Epoxy Lava Table

hey guys check out this Red River lava table that we just finished we're gonna show you everything that we did from taking this chainsaw cut slab and flattening it and pouring a Red River lava epoxy right down the center you can do any color you choose we're gonna teach you all the tips and tricks right now you can visit our website anytime at Stone Koch countertops com enjoy the video [Music] one piece it really becomes very strong [Music] hey guys Mike here with stone coke countertops calm we're gonna do a live edge River table right now you guys asked for another one of these kind of tables we're gonna do a variation we're gonna do some fun techniques and teach you some great ways to ensure that you come out with an unbelievable project we are starting with the ugly duckling and this thing really needs some less seen better days this is it's got almost forgot on it over here it's been left out on the weather what we've done is we've dried this slab we took our moisture meter and we made sure that the slab moisture content was just under 13% you don't want to be higher than 13% that's your safe zone we do have some tolerance for moisture but that's a good a good solid number to go by so what we're gonna do is we're gonna plan this down we're gonna use our router jig this is really really uneven you can see the warp in it it's it's twisted and so we're gonna find exactly how it should be mounted we're gonna mount this to our table and then we're gonna plant it down nice and flat we are gonna turn this slab into something just outstanding I can't wait for you to see the end result let's get started right now here we go okay one of the first steps that we're gonna do is we're gonna set up our slab jig to our table depth our table has got a nice thick slab here so we got some runners that lift our slab jig up right off our table to find these slab games you can go right on our website we have in there we actually stock and make this product and we love it we're gonna show you how to set it up right now okay so we already have this 2x4 on this side of the table screwed down to our table and so that's a nice anchor point so what mitch is gonna do is he's gonna pull this 2x4 out tight so that we get some good friction on this slab jig Mitch let it loose a little bit so you can see when it's loose it's gonna roll super easy but it's got a little bit of play to it now pull it tight so now when he pulls it tight you can see it's it rolls a little bit a little bit smoother a little bit more tension and we like that we like it to be under tension so he's gonna pull that pull that 2x4 out for me screw this in and you use your slab jig basically as your template well that's a great little tip how do you like that trick Mitch absolutely yeah you can use this jig by yourself it is nice when you have real hardwood so a lot of our slabs are cedar and redwood and pine but when you get into the walnuts or like we did that one table where we laminate all a very hard solid wood you're gonna your your router is gonna be under more tension and so it's nice to have a second guy kind of stabilize one end if you need but I've done these by myself for a long time yes sir I like that all right the next thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna level this table to our table so you can see there's a big rock in this table and so we're gonna find the best place that it should be we'll shim it and then we'll screw it to our table so that it doesn't keep rocking while we're out on our table out so what we're gonna do is we're going to use our slab jig as our constant we're gonna measure off of that jig and right here we're 1 and 1/4 and over here we're 1 in 7 8 so we're really high on this point so I'm if you want to take some shims we'll shim that end up over there and let's see how that helps us so we'll go right there that puts us at an inch and a half and that puts us at an inch and 3/4 here so let's see where we are down here now so that puts us at one inch and we're at 1 and 3/4 so we need to kind of split the difference on that so you know this this table this slab is really really out of whack you know it's really twisted so well we'll have to remove some meat to make it work but that's ok ok now what we're gonna do we have it shimmed right where we want so we're going to take off the meat where we want it that's what's nice about having your jig go across is is you can measure the points are low point is right here where this big sock cut is but we need a nice flat bottom because we're gonna turn this into a river table we'll be cutting it in half and then joining those two live edges so we need a nice flat bottom so that we don't leak on our on our epoxy so let's go ahead and screw this down we're just gonna toenail it through the end we know we're gonna square these ends off so we got a little play here we'll pre-drill so you want to pre-drill it and then you want to run a screw through that after you've pre-drilled so I don't pre-drill I'm gonna split this thing out so let's go ahead and do that the nice thing about toe nailing this through the end grain is it almost looks like a worm hole if you do want to fill it and save it if you ain't cheating you ain't trying right okay let's do the opposite side on this side match so all we did there is we added two three inch screws we pre-drilled it on opposite corners and that is can you believe how solid that is to the table or anywhere all right let's grab our router and we'll set it to the low point here match so what I want to do is I want my router bit to go down and touch this low point there so right there is where I'm gonna set it and then everything's gonna get router right to that point in that amazing [Music] okay sometimes it's a better idea to take a little bit less wood off with each router past and try to get it all at once the slab was really twisted and so we're gonna come back now and we've made a couple of passes we're gonna do a final pass just to make sure it's all nice and flush another thing is is is we're gonna make sure that our lope low points are all gone if they're not if you were off by just a little it's okay to make another pass [Music] [Applause] well you can see now just how flat there's there's no rock there's no rock in that table it's perfectly flat now we have a great bottom and a great base for our River table let's continue to the next step okay the next thing that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take my 50 grit metal sanding disc and I'm gonna clean these edges up I'm gonna take all the sharp points in the dirt and the dust and the grime and we're just gonna take it back to nice raw wood so we get good adhesion with our casting epoxy let's clean these live edges up right now [Music] okay the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to router the other side of this slab and we're going to toenail it down but there's no need to to shim it now because it's really flat [Music] now because we have a live edge on both sides of our River it really doesn't matter where you cut this but I like to keep it where both pieces of wood have quite a bit of meat left also right here where the woods kind of rotten in and cracked out I'm anxious to see how this is gonna look when we start putting in our stone coat countertop casting epoxy I think that's gonna look really neat filling in all these imperfections and and things like that let's check it out okay time to cut this slab in half I'm gonna use my skill saw we'll get to it right now [Music] I like cuttin on foam that way when you cut all the way through a project it doesn't cut your wood table this piece of insulation foam was perfect so that now I'm gonna create a river all I'm gonna do now is flip these pieces into themselves so that I have a nice live edge facing into itself let's do that we'll take those pieces and then we'll just figure out where our rivers gonna go but that's exactly how you make a river table oh that's gonna look sweet I love the figure in this this is just perfect so what we're doing is we're just really trying to see what should be the top and what should be the bottom of this slab and I think we're gonna actually put the junkier side to the bottom and that's just fine so we're gonna want to put this this will be the top so we're gonna flip this over so the bottoms facing up so we can install our bars that are gonna really stabilize our project and make it last for a real long time let's do it all right the next step that we're gonna do is take our 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch square tubing will cut our final bar we just use a metal cutoff wheel to do that and then we'll wipe these down with acetone you know these come with an oily residue on them to protect them from rusting you wipe that down with acetone and then you take your 50 grit metal sanding disc you'll grind that down a little bit to create a mechanical bond after you cut your 3/4 by 3/4 inch square metal tubing you're gonna take your 50 grit metal sanding disc and rough up that square tubing so it gets a good adhesion to our quick coat our quick coat is designed to be used in conjunction with these bars to hold them in your slab we like to use a 3/4 inch router bit and a spacer or a 7/8 inch router bit so they have some space around each bar to handle some of the quick coat epoxy so what we're doing is we're mixing up a 1 to 1 ratio of Part A and Part B of our quick coat we add an equal amount of our thickening powder and now we have our quick coat ready to apply with a bondo spreader in each crack and crevice of the bars so what we do is just butter a little bit in there push down that bar and we'll come back and smooth it out with our bondo spreader we do a good job smoothing and keeping it level with the surface okay guys we're ready to sand our quick coat gap and seen Phil we're gonna get that nice and flush on the bottom of our slab and then we're gonna chop the end square so that we get a really good square table let's get started [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] another thing I wanted to note here is just how strong this thing is with those bars I mean those bars make this table one piece it really becomes very strong I love those there they're the way to go it's it's just I like it I like it more than bondo and it's gonna last really really well we sanded this flush at the bottom all right we're ready for the next step what we're gonna do is we're gonna use this smooth panel board it's a real slick surface at the pizza masonite with the real slick surface that'll be the bottom of our form that we're building right now that way we're gonna tape off the bottom as well with some tie back tape but this will be a good easy release for us Mitch let's throw this up here the next thing we're gonna do is put our table up just so that we can build our form it's not going to be permanently down yet because we will move it again but we'll start building the form around this table so Mitch what I'm going to do is we're going to actually just run these long and then we'll put in our two ends okay alright one thing that I like to use a lot in my shop is a Kreg jig these Craig jigs can be found all over the place we'll put a link in the description on this video we use this for building cabinet face frames for building boxes and also for building forms it's a really tight joint that's immediate it's hold strong right away so what I like to do is just pre pocket screw all of my edges and then I'll screw through our panel board so that it's nice and snug let's get started you don't want your bit touching the wood and then starting it pull it away from your wood start it and then climb okay what I like to do is pre fill all my pocket screw holes so that when we flip this up vertical it's just a quick quick method to screw it down these have great holding power I like to get coarse thread when I'm doing something like this so that it will grab my panel board and my plywood really really tight [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay what I'm gonna do now is just trace this river so that we know where we're gonna put our Tyvek tape [Music] [Music] another thing we're gonna do with the tie that tape is we're going to take all the scenes where our vertical boards meet our panel board you ready for that match [Music] I'm amazed how well that sticks it at home No all right Mitch we're ready to put this back in our form it's gonna be nice and tight that tie that tape is a great tip it's gonna stop anything from leaking I've got a great tight form here yeah that's real or it's real smooth I can really see that chassis all right what we're gonna do now is we're going to put our cable back in our form then we're going to use our two by fours and our clamps we cut little spacers out of the excess plywood that we had so that our supports are a little taller than our vertical walls here and then we're gonna clamp this to our cable and now our our table is gonna be so tight pressed down because we're clamping it it's not gonna go anywhere all right you want to hand that over let's get it going another quick tip when placing your slab back into your form it's good to loosen one end so it's not too hard to get it back in and you don't wrinkle your tape also cover the bottom of your spacers with Tyvek tape so they're released very easily well we are ready to pour our casting resin our slab here is is over an inch it's about an inch and a half thick and so what we're gonna do is break this up into two pours you don't want to go higher than one inch per pour on casting resin and how we how we're gonna do that is we're gonna do 1/4 inch at a time we'll torch it and we'll keep filling that up in this case we'll stop at about 3/4 after that we'll we'll let that dry for for a day and then we'll do our next pour we'll fill this all the way up and what colors you want to do man what do you think I look good I think some red lava tail or some yeah we were talking about that you know we're gonna we're gonna make this thing look like a like a Center full of lava we'll fill all these burn holes with some red I think we add some yellow maybe a little black as cool and I you know give it that give it that feel I really like how this has got some blue color in this pine and I think that'll be something different let's do it all right one quick tip - how do we know how much caching resin to use that's where our phone support comes in if you call us with your dimensions or what you plan on making your River void we'll calculate that for you we're happy to do that we need the length the width and the height and we'll tell you exactly how much cash and resin you'll need for your project will even tell you how much to pour and how much to mix / coat we're happy to help you any time alright folks the next step is mixing our stone coke countertop casting epoxy this is a 2 to 1 ratio you're still gonna start with your Part B and then we'll follow up with two parts of Part A one part of Part B - two parts of Part A by volume and so we're gonna mix 120 ounces for this coat so we'll use 40 ounces of Part B and 80 ounces of Part A we're gonna mix it by hand we're gonna use a stir stick this is the only product that we really use a stir stick on because we don't want to entrain a bunch of air because we're gonna pour it much thicker than we do our normal stone countertop epoxy the air will get stubborn you don't want to leave a bunch of bubbles in it and whipping it with a drill we'll then train a lot of air so we'll mix it by hand well mix it for about about six to eight minutes with a stir stick we'll put our metallic in there we'll really mix that up get this rich looking and then we'll torch each quarter of an inch and we'll pour a single coat up to an inch thick you ready to get started Mitch did I explain that all right is that miss anything oh all right here we go all we end up adding to this batch was our deep red metallic powder we really love how rich this came out okay we got our stone coat counter top casting epoxy all mixed up we're ready for our first pour what we're gonna do is we're gonna pour a quarter inch at a time we'll torch it will add another quarter inch we'll torch it and we'll finally add our final quarter inch of this pour let's go ahead and do that right now you ready match [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now what do you think of this Mitch so what are you stirring it what happens when you do that you can kind of move around those metallics that are suspended in that casting resin give it give it some text give it some look but it also is allowing some of that hair that is trapped down in there to come up to the surface now we're not gonna see a lot of this that you're doing because we're gonna do another coat but you will see those ends okay guys we got this river table coated for its first coat Mitch what do you think of using that Redman it's really pretty it's prettier than I thought of me it's awesome it's amazing you get more depth when you have a deeper coat and it does these effects you moved it with that stick and the colors are outstanding they are and as we watch it you torch it it's just it gets more and more beautiful and more depth as we sit and watches as it's doing its thing all those all those bubbles come out really really clean you know we have guys who use this just straight crystal clear and you can get a crystal clear pour all the way through depth and that's not easy to do you got to have the right product this is it we nailed it I'm very glad that we used red I don't know if I'm going to add anything else to this red tomorrow when we do our second coat it's so pretty I like it this is cool hey thanks a lot Mitch let's let this dry we'll come back tomorrow and we'll pour our second casting resin coat good job buddy here we've got our first pour dry I came back and man this just looks incredible I'll give you a close-up here in a second really I am I'm just thrilled it looks like red abalone shell or something like that I really like what the casting epoxy does when it's deep it takes those metallics and it has a mind of its own and it really just moves for us we're gonna do our next coat of casting epoxy we're gonna mix it in the very same fashion we'll pour it in and we'll let this dry now we we poured this last night and at Campbell in its morning time so we just let it drive for about about seven hours and you can push your finger in it and it still will move and that's normal it's tacky so I don't have to sand if I if I left it's hard enough just quickly sand it with 220 grit and then you'll uh you'll do your next coat but because it's still tacky I can do my next coat without sanding let's get started [Music] [Music] okay guys we did our second coat of casting epoxy in the center we used our deep red metallic and oh my goodness I just I love that by itself we were debating adding other color and I I think we hit a home run here dad what do you think of that color I love the color I cannot believe that ruby red it just looks amazing it looks deep you actually asked is there clear I mean you know I were tricked on depth I've God oh my word yeah the depth person saying you know it's good to be able to look at this table now we know that we have some red all over it I actually tried something off-camera as this was drying and curing I came over to our mess over here as it started to gel and I scooped some of it up right here on my bondo spreader and I went through some of the voids and wormholes and cracks and stuff that we were planning on filling in another step and I got 90% of them filled some of them it was still too big of a hole and it would kind of go in some of the holes that are too big and they and they suck in too much epoxy will thicken it and then will butter that over there but most of them were filled with our trash laying over here on the side it was really cool another thing I wanted to show on the bondo spreader is if you let the epoxy harden and don't try to clean it off it actually will pop off really clean for you it'll save that and it's actually cleaner than trying to clean it while it's wet good little tip there okay the next step is to deform and D mold our slab and this is the fun part because it's it's just you're gonna see how well this comes apart we're gonna take these take these two by fours off which is holding everything really tight and we'll see how well that Tyvek tape lets us pull this right up nice and clean let's get started and we use that tie-back tape on the bottom of these so I want to show you how good that will release so because we use that tie back it comes right off the surface without gluing itself to the tabletop no big deal look how clean that is yeah you remember what happens when we don't glue a glue that shape it's just incredible I love that trick I'll tell you that trick right here is worth the price of the video guys [Music] all right we're going to lift this up off the surface this is a this is the true test right here and there you go guys beautiful look at how much of it stuck to the tape [Music] hey guys I wanted to show you a close-up of this river before we sand this top man that's really beautiful you can see yeah look at this just do they're beautiful look there I'm gonna sand that trim it flush let's stand this up right now here we're using our 50 grit metal sanding disc to get all the excess casting epoxy off the surface after that we're gonna trim our edges flush using our skill saw so that we get 90-degree corners on both ends after this step we're gonna switch to our random orbital sander starting at 60 grit moving on to 100 grit 150 grit and finally 220 grit then we're gonna router the top and the bottom on the top we use one quarter inch roundover on the bottom a 1/8 inch round over here we're using our burnin stick to address all the little cracks and crevices and anything that might suck in epoxy as you do your seal coats as you can see you heat it up using the propane torch then you scrape off the excess using a bondo spreader after you've gotten everything scraped flush and come back and sand with 220 to remove all the residue from the burnin stick we're gonna sand this really good make sure to remove all the marks caused by that initial 50 grit metal sanding let's go ahead now and mix up our epoxy we're gonna do a 1 to 1 ratio and we're gonna add one ounce per square foot after pouring our epoxy on the surface we're gonna use a regular shower squeegee to spread it out and a nice thin coat this is our first of three coats all applied the same way first we'll spread it around on the top using the shower squeegee and then we'll come back with our gloved hand and rub those edges rub it in nice and good in those edges making sure to get everything wet and then after this dries we'll come back and sand with 220 in between coats right here we're torching all those bubbles out but don't spend too much time torching because of the thin coat you don't need to [Music] [Applause] [Music] alright guys we'll let that first seal coat dry and then we'll come back and we will do our second seal coat I really love what this has done it's it's waking up this this the slab so much I love where we put that red and then I came through with the burning stick and and filled some of it with a different color and those colors working together looks really cool it looks like this red is just mineral deposits into this slab I really really like this we took this junk slab and we're turning it into something just so cool stay tuned we'll see in a bit okay guys we're ready for our next seal coat what we're gonna do is we're gonna sand with 220 grit sandpaper we'll wipe the dust and then we'll just apply another seal coat at one ounce per square foot this is starting to really fill in it looks really pretty it soaked it in some areas but as we apply these seal coats it looks better and better with each coat here we go let's get started all we're doing when we do these seal coats is we're just quickly sanding the surface you don't need to make it flat you just need to rough it up a little bit to create a mechanical bond [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] alright folks we've got our third sealcoat all done on this river table now it's time for our flood coat and the only difference between our seal coats and our flood coat is we do three seal coats at one ounce per square foot and we do one flood coat at three ounces per square foot but inevitably at this time we're gonna look for any pinholes or any little dots that the epoxy is just soaking through and it won't fill up on your seal coats that's when we're gonna use the burn-in stick we're gonna use that right now on a couple of spots here I got two here and I got one right here on this little stubborn crack I'll show you those right now up close alright guys so here's one right here that's a little pinhole and then I got one right here there's a little divot and then I got this crack over here and I could see just little little divots soak it in there so what we're gonna do is we're going to mark those with blue tape and then we're gonna fill them with a burnin stick now the reason that I'm marking this with blue tape is because if you had a really big slab with a number of these you don't want to miss one before you do your flood coat because then it's just gonna soak in that same area and you're gonna need to fill it do it again so we don't want to do that we want to get it right this time our steel coats are really effective on most everything on this slab but now we just have a couple of stubborn areas that we're going to address before we actually flood coat another thing that I'm actually getting it's on order I wish it was here is a clear burnin stick I'm gonna try that as well to see if it shows up any given after I filled that in I want to see if the color hides underneath the epoxy which my theory is it will but we'll get that and we'll let you know how that works but in this case we've already filled it with some of our brown burnin stick so we're just gonna use the same color so I'm going to sand these areas lightly with 220 I'll fill them and then I'll sand the entire top after that [Music] so as you can see my turn in stick pieces are getting pretty small so I just put them into a set of channel locks so I can torch it without burning my fingers [Music] all right I got the burnin stick in those three divot areas that were just stubborn and now I'm just gonna use 220 grit to sand off the residue anything left from that stick [Music] when you're sanding the piece all you need to do is rough it up it doesn't need to be all perfectly uniform [Music] so all I'm doing in that step is just roughing everything up to create a mechanical bond and I'm sanding off any high points on my edges and where I router the top you don't want any surface tension created by rough edges when the epoxy is trying to roll over that edge all right we're gonna wipe off this table and we'll get started with our flood coat [Music] all right I got a clear stone coat countertop epoxy all mixed up we're gonna use our 1/8 inch square notched trowel to spread this out we'll chop it with our chop brush make sure you pull any loose brushes or anything like that off the brush and then we're gonna torch it out three times I got the room heated up I used our space heater i heated our bottles up so they're nice and warm that helps us mix the epoxy keeps it a little more clear so you don't have so much trouble torching it out and then we're gonna let this cure in a nice warm room right now it's about 70 to 73 degrees in here and that's just ideal here we go [Music] [Music] hey guys thanks for watching our video on how to take a trash slab that was cut with the chainsaw and turn it into a piece of furniture I I can't believe what this old nasty piece of wood turned into I love the deep red metallic we just used that in that River I really enjoyed this project thanks for watching you can visit our website anytime at Stone coketown turtlecom feel free to call us on the phone any time for free project support will help you out any time with all the questions that you may have and walk you through your project you can see all of our tips and tricks on our other videos on our youtube channel please subscribe if you like this video give us a thumbs up give us some comments below let us know what you'd like to see in the future give us some feedback on this video thanks again for watching share this with your friends and until next time from Stone Koch countertops you got this we'll see you soon woo [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Stone Coat Countertops

Views: 1,521,064

Rating: 4.8576169 out of 5

Keywords: epoxy countertop DIY, how to, Leggari concrete, overlay, concrete overlay, formica, repair, kitchen, bath, countertop epoxy wood slab live edge Epoxy Plus, DIY, laminate counter, laminate, epoxy, resin, art resin, woodworking, wood working, lava table, saw mill, live edge, live, edge

Id: 1cm9I6pZkCw

Length: 38min 48sec (2328 seconds)

Published: Tue May 08 2018