The Shop teacher at our school and one of the science teachers hooked up a couple of years ago and started taking walnut, oak, and cherry loggs 6" to 8" in diameter and cutting 1" to 1 1/2" thick slices off the log and running it through the cabinet sander to smooth it out. Polyurathaned the heck out of it. The science teacher took fiberglass resin, after drying the tail, and poored it over the tail base. They drilled a hole in the base of the tail and atttached it with a screw to the wood. Looks really nice. I personally thought the walnut and cherry looked the best becuase of the colors.