Circuit board table in 10 steps Step 1 The Idea. putting boards like these in epoxy in a table ..but.. .. what table? at last I found this table online the modern steel legs will go well with the boards Step 2 Preparation. the wood of the old table was discolored and the steel was dirty so with paint stripper I removed old layers of varnish (I used a scrape card for that) and I cleaned the steel the backs of the boards had to be really flat first I tried to remove components with a soldering iron but the fastest way was with pliers Step 3 Making room. mmm.. how would I be putting the boards in? I mean, in what shape? I chose the simple strip shape I cut that shape to depth with the saw .. to about 25 mm I took out a 25 x 4 grid with the router the remaining blocks, I chiseled out big pieces with the grain of the wood the rest sideways and after cleaning it was ready for.. Step 4 Putting the boards in. I didn't want to see any wood in the small spaces next to the boards so I put in this aluminium tape then it was just a puzzle here and there I had to .. .. force a board down with a screw because the middle name of my workshop .. .. is 'dust' .. I figured I had to make a tent before pouring epoxy Step 5 Making a tent. nothing fancy, just two tent-shaped ends connected by wood on the sides strips .. .. covered with garbage bags some boards were still loose for the following step they needed to be fixed so this was the first pour with epoxy last chance to position the boards Step 7 Putting in the LEDs (that are no longer LEDs :-) I wanted lights to light up but without electricity .. no cables or batteries .. nah .. so I thought of fiber optic cable and I took a normal LED drilled a hole in the bottom broke off the wires .. and stuck a fiber cable in then I drilled holes in the boards and stuck the (glued) fibers in this block with a hole .. is the focal point for the fiber cables I pulled the fibers through .. .. glued them in .. .. and cut them off funny: you can see the colors of the LEDs just to make sure .. I poured in the LEDs so far, so good .. on to .. Step 8 The Big Pour. witness .. the pouring of .. 7 liters epoxy the epoxy revealed .. the table is bent in the middle so I had to pour extra at the sides Step 9 Sanding don't ask me why .. .. but I recorded all of the sanding so now I know .. .. it took me a total of 2.5 hours with 60, 100, 180 and 320 grit Step 10 Finish the original plan was .. .. to sand and polish the epoxy instead I decided to pour an extra layer I'll explain later why I sanded the wood one last time and gave it some coats of Danish Oil << Finished! >> The End Result Epilogue So? Success or Fail? well, opposite of what you might think after watching this video the table was a fail What? Why? Somewhere in the process, and I'm not exactly sure where, the epoxy got not mixed well enough. That resulted in sticky soft spots and very ugly spots wait, let me show you Couldn't it be repaired? that's why I tried to put another layer over it all - what you just saw in the 'finish'-part of the video but that didn't help at all there were so many soft spots at the sides, that the sticky epoxy kept crawling up and out so not only were there ugly spots IN the epoxy, the table being permanently sticky, made it as good as useless Bummer! Yeah, I was quite upset by this, because 95 percent of the epoxy is fine and it is very nice to look at the many details of the circuit boards and to play with the lights What now? well, I guess I have to take my loss and see it as a learning thing What will you do with the table? I'm not sure yet. I'll keep it for now and think about it. really getting it right would mean to make an extra groove at the sides, between the wood and the epoxy, with a router or a saw and chisel the failed epoxy out that would be a lot of work, so .. I guess I'll sleep on it for a while Although the table might not be a complete success, just maybe you learned something of the video, or maybe you found the video entertaining. If you liked the video (not the table) please like the video and subscribe to the channel. See you in our next video!
