

epoxy this stuff cures in about a day

and to get that black color I tinted it

with charcoal which is actually really

great because it doesn't dissolve in the

epoxy and it won't soak into the wood

and this wood is not only very light but

it's also incredibly soft which is the

absolute worst combination when it comes

to potentially staining the wood so in

the end though I think this charcoal and

the faster curing epoxy did a really

good job at preventing any of that color

bleed initially I was tempted just to

sand and scrape this epoxy level but

because the epoxy is so hard and this

wood is so soft I decided it was going

to be worth it head up to creative

woodworking use their big wide belt

sander which will ensure the epoxy the

wood everything stays absolutely flat

and will give a much better result

because I don't care how careful I am if

I tried to do this by hand I would

always get kind of a humped area where

that is and the wood would get kind of

eaten away a little bit faster so I

think it was worth the

trip if you haven't gathered already

this table is going to be pretty heavily

inspired from the guitar industry and

this next bit that I'm going to attempt

to incorporate was not part of the

original design but the more I got

looking at this big long sweep it really

reminded me of the side of a Fender

guitar and I don't know if you're a

guitar person or not but on the back of

the guitar there's like a little body

relief that's carved in that thought

could be actually really cool on on a

desk I've never seen it done before

quite like this and might actually serve

a slight function as well which I

believe is on my checklist of things

that make great design so this is how I

came up with the way to cut this relief

I just made a bunch of measurements

going down an eighth of an inch or I

think a 16th of an inch at a time now

I'm just going to kind of loosely

connect them with this Precision ruler

that I found in my kindling

bin if someone doesn't care for a piece

of furniture that I make there's

essentially an unlimited number of ways

that they can express their feelings

about that particular piece and

sometimes I'm a little impressed or at

least slightly amused with what people

come up with and the flip side of that

though is if somebody does like a piece

that I make there's really only a few

versions of compliments that I can get

first one is that's lovely I'd love

something like that in my home and I

would say that something like a walnut

table would fall into this Camp the flip

side to that one is oh that's really

cool I've never seen anything like it

but I definitely wouldn't put that in my

house and this is where I would say

something like that blue end table I

built a few months back would fall into

that camp and the next one I don't know

that is actually a compliment but it's

kind of an overlap with the first one

and it's something to the effect of yeah

that was cool the first 20 times I saw

it and I get it it'd be something like

the black epoxy and walnut table like I

built you know 40 or 50 times already

the Holy Grail though the one we're

always striving for is the oh my god

I've never seen anything like that and I

would love that in my house which I

don't know that I've ever actually made

anything that would fall into this camp

but that's what we're always striving

for and honestly if I look at this piece

and what I'm envisioning it's probably

going to be in that second camp where

yeah that's cool but I probably wouldn't

want it in my

house the router bit that I'm going to

be using on the bottom of the table is

the largest roundover bit that I own

this is a 7/8 in bit it's a pretty big

one and if you want to know what that is

in metric I don't know what it is in

metric you probably have to look it up

it's probably something impossibly

simple like two or something easy like

that because everything in metric just

has to be easier but in America we like

to prove to our grade schoolers that the

math they're learning now they will need

for the rest of their lives and kind of

surprised that American keyboards don't

come in cursive on that note but I guess

that's the price we pay for indoor air

conditioning being the

[Applause]

standard after editing my last video

Scott came to me with an interesting

question he said how many total audio

takes do you think that it took you to

complete the voiceover for that last

video and I know that it's a lot of

takes a lot of people out there think

that I'm better at this voiceover than I

am but trust me it's a lot of work so I

said I don't know 300 takes and he said

750 total takes and that did not

surprise me at all and you're hearing

that right which meant I had to stand at

a desk for about 10 hours just to do the

voiceover and took about 750 individual

takes to get a complete voiceover for

one of my videos which makes for a very

long day and why I love having a sit

stand desk cuz I'll sit do a little

editing then I'll stand up for the

voiceover section and just back and

forth for that entire 10 hours and if

you're curious the last sponsored video

I did was almost two years ago and it

was flexi spot because I don't take many

sponsors and if I do it has to be a

product I actually

use after I get as many of those cracks

and little Burl pits filled with the

glue sticks as I can I give it a light

sand and see what's left and what's left

is generally a lot more holes so this is

the next stage in filling those holes

these are little wax fill sticks which

are basically exactly like they sound

they're fill sticks made of wax kind of

like a crayon so I hit it with a torch

and these do a really good job at

filling the almost impossibly small

holes but again you need to make sure

you're using like a clear coat finish

over the top of this and you can see how

many of these holes I had left there but

I was determined to finish it with this

one fill

stick do you need another fill stick you

got some left here

it's getting a little stubby we we you

have other ones in the drawer I also

have this

one just don't want you to burn yourself

how would I burn

myself I'm thinking about it angle

away you got in my

head I was doing fine until you said

that

ow you sure you don't want to stop

it I'm so close to being

done see think I made a fill

sticks now I should elaborate on why the

giveaway I'm doing in this video is the

biggest giveaway I've ever done like I

mentioned I'm giving this desk away but

I'm also going to be giving away five of

the 10 tabletops from my last video my

last video I built 10 tabletops out of

denim and epoxy and I'm giving away five

of those also everybody who enters just

for entering will get instant access to

my epoxy table guide book something I

normally charge like 15 bucks for so

everybody that enters will get free

access to that again there's a link in

the

description this next process of

bleaching the wood prior to the color

has me pretty excited but also a little

nervous because the guitar maker that's

helped me out with coloring these woods

and the past specifically told me he

does not do this and he does not

recommend it however I'm going to go

against his advice and I'm going to try

it anyway I think this is on my

checklist of great design Innovation

right or that's what we'll call it but

here's my theory this wood has a really

Brown tone as you can see and in the

past I've had this problem when you add

color to Brown it just kind of turns a

muddy version of that color so my idea

is if I can strip that brown out of it

and then when I start layering and

adding those colors I will only get the

true true color n none of that kind of

Muddy brown but this is all kind of that

think about it logic that I've used in

the past and sometimes it works

sometimes it doesn't however what does

work is this wood bleach this is pretty

cool and way to see this side by side it

is shocking how much lighter and this

only took a few minutes for that to be

applied and then dry so now all I got to

do is make sure that this logic actually

applies and works when I add the color

[Music]

I still didn't know what color I was

going to apply or how that color would

actually look on a real mapa samples so

I built a bunch of miniature mappa table

samples and yes those are out of the

same wood and yes they are actually done

to scale from there I made a bunch of

different dieses out of trans tint

dieses and this is just regular old tap

water from there I did the first coat

kind of heavy I've learned that if you

do it heavy and then kind of sand it

back feather in the additional colors

you can get some cool effects but I

wasn't loving anything I'd come up with

so far and Scott was helping me through

this we were kind of choosing some

colors together but I don't think that

he was really loving anything I know I

wasn't it really wasn't the effect that

I was going for I would come back add

another layer and just kind of keep

Feathering these in there's a little bit

of purple and gold which turned out

pretty weird but eventually I came up

with

something all right after you left I

kept building the color we have kind of

a orange and black here built some

lacquer on it so we have a nice

Sheen uh want a little LSU theme I like

it uh I don't think you actually do I

think you're just being polite um

because I don't like it uh this is a lot

a little too similar to the end table we

did yeah so here's what we

got this is called Dragon's breath I

think is the term okay I like that I did

several different iterations like

wearing the bleach and all this but

they're all essentially dark red to red

to orange to yellow and so I think this

is uh I think this is our look what do

you think I think I agree I that look

sick way better right yeah a lot more

variation yeah and we don't want to be

associated with SEC purple's

a first time we've got SC to cut and I

agree the bleaching process did a pretty

aggressive job at raising the grain kind

of like when you get a piece of wood wet

and it turns fuzzy after it dries so I

had to do a pretty thorough sanding job

to make sure everything was nice and

smooth and as I got ready for the actual

die job I realized that Scott really

didn't trust my

process how confident are you that

yellow is the way to go are you asking

because you are not confident that

yellow is the way to go it it just

looked a little bright on some of our

samples it did look bright I think as

long as I don't go too heavy and we kind

of follow what we did with the samples I

think it's going to look really

nice that is more yellow than I was

expecting I can positively say that

there was some emotion being evoked when

I saw this yellow go on and I don't know

that it was good emotion but I do know

that emotion is on my checklist of

things that make great design so we can

check that one off of this build but

even though the yellow was the same

process I did on the samples I was kind

of second guessing it so on the top I

decided to do a different process and

what I'm doing here is I'm going to add

this orange and because it's been

bleached and hopefully it gets that

really true orange color I'm going to

sand most all of it off near the center

of it and all that's going to be left is

the orange in those deeper pits so in

theory I'll get kind of the pure yellow

and the pure orange with no none of that

muddy brown but again this is all kind

of that think about it

logic this whole dying process seemed

like it was two steps forward two steps

back sometimes two steps forward three

steps back because I liked the way that

yellow and orange looked then I added

this and it looked terrible again and I

don't think anybody could say it better

than Scott did here kind of looks like

you told a kindergarten to fingerpaint

the

[Music]

Sun that was pretty well said by Scott

but if I was a kindergartener who was

finger painting the sun I might be

offended now so direct any of that anger

towards Scott and normally when you're

dying a piece of wood especially a

harder wood like Maple if you don't like

the way it looks you can just keep

sanding till you remove the color the

problem is this one is so soft and so

porous I'm not so sure that I'll be able

to remove the color if I apply it wrong

so especially on those tips on those

kind of horn pieces that's where the

really rotted pieces still remained and

I was really nervous adding any color to

that section but I just kept going kept

trying to feather it in I added a little

bit of water here and I found that the

water really helped that transition

between the

colors based on all the guitars that

I've looked at and the samples that I

made I knew knew that I wanted a really

dark Edge I feel like the pieces that

had that almost black perimeter were the

most striking but again this is where

it's the most risky because if I put

this on too heavy or it doesn't look

good in general it may not sand out and

I know that generally my projects turn

out pretty well sometimes they don't but

for the most part it looks like I know

what I'm doing but I can assure you I

actually

don't people talk about in the comments

that this is like Bob Ross sometimes and

I think like oh wow you totally knew

what you were doing and you saved it as

I'm doing this now I don't know that I'm

going to save it like I think I will but

it's it also looks like to me and I get

nervous every time I do this how's it

look to you um very

bright

uh yeah okay fair enough all right back

to sanding we we we got this

as usual Scott silence spoke volumes but

it really just reaffirmed what I already

knew in that it didn't look good and

there's no guarantee I'm going to pull

this off at this rate and not trying to

be overly dramatic I generally feel like

if you keep pushing through a project

you'll find a way to make it work and I

still am confident I can find a way but

as I'm sanding it off and adding more

that red it just wasn't looking right so

I decided to try this this is just a

sanding block I think that power sander

was removing a little bit too much color

so using the hand sander is going to

enable me to really control how much of

it I'm removing and that way I can maybe

not take off all the red I'll just kind

of remove a bit of it help control that

gradient from the orange to the red and

this was actually Scott's idea here he

said that adding the red might have been

too much so we just added this orange

over the red and that's the same orange

you see below it but when it was layered

over that kind of half sanded red it was

starting to look really cool and this is

where I was thinking okay we can

actually pull this off this might

actually look good the last thing I

noticed didn't look quite right was that

straight strip there where we kind of

curve around the edges and so what I did

is I used the hand sander again to just

give kind of a radius to it so it goes

up to just a small tip there a small

point at the end and again hopefully if

I do this with enough control and enough

restraint don't say too aggressive it'll

look good again adding just orange here

so the orange over the dark red over the

red was really really starting to bring

this home and I think I just about had

it here

if you weren't aware of this already the

20 minute Mark of a video is generally

considered to be the kind of third dat

equivalent when it comes to whether or

not to escalate a relationship to the

next level so if you are considering

subscribing the 20 minute Mark or 21

minute Mark might be a good time however

if you're a little bit more oldfashioned

and you want to take a little bit slower

I want to make sure this is consensual I

don't want to pressure you into doing

anything you don't want to do so you

take as long as you need if you want to

subscribe if it's meant to happen it'll

happen but just know I'm here for you

and I am ready when you

are this is how I'm addressing the

really soft nature of this map of burl

you can see those tips there that's

where the rotted wood was and that is

absorbing even more of this epoxy so I'm

just kind of traveling it on letting it

absorb hitting it with the torch which

Heats it up thins it out and makes it

absorb even more epoxy and I just kept

doing this until it wouldn't absorb

anymore and even though this is going to

have a really hard clear C coat over the

top it's kind of like if you were to

clear coat a Saltine that Saltine would

have the hard clear coat but if you drop

something on it it would Dent or break

the saltine and the same thing would go

here if I put that clear coat on and you

drop something on it it would still Dent

that softwood underneath so this should

give a good solid base for that clear

coat in the

end I did two more coats of that epoxy

just to make sure that this squishy

mappa absorbed as much as it possibly

could I tried to tral off as much as I

could but there was still a few drips on

the edge these make me a little nervous

because you risk sanding through the

color if you get through that epoxy into

the color it's kind of hard to repair it

and really make it look natural so as

gently as I could I got it nice and

sanded to smooth as possible because I'm

going to be spraying a 2K acrylic and I

don't know a lot about spraying if

you've seen me spray in the past you