John S. at Morningstar Enterprises hooked us up with some beautiful and THICK slabs (or half trees, practically!) of local live-edge jackpine that I couldn’t wait to turn into a whole host of things. First up were some shelves for the sides of the range hood in the kitchen.
After cutting them to rough length they sat in front of the fire for a week to further dry out before finishing.

After some drying it was down into the basement to begin peeling the bark from the edge, which is a very satisfying process! Because these pieces weren’t kiln dried there was a bit of a gumminess to the inner bark layer; nothing the scrapers couldn’t take care of but not friendly to any kind of powered or manual sanding block.

Following scraping and sanding it was time to spray on the stain. Spraying stain on pine produces a less streaky or “zebra wood” look than brushing or wiping, as the different areas in the wood absorb the stain inconsistently due to their hardness (or lack thereof).