Photoluminescent resin makes this wooden table look like something out of Tron

By Drew Prindle Published December 17, 2014

To most people, beetle kill pine is practically useless as anything other than firewood. Pockmarked and rotted from an infestation of the dastardly Mountain Pine Beetle, it’s not exactly the most desirable wood for furniture making.

But Mike Warren isn’t most people. Instead of seeing the pine’s holes as ugly and undesirable blemishes, Warren (the community manager for popular DIY site Instructables) saw them as spare room for creativity.

In one of his latest projects, a table made from beetle kill pine, Warren demonstrates a clever workaround to make the wood usable: He fills the voids with resin. But it’s not just any old resin. To give the table a creative twist, Warren adds photoluminescent powder into the resin mixture, creating a filler that “charges up in sunlight and emits a cool blue glow when in partial or complete darkness.”

As you can see in the photos, this gives the table a wild, Tron-meets-Mother-Nature look that’s sure to turn some heads. And of course, since it’s from Instructables, step-by-step plans for building this table yourself are available for free online. If you didn’t already have a project for this weekend, you do now.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Drew Prindle is an award-winning writer, editor, and storyteller who currently serves as Senior Features Editor for Digital…

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