We wanted to create a built-in dry bar in our dining room (because alcohol...). In the second part of this series, I'll show you how we made the dry bar countertop out of a single slab of pecan.

BACKGROUND:
We had a closet that was located in our dining room that we didn't really use, so we wanted to convert it into a dry bar, which we would use! For the sake of time, we originally sought quotes from contractors to make this built-in. However, after receiving quotes of well over $2500 WITHOUT THE FRIDGE, we said, "Screw that! We'll make it ourselves!" So we set out on a mission to make this dry bar, WITH the wine and beverage fridge, for a total cost of under half the quote.

THIS EPISODE:
In this part of this series, we made the dry bar countertop out of a single slab of pecan. This slab was massive! It was over 2" thick and measured about 29" across at the center - this slab was well over 100 pounds!

We purchased the slab rough cut from a local who runs a tree trimming business and makes slabs out of the trees they cut down. Since I did not have a way to plane down a piece of wood this large, I contacted a local cabinet shop that has the ability to plane wood wider than this slab. They agreed to plane this one down and did so for about $100 - sounded steep at first, but they did an excellent job and pecan is such a hard wood that it took them about 12 passes to get the slab flattened out. (I did not have any video footage of this process, so if you have any questions regarding this, please ask in the comments or DM me.)

This video picks up after the slab has been flattened and I begin creating the butterfly inlays to help keep the splitting that has already formed from getting worse over time. I made a total of 8 butterfly inlays, 4 of which are completely functional and 4 others mostly for aesthetics. If you want to know more about how strong butterfly inlays/bow tie inlays/Dutchman's joints are, check out this video from Mark at Gunflint Designs - he does really well at explaining how they work and shows the science behind the inlays:    • Strength Testing Bow Tie Keys - Woodw...  

After the butterfly inlays were completed, I sanded down the whole slab using a random orbital sander stepping up through grits from 80 grit up to 220 grit. Then I went back down to 150 grit by hand. I made the final grit 150 grit because this was recommended for the finish that I used which was Rubio Monocoat. The finish turned out beautifully! This was the first time I've used Rubio Monocoat and I will definitely be using it again in the future! Fantastic product!

After the finish had a few days to cure, we finally moved the slab into the house and mounted it to the dry bar carcass that we made in the first episode of this series. Fast forward a few weeks...things didn't look great... In the next episode of this series, I'll walk through some of the underlying causes the resulted in the damage and how we corrected the problems that developed.

ITEMS OR PRODUCTS FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO:
- The slab of pecan (some spalting at the edges) was acquired from a local lumber supplier, Dan's Exterior Home Services:
+ Website: http://www.danstreecare.com/sawmill-a...
+ Instagram:   / dansexteriorhomeservices  
- The inlays were made of poplar. Not the strongest of woods for an inlay, but I liked the contrasting color between the pecan and the poplar.
- Rubio Monocoat (pure): https://bit.ly/RubMnoct
- Threaded Nutserts (not exactly these, but close. You can find these at your local home improvement store.): https://bit.ly/nutsert

VIDEO CHAPTERS:
0:00 Previously...
0:25 Countertop Plan
0:55 Trimming the Slab
1:18 Making Bowtie/Butterfly Inlays
3:12 Preparing Slab for Finish
4:13 Applying Rubio Monocoat Finish
4:46 Preparing Carcass for Slab
5:19 Beauty Shots of Finished Slab
5:34 Setting Anchors (Nutserts) in Slab
6:40 Installing the Slab Countertop
6:56 Uh-oh...

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