Live edge bark protection

[Mark Ashmeade]

I'm thinking of making a couple of live edge desks, my local lumber supplier has some beautiful 8/4 slabs of cherry and maple. However, I'm a bit concerned about the longevity of the bark. It's quite fragile, and I wondered if there's a standard way to protect it? I thought of a couple of ideas:

1. Deliberately remove bark and epoxy back on.
2. Liberally douse in varnish.

Is there a stock solution to this? These desks will be used frequently, and chair arms banging into them is the chief concern. One option would be to have the live edge on the outside only, and have a regular milled finish on the "sitting" side of the desk.

I'd be grateful for suggestions.

[Derek Gilmer]

Could you saturate it in a thinned epoxy or CA glue like the turners do?

[ian maybury]

Do many makers leave the bark on? It's got to be tough to stabilise.

I seem to recall seeing that at least some of the guys strip the bark off, and use a wire brush on an angle grinder or similar to shift the loose bits and give some texture while basically retaining the natural edge shape.

ian

[Ben Martin]

There was a great article in FWW about live edge tables just last month, I would recomend finding an issue.

[Mark Ashmeade]

There was a great article in FWW about live edge tables just last month, I would recomend finding an issue.

Excellent, thank you. I also like the re-texture suggestion.

[lawrence dosson]

Mark
my understanding is live edge just means unsawn i build a more than a few live edge pieces always with the bark off [ and no i do not put it back on leave it off ] google live edge furniture and rarley is there bark left on for good reason it is to hard to smooth and it is a bug magnet . a table that grabs you ever time you walk close to it will get old fast . bark on the edge will eventuly fall off .
to remove it it will be in pieces pretty hard to glue a puzzle back on if you just leave it on it will fall off sooner than later along with the bugs that have taken up residence under it . there may be some wood types may be ok bark on but most are not cherry for sure is not.
and i would not trust any off them to be OK bark on long term

[David Helm]

Mark
my understanding is live edge just means unsawn i build a more than a few live edge pieces always with the bark off [ and no i do not put it back on leave it off ] google live edge furniture and rarley is there bark left on for good reason it is to hard to smooth and it is a bug magnet . a table that grabs you ever time you walk close to it will get old fast . bark on the edge will eventuly fall off


to remove it it will be in pieces pretty hard to glue a puzzle back on if you just leave it on it will fall off sooner than later along with the bugs that have taken up residence under it . there may be some wood types may be ok bark on but most are not cherry for sure is not.
and i would not trust any off them to be OK bark on long term

+1 on taking the bark off. I do a lot of live edge stuff including my kitchen countertops. In my opinion, leaving the bark on would only detract from the look.

[Jim Becker]

Mark, it's sometimes pretty difficult to preserve bark on a "live edge" simply because it expands and contracts differently than the underlying solid wood does and it's not really fastened on very securely, even in nature...it's designed to move, but when it surrounds the tree, it has the stability of completely surrounding the log. On a cut slab, there's only that small surface the width of the thickness of the board. This is why so much of the natural edge furniture you see (Nakashima, etc.) will not feature any bark. It's carefully removed and the edge surface is abraded to make it smooth without taking away any character. I use both sanding and a wire brush for that purpose.