Technical Details

Woods Used: Walnut mountains, Sapele frame, and pine sky
Mural Dimensions: 79.5x43.5x5in
Finish: 220grit followed by Danish oil coat for frame and mountains, Shou Sugi Ban burning followed by water based dye for sky

Project Challenges and Lessons Learned:
I had just finished my first woodworking project, the zebra wood food prep table and was feeling pretty confident. Little did I know what I was getting myself into on this one - it was substantially more difficult. I made this project more difficult then it needed to be simply because I wanted to. The DIY style mountain mural projects out there did not appeal to me. They are all the same and I wanted something big and flashy.

I brainstormed different options for the sky and initially considered blending colorful hardwoods like purpleheart or paduk. I was not sure how well that would actually work so I explored other options. That is when I came across Shou Sugi Ban. I thought that was pretty cool and would allow for a 3 dimensional look and feel. I could paint or dye sunset colors over the texture. What I did not know is how difficult it is to burn wood without it warping horribly. Pine burns really well (relative to hardwoods) but is soft and flexible. I combatted this by using thicker stock at the sacrifice of weight. It worked really well but I had a catastrophic failure later due to the wood being wet (thanks Home Depot). It got really hot here in California and the wood bowed like a potato chip. Through some miracle I was able to bow it back to about 90% of where it was originally through the use of heat, water, and clamps. If I were to redo this project I would ensure the wood was fully dry before even starting and reinforce with some metal C channel. Because of the bowed sky getting the fit on the frame was never quite right.

This project was the ultimate miter saw project. But I was dumb and never spent the time to true it which lead to inconsistent angles when constructing the mountains and frame. Invest in a good saw for a project like this and take the time to get your equipment setup right. I now have a proper Makita LS1019L and will never look back.

To give a nice sunset glow, I got some sticky backed LED strip lighting and rigged up a large capacity battery bank in the back of the mural. A clean barrel jack hidden on the bottom face of the frame gives me access to charge the pack for a clean, no wires setup when operating.

One final comment: this project came at a strange time for me. I was mentally burned out because of the COVID lockdown and surrounding negativity (politics, media, etc). It got progressively worse through this project which lead me to shortcuts and silly mistakes. I am my worst critique and notice every little error. I should have just stopped and come back to this project when I was in the right mindset. Someday I think I will revisit this project with all the knowledge I have gained through future projects.