DIY Epoxy Table / Step by Step Instructions

hey what's up everyone my name is greg and welcome back to the channel today i'm going to show you exactly what you need to build a epoxy table i documented my process from start to finish and i'm going to share my journey with you how i built this beautiful table the first step in your epoxy table build you need to make sure your slab is 100 straight there's two ways you can flatten your slab the first method is to build your own router slit and in my case i used my local wood supplier to flatten my slab with a cnc machine this saved me a ton of time so once i got my slab back into my shop the next step you want to do is to remove all the soft wood and bark from your wooden slab and i started off with a hammer and chisel to remove the bigger chunks and then i moved on to my baby grinder with a wire steel brush now doing this step is just going to give you a better bond once you cast your epoxy and when i move to my baby grinder i've got two different types of wire steel brushes one wire steel brush that's very aggressive that actually makes marks on the side of your live edge and then i've got a softer wire brush that's removing all the marks from the first router steel brush moving on to the next step is planning and designing you can see my wooden slab is lying flat onto a white melamine sheet this is basically going to be my final size for my table i already marked onto my slab exactly all the pieces i want to cut to size and cutting my wood with a circular saw made the job very easy now this was one of the designing steps i absolutely enjoyed is to have the inside edges of your live edge slab slightly burnt now because the top of my resin table is going to be see-through you will be able to see the burnt edges from the top now the next step is to build a mold for your epoxy table i'm using a normal white melamine board and i'm making sure i'm building my mold slightly bigger so once my table is done i can cut it to its final size and i'm also making sure that the sides of my mold is slightly higher than my slab so now just adding some silicone on the inside edge just to make sure that your epoxy is not going to leak out now this doesn't have to be a perfect joint for you're going to cut your table to its final size later to make sure that your epoxy is not sticking to your wood i'm using a release agent wax and you need to apply one layer on the inside of your mold leave it for about 10 to 20 minutes and then wipe it off this is the part of the project i'm really starting to get excited to see that your plan is slowly but surely starting to get together now i'm going to pack my slabs into my mold and just make sure you clean them off thoroughly before you pack them inside the next step is quite crucial is to make sure that your work surface is 100 percent level otherwise when you're going to cause to epoxy it's either going to be thicker on the one side than the other to make sure that your wooden slab pieces is staying in place you need to clamp them down otherwise when you're going to pour your epoxy it's going to move in the curing process i'm going to do a total of four pours for this project and to have the same color consistency on each pour i'm mixing my color agent into my big batch always remember to write your recipes down the epoxy i'm using is locally sourced from south africa amt composite and the ratio is one to six but a resin is one hundred percent and part b hotner is 60 when mixing the two ports together you need to stir for about three to five minutes then you can leave it for about 10 minutes and you will see all the air bubbles is coming up and you can just pop that with a gas flame gun now finally getting to the fun part of this project is costing of the epoxy now i'm going to do a total of four pours waiting about six to eight hours between every pour so do so after every casting you wait about 10 minutes and you will see all the bubbles will rise up now you can just pop this with a gas flame gun so eight hours later and i'm back for my second casting of my table so once i cast all my epoxy you have to wait a total of five days for your epoxy to be fully cured [Music] my you so after five days i'm back into my shop ready to remove my epoxy table from my mold and here you can also see that the epoxy is not sticking to the wood this is because of the waxed we previously used so i'm taking my epoxy table back to my local wood supplier for it to be flattened on top and at the bottom with the cnc machine i know it's easy to say using your own router slate it's cheaper but in my experience time is money and by using a local supplier flattening my slab saved me a lot of time and money now back in my shop i'm just cutting all the edges off right around the table to have a nice smooth clear edge now moving on to the next step i'm going to start to sand my table with a belt sander and 80 grit sandpaper this is just basically to remove all the marks the cnc machine made now that i've got a complete flat surface to work on and before i'm going to continue my sanding process i'm going to route my table right around giving it a small chamfer now before we're going to continue with the complete sanding process i'm only sanding my top with my orbital sander using 100 grit sandpaper before we're going through the complete sanding process we need to inspect our epoxy table i'm using an air brush to clean all the little holes pockets lines and every imperfection on top of the table and i'm marking with my pencil where i want to fill with a little bit of epoxy this is quite a crucial part in your epoxy table build if you want it to be 100 perfect now remember i previously mentioned that i mixed my color agent into my big batch this is where it also comes in handy now i can use exactly the same color to fill all the imperfections on this table now finally moving on to the part that i ate the most of an ant boxy table built is the sanding process this takes a total of two to three days to have a perfect perfect table starting off with your belt sander at the 80 grit then moving on to your orbital sander from 100 grit moving up all the way to 1500 grit not skipping one grit of sandpaper doing this on top and at the bottom of your table now this part of the project is where the magic starts to happen the polishing part of this project starting off by using a polish compound and a 2 000 grit sponge sandpaper on your polish machine on a low rpm then moving on to a 3000 grit sponge sandpaper and then finally moving on to a 4 000 grit sandpaper and then we're finishing off our table with a sheep wool buff this is the only method you can use to have a high gloss see-through finish this process also takes time so please make sure you do it 100 correct don't rush it and your product will come out beautifully me and my client decided to go with a smoky finish so the bottom of our table i only finished to about 400 grit sandpaper and i gave the top of the table the complete sanding process from 80 grit belt sander to the polishing pot the last step to make sure you have a super shiny gloss finish is to use a sheep wool buff at the super low rpm now the final final step in your epoxy table bolt is to oil your wood and i'm using a rubia monocote pier simply because i believe it's giving me the best wooden finish and i absolutely just love the product overall i did make a previous video on what types of wooden varnishes and oils that's good and bad there will be a link popping up now if you want to go and check it out so so guys i honestly hope that this instructional step-by-step video is going to help you to build your own table and if there's any questions please leave me a comment down below and i will definitely answer your questions before you go guys please support the channel it's going to cost you nothing just by subscribing liking and hitting the notification button now i'm going to leave you with the final product and please leave a comment down below what do you think of this epoxy table build cheers see you next week [Music] you

Channel: Do It Yourself With Greg

Views: 1,366,945

Keywords: DIY, Do It Yourself, Do It Yourself With Greg, Wood, Wood cutting, Making money with DIY, DIY Projects, DIY With Greg, Wood projects, Concrete, painting, wood work, Homemade, How to, handmade, workstudio, work studio, epoxy, epoxy table, river table, table, resin, epoxy resin, river tables, diy epoxy, reisn table, art, resin epoxy, wood epoxy, tables

Id: be5YdiyqFRU

Length: 22min 48sec (1368 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021