Making the Fractured End Grain Table

I made the mistake of using green (still fairly fresh) ash wood. I was splitting wood and the end grain of the log was just to attractive to ignore. So I attempted to design and build a table of all end grain.

The stockpile of firewood

I cut the firewood to the desired thickness and routed down the ends to be nice and flat with a custom rig to accept a router.

The original finish table - I only used the split firewood so the table is fractured into solid wood split ends throughout the top. The problem was the high moisture content in still in the wood, so the wood was still moving and still cracking.

The wood started to split and crack from drying after the initial table was finished.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and speed up mother nature's drying process by firing it with a propane torch. While doing so the joints and more cracks opened up. At which point I poured black epoxy resin over the table to fill the cracks and gaps.

Once the epoxy dried I sanded, buffed and sealed again with epoxy but the table became so dark I decided to plane down the entire top to bare wood leaving the black resin only at the gaps and cracks. Hence the fractured look appeared.