Glow Wood

By mixing a phosphorescent powder with resin and the filling in the cracks and knotholes that naturally occur in wood materials, you can create beautiful surfaces that illuminate after being charged by sunlight. Mat Brown and Mike Warren are two different designers who have recently worked with this technique to great effect – and are sharing their secrets for creating this ‘glow wood’.

Industrial Designer Mat Brown creates glowing shelves by filling naturally formed voids in Chestnut planks with a photoluminescent resin. He notes the process of creating these glowing shelves draws on a more traditional technique whereby the natural cracks that occur in wood are filled with a colour-matched epoxy in order to ‘repair’ the wood and give it a more ‘perfect’ finish. But instead of a colour-matching epoxy, he uses resin mixed with a type of glow-in-the-dark powder that he found on e-bay. A blog by Mat Brown showing his step-by-step procedures can be found here.

Another great example is Glow Table by Mike Warren. The table surface is made using sheets of Pecky Cypress, which is known for containing rotting sections that can be easily removed. He then filled the voids with a clear resin and phosphorescent powder mixture.

Love the results? If so, you can follow his video showing how you can make your own Glow Table on instructables.

We can imagine the effects are amazing not only in household furnishings but also in restaurants, nightclubs and street furniture installations.