The Beginners Guide To Expert Epoxy Tables!

today we are going to share all the tips and tricks we have learned after building hundreds of epoxy and wood tables first step is to remove all the bark and clean up the Live Edge until

you expose the sapwood we are using a chisel and a hammer here due to the profile of the slab you can also use a draw knife if the Live Edge is fairly straight and not round like this cookie

after the slabs are cleaned up you can trim your slabs to size we are using a track saw and chop saw to make these cuts there are other methods to trim

down boards but we find this is the easiest and fastest for this pour we are using hot glue and silicone to hold the wood in place you can also use clamps

and HDPE clamping blocks aim to have about 70 percent wood to thirty percent epoxy when deciding the layout of the slabs it's time to mix up some pigment we are

using Beaver dust violet blue [Music] we keep notes on each project and how much pigment and epoxy was used so that

we can replicate that color again in the future if another client requests it select an appropriate resin for your project we often have customers buy a

cheaper resin on Amazon and then run into issues because the epoxy was not the best quality or it was designed for quarter inch deep tabletop pores then

they have the challenge of getting epoxy customer support from Amazon it's best to purchase epoxy from companies that use the epoxy as well so they can answer

your questions and provide support if you need it for this pour we're using ecopoxy Flow cast they're pouring into a pre-made mold we find pre-made molds

much more efficient than building your own mold plus the pre-made molds eliminate the risk of having a leak which can be costly and stressful we keep an eye on our pore over the next

few hours to make sure everything is looking good things we look out for include making sure we poured enough epoxy some epoxy will absorb into the wood and voids that

you can't see you don't want the epoxy to sink below the surface of the wood if that happens you'll want to mix up another batch of epoxy to top up your pore keep an eye out for loose pieces of

wood or debris floating in the epoxy and pull them out with tweezers or popsicle stick you want to check and make sure there's no leaks especially important if you

build your own form make sure your pore isn't heating up too much if it does start to get warm grab a fan and direct it over the top of the pore to help

dissipate the heat for a better cure deep pore epoxies cure in about three days you'll be able to tell if you're ready to demold by pressing your

thumbnail into the epoxy if you can't press your nail into the epoxy it's ready to be removed from the form it is time to flatten your piece we use a CNC

because we have one in the shop but a few other Alternatives include using a planer or using a router sled or for really small projects like a serving board or

coasters you can go right to sanding at 40 grit if the wood and epoxy are just about level when you remove the cured piece from the form we trim the piece to

size using our track saw on smaller pieces you can use a table saw and or a chop saw sanding your piece is one of the most critical steps that most people

either rush or make critical mistakes on a few key points when sanding make sure you don't skip any grits we like to sand

at 40 60 80 100 120 150 and then 180 Grit take your time with each sanding grit it's not a race to finish and going slower will give you much better results

we add an edge detail on all of our pieces using a router in the past we would just use a sander to apply the edge detail but we found it to be inconsistent a few of the different

profiles we like to include are a a 1 8 Round over a quarter inch round over or a 1 8 bevel for a more modern look for this table we went with the 1 8 bevel

the table is ready for an oil finish we use Rubio monoco pure on all our wood and resin projects it's easy to apply and looks great it's a great finish for

beginners and Pros we use a squeegee to spread the oil finish across the surface of the piece you can also use a white pad and a sander slash buffer to work

the oil into the piece we have a full YouTube video explaining how to finish an epoxy and wood table and you can watch that here now let us know what kind of content you want to see next we

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