Log Slicing

Tim Jarrett from The Summit Church in Lee’s Summit, MO brings us this cool use of fallen spruce tree.

From Tim: After seeing Josh Brage’s design from Hope Crossing Church, we decided to try our hand at log slicing. Our stage is fairly shallow, but it very wide, so it took A LOT of log slices to fill all of that space.

Materials used:

Logs from a fallen spruce tree
8 pieces of 1/4″ plywood, cut down to size
~15 pieces of 1 x 3″, cut to size, used to brace the back of the plywood
8 pieces of 1″x 6″, for the center piece
2″ Pipe clamps, used to secure the plywood to the back railing
Gold-colored wood screws
Red mahogany stain, bronze spray paint, for center piece

Equipment used:
Jawhorse (very important for cutting the logs)
Chainsaws, screw gun, circular saw

Cutting the logs was the most time-consuming part. Josh suggested we purchase something called a Jawhorse. It was so incredibly helpful. One volunteer and I were able to cut between 200 and 250 pieces in just under 5 hours.

We cut the plywood down to 6′, 5′, and 4′ sections to give the background more variety, braced the plywood, and then screwed on the log slices.

We cut the 1″x 6″s into either 2 or 3 even pieces, and then arranged them onto a piece of 6′ plywood, creating a hardwood floor look. We stained it a red mahogany color, let it dry, and then used a stencil of the church’s logo to create the center piece design.

The plywood is secured to the back railing of the stage with 2″ C-clamps. You can find them at any hardware store in the plumbing section.

The front of the platforms are lined with untreated plywood on the front, and gray coroplast on the sides.

The back pieces are lit with gobo lights from the side to create shadows that fill in the gaps between the log slices.