5 Must Know Tips for Epoxy Beginners

hey guys Rhonda drew cool is here RK three designs we have five tips for you guys that are just starting out in the epoxy world the first most important thing to remember when you're first thinking about doing a project whether it be a countertop you're going to build whether it be a pore in place over existing material or a piece of furniture as you must make sure your surface is level this is very important and non-negotiable if you're building your own countertop and you're going to be installing it that's a lot easier because when you build it and you get ready to pour you can make sure that when you put it on your table and brace it up you can physically move it shim it whatever you need to do to get that piece level now if you're going over existing countertops or existing piece of furniture that you can't move or you can't manipulate you're gonna have to figure out some way to get that surface level if you've got a big dip in it a lot of counter tops have kind of a bullnose and it kind of goes down and then goes up you're gonna have to fill that in with something some kind of material either a quick set concrete or bondo something to get that surface level if you can shim a countertop that's in place maybe I detach it somewhere or shim it up somehow to get that level you need to make sure you do that first so being level is key because if not whenever you pour your finish because epoxy is self-leveling everything is gonna run downhill the second thing if you're doing counter tops are your edges I have an email just about daily about people wanting to do their edges how do they address the edges so if you are building your counter tops or your sample board or you have a piece of furniture you can manipulate sandor router you want to make sure that you round your edges this piece here is actually a cut off of a countertop that we made where we added a facing and we rounded over the edge with a quarter inch roundover bit and we also rounded the bottom edge and the reason you do that is as you pour your epoxy you want that epoxy to flow over this edge if you have a 90-degree edge like this and you do a pour your epoxy is going to almost want to have surface tension along this 90-degree edge and it's not going to want to roll over as nicely it'll actually make almost a a bump or a lip here or if it does flow over it will be so incredibly thin at that corner that you will barely have any epoxy and you'll be able to see right through that plus your durability you won't be protected here on this edge same thing as the bottom if you don't use your round over and round your edges on the bottom the same thing will happen as that epoxy runs down these edges it's gonna pull up right here on this edge and almost cause a little lip then you'll have to go back and address that if you don't have a router you can take your orbital sander and you can round that edge as well another thing you want to address is if you put a trim piece on the front of your countertop like we did here we added a little trim piece so that it makes it look very finished you're gonna have a seam on top of your countertop we bondo'd this seam so now you don't feel any type of seam between the two pieces and what I like to do is I'll put my bondo I'll sand it and then I'll actually kuwait and if i can feel any seam at all it will show through your finish and you'll be able to see that take great care when you're doing those seams make sure you bondo and sand it very smooth tip number three is mixing very important ultra important and it's going to depend on what product you're using as to how it's mixed with in the epoxy world there's a lot of different products so it's very important to read follow manufacturers recommendation on how to mix the product that i use is by stone coat countertop it's a one to one ratio by volume not weight and you'll want to mix the part B first and then the part a the reason we do that is because B is quite a bit thinner than a so when you pour it in your bucket it's gonna settle pretty quickly then when you pour a which is more viscous it's it's thicker when you pour it into Part B it's going to go ahead and run down and mix a lot easier than if you had Part A first and then you poured the thinner material on top it takes it a little bit longer for it to all settle down which can ultimately affect your measuring once you've got it in the bucket again manufacturer's recommendations you need to follow the product I use we can use electric mixer as I mix I mix for two minutes making sure that I really incorporate the material off the sides of the bucket I'll take a stick I'll scrape that bucket make sure that it's all stirred and mixed properly so once you've mixed your material dump it scratch your edges so that you get all that material off the edge of the bucket and put that material into a puddle that's already on your surface don't put it off to the side by itself make sure that it's in the putt so that way you can ensure as you trial that you're really gonna mix up the material really well cleaning your tools tons of emails about this I reuse my materials and my supplies all the time I teach classes we reuse the brushes we reuse the buckets we reuse the trials I'm going to show you a quick fun way to clean these things buckets once you pour your material you mixed up the material and you no longer need the bucket turn it upside down the next day even sometimes two days afterwards it's a little easier if you let it get a little harder all you do pull your edges and then voila clean bucket sometimes a bit stuck in the bottom I'll take a pair of pliers pull it out good to go now what I do do is I'm pouring a flood coat a final coat I usually use a brand new bucket for that just because I don't want any little foreign material to be stuck in that clear coat for my final pour brushes once I'm done with the brush I have epoxy on it I'll store it in an airtight bucket that already has acetone in there drop it reseal my bucket and I keep it in there until I'm ready to use it again don't take it out try to clean it and then leave it out leave it in your bucket until you're ready to use it again once you're ready just go back in grab it shake it off real important that you turn it upside down because this metal will hold on to the liquid shake it out once it quits dripping wipe it off dry it a little bit they could still be wet and you're ready to go doesn't have to be perfectly dry cleaning your while is a lot of fun to just take a pair of pliers you can go and just break it once it's dried and that too will peel off also with your trials you can get a putty knife just peel this off and you can make this look like a brand new trial fifth and final fun fact tip when you do sample boards when you do countertops you're always gonna have these little drips that form underneath the edge of your project now there's several ways to take care of them you can sand them down we use a disc and we just sand ours down because we build our counter tops in our shop but if you do a pour in house or somewhere where you can't flip that piece over or you can't get a sander up next to it we'll take a stick a paint stick and every hour so we'll just run that stick along the edge of the countertop pull all the excess epoxy off until it's no longer dripping usually about three hours in you're not gonna have any more drips this will give a very smooth finish underneath the counter top and you don't have to sand and guys I hope you like these few simple tips and tricks that may help you take your projects maybe to the next level or make them a little bit easier if you'd like to dive deeper and learn more about epoxy we've got hands-on training check out our website RK three designs calm and we also have our online course which is very very comprehensive detailed online training check us out online epoxy pro if you like this video give me a thumbs up hit the bell for future notifications and let me know in the comments below maybe some of your frequently asked questions maybe things that you are hitting a wall with shortcuts maybe that you would like to see I love hearing your guys comments I really appreciate you watching until next time remember don't be scared move forward and be creative [Music]

Channel: RK3 Designs

Views: 25,329

Keywords: epoxy countertop, epoxy table, resin, epoxy resin, epoxy resin art, epoxy tutorial, stone coat countertops, stone coat epoxy, resin for beginners, epoxy tips for beginners, stonecoat countertop epoxy for beginners, 5 epoxy tips i wish i knew as a beginner, how to use epoxy

Id: Aw8sxtK8AK8

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020