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. I did not know at the time quite what I was getting myself into on this one - it was substantially more difficult. I was really making this project so much more difficult than 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. I wanted something big and flashy.

I was brainstorming different options for the sky. One idea I had was to use colorful hardwoods like purpleheart or paduk and find a way to blend them. I was not sure how well that would actually blend so I explored other options. That is when I came across shou sugi ban burning. I thought that was pretty cool and would allow for a 3 dimensional look and feel in addition to being able to use paint or dye to create a sunset. 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. My angles were not consistent which made the mountain and frame making processes unnecessarily difficult. 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.

One final comment. This was a strange time for me. I was pretty burned out mentally because of the COVID lockdown and everything else going on in the world (politics, media, general negativity). It got progressively worse through this project which lead me to shortcuts and silly mistakes. I am my worst critique because I see every little mistake. I should have just stopped and come back to this project when I was in the right mindset. Someday I think I will go back and attempt this project another time with everything I have learned through future projects.