How to Make a Colored Epoxy Resin Table

hey this is cam with Blacktail studio and this week we are finally going to mix some color make some dovetails the cheating way and add a really nice high-gloss finish to this black walnut and blue resin table stay tuned I suppose I forgot to mention that we will also be building a table in addition to all of that and we are starting with a really cool black walnut slab that I've been saving for about a year or so now and I didn't really want to cut this down the middle when I was taping the slab but this ended up being the perfect size and the perfect piece for this console table I'm making so I decided to sacrifice it and the inspiration for this was one of my very first console tables that I had made out of black resin and black walnut right here and the client really liked the island so it fit really nicely and it was going to be pretty close to that original table so that was the inspiration and nice thing about this one was it wasn't that big of a table I was able to actually do most of the work myself on my relatively small tools compared to that industrial shop that you see me go to from time to time these slabs were in really pretty good shape there was a little bit of rot a little bit of soft wood which is what you see me removing there and then I'm taking the angle grinder over to the edge of the slab edge just to make sure that when the epoxies port has a really good solid wood surface to bond to nothing that could kind of pull apart with bark or softer wood after I get done sealing the edges with a faster drying epoxy I blasted through this mold build which if you're curious about how to make a guaranteed leak proof mold I have a full video and a blog that I'll add links to those in the video description below but for now we're gonna kind of fast-forward past that part I thought I was pretty clever adding this painters tape here which ended up not working at all and it was a really bad idea so keep watching if you are think about adding some islands to your table because this method did not work since most my tables are black I never really get to show you guys how I test my colors and this is something I go over with my students in my resna workshop and this is just water in a clear plastic cup and the liquid glass epoxy were using cure is just as clear as water so this is why water makes the perfect medium for testing out our colors and all I did was I added some blue pigment and then I added a bunch of pearl white pigment and the pearl white is so cool to add to almost any color because it doesn't overwhelm it it just adds a ton of metallics and contrast and iridescent so if you want a little more razzle-dazzle on your table try adding pearl white to really almost any color speaking of the liquid glass epoxy this is the resin we will be using in this table and after using this resin for the last six months or so as of last month I am officially a brand ambassador for them which means I'm sponsored which means technically I am no longer an unbiased user of their product so just want to be as upfront with you guys about the fact that I am now in collaboration with liqui glass and I do appreciate you guys showing them the same support that they show me and a lot of people ask what's wrong with this other brand why don't you use this brand what's wrong with this one and I like to talk about the positives of a product instead of the negatives of another so the clarity the strength the flexibility and the consistency of this product meaning I have never had any bad batches or crystallization or anything like that so all of those things together make this my favorite epoxy and yes I am now sponsored by them so take that or leave it but I do use this in all of my tables now one of the most common mistakes that can't be repaired is unmixed epoxy or incomplete mixing of epoxy so really really take your time use that stick scrape the sides scrape the bottom when you're using your paddle mixer just really fold it in mix it mix it mix it probably a good three or four minutes at least making sure to scrape the bottom and the sides but when you pour it don't scrape it out off the sides in the bottom because any potentially unmixed epoxy is gonna be that bits clinging to the side so don't spatula it out from the sides and the bottom only let it pour out naturally with gravity another super common mistake that people make when using these powdered pigment is they don't realize that they will settle and since these deep core epoxy takes so long to cure you might make your pour do a bunch of cool design just go to bed come back the next morning and they will all be on the bottom of the mold because they have settled due to gravity so what you need to do is come back about 12 hours and plan your pour accordingly is I will intentionally do it late at night so I can do it first thing in the morning and then monitor it and what I do is I set a timer for every 30 minutes so I can keep making these swirls until the epoxy has set up to the point where I can no longer add anymore swirls and they will be locked into place so ended up taking about 16 hours before I did my final swirl and you'll see here just how thick it is at that point well you need to be very cautious about when doing this though is any sternum you do now is going to induce bubbles and you'll need to pop those with a torch and you see that I am barely just skimming the top and that is because if I was to dig that dowel in there and really fold the epoxy over itself I wouldn't do sway to many bubbles that would not pop on their own so that would kind of ruin the look of the project so it'd just be very light and delicate you see mayor just skimming the top and this is at 16 hours so you see just how thick it is and this is really the point where any stirring that I do is gonna induce bubbles that will not pop so just be very very cautious of that this was a pretty small epoxy pour I think it was only about four liters which is probably the smallest one I've had in a year so I wasn't really worried about this epoxy overheating if you have a big pour you do need to be cautious that you can overheat these tables so get yourself a temp gun like I have here and monitor the temperature and this is a great temperature set if it starts getting above 120 degrees Fahrenheit or so get a fan on it and make sure that you get it cooled down because that is where you can get the epoxy to crack and have some problems I want to take a quick second to welcome anybody who is watching one of my videos for the very first time and thank those of you that watch these videos every single week and those of you that watch every week you already know this but if you're a new to my page you should know that I am super good at responding to comments so if I'm not clearing anything if you want a little more information if you want to know what a certain tool is or if you just wanna say hey leave a question or a comment below I will read it I will respond the only thing that I ask is that if you get something from this video if you enjoyed watching if you learned something just hit that little subscribe button up in the corner that little bell that's what's gonna enable me to keep creating more content just like this I don't believe I actually showed adding mold release to my form earlier in the process so that's why that table was so slick going through the planer so make sure you add mold release to your form when making these epoxy tables I have a pretty nice jointer but I find myself still using this table saw jointer jig quite a bit actually because if there's a ton of material that needs to be removed this is just so much faster than using my jointer so Google table saw jointer jig and you'll see just how easy it is how quick you can make one in about half hour I'm sorry I didn't have the full video because my iPhone image stabilization freaked out when I turned my table-saw on but it works great for small edges you can't do a whiteboard like this but for just joining one straight small edge it works really really well and if you haven't figured out what I'm actually doing at this point is I am just jointing and planning all of the wood for my wood table legs that I'm going to be doing and this isn't really gonna be a step-by-step how to make these legs and just kind of give you the broad strokes of how I did it and part of the reason why I'm not making this a step by step is I end up using an old dovetail jig that haven't used in a long time for one I'm not that good with it and two I don't really like it that much so I don't want to make this a step-by-step of how to use something that I don't really like using because then you're gonna be in the same boat that I am not really enjoying what you're doing so I will kind of show you the broad strokes of it and this is what I am pulling down here it's an old Porter Cable dovetail jig and you'll see here in just a second how often I actually use this thing what I really need to do is just dedicate the time and teach myself how to hand cut dovetails properly because I really feel like any real woodworker needs to be able to hand cut dovetails and I can't I have to use a jig like this and it took me a long time I bet a real woodworker could have hand-cut these and probably the same amount of time that I spent using this stupid jig but for now I am not good enough and this is what I am left with I always love learning new things about you guys because I bet I'm not alone and having a skill that is long past overdue learning so let me know what is this skill that you wish you have learned by now or maybe something you want to learn in the next year or so and it doesn't have to be woodworking it definitely can be but maybe you wish you would learn to play the guitar or the piano or taking a writing class so let me know in the comments below what is something that you think you should have learned by now and let's see who can surprise me maybe not was the weirdest thing but maybe something I wouldn't miss pected one of my viewers would be interested in I'm using a Forstner bit here to cut the mounting holes for my bolts that are gonna go through this and all wood moves this table is so small it's not gonna have a ton of wood movement so all I did was cut a slightly oversized hole and that's gonna allow enough wood movement for these quarter-inch bolts and that 3/8 inch hole the finishing process is always the most fun and I am using an Osmo 3043 here and finishing a little bit different than I do my table tops I was just wiping it on wiping it off and I did about three total coats on the legs in the end after it came off that industrial planer I had to go back and do this you really small touch-ups but they looked big right now with fast drying epoxy and the same blue pigment mixed with the pearl white powder and I'll show you in just a second we're gonna sand those and scrape them off so they look bigger than they are now but in the end they're gonna be really really small if you've watched some of my past builds with the large tables you know how cumbersome they are how hard they are to move around and how dangerous they can be so I love making console tables like this because they are so easy to move around so I will show you here in just a second the scraping I was talking about and what I did was I warmed it up with the sander creates that friction creates that heat and it makes the scrape and go much better if you don't do that the epoxy can actually kind of pull out of your hole which then makes you have to refill it so warming up with the sander and then scrape it with that scraper in if you're curious about the tools I'm using I will add links to all of these in the description below if you are just hand sanding your edges it is time to step up to an 8 inch roundover bit and it gives just a much more professional more consistent look and you'll still need to go back and Hamm sand them after using the router but it will just give you just a much more finished look and you can see I'm using my velcro sanding glove that I made from a few videos back and then inspecting with my new toy that light stick there these legs are about as easy as it gets when it comes to mounting but if you have a large table and you aren't sure how to attach your table legs or your table base to account for seasonal wood expansion and contraction definitely check out the blog or video in the video description below because the last thing you want is your table cracking or splitting on you just because you attached your legs improperly so I have a step-by-step guide definitely worth checking out if you have any questions on that these inserts that I'm using they actually come from Canada so they're a little bit harder to source so I will provide a good Amazon alternative just make sure you get steel ones not the zinc ones these are a zinc coated steel and those are okay but you do not want to get the brass ones or the regular zinc ones make sure you get a good steel one some weeks I really struggle is trying to find content to put out for a video but the next several weeks I have everything completely lined up and one of the videos I'm gonna be doing is a step step finishing guide for this table here and it was pretty involved to get such a high gloss such a high Sheen from a wipe-on finish like this because it's not like a urethane or a lacquer or an epoxy finish it's really just a wipe on wipe off so when you get done it really looks more like a polished stone than like a polyurethane finish so I will have a step-by-step guide on this finishing process coming up in a few weeks in addition to a satin finish that is completely bomb-proof that you could use with kids and a dining table so lots of cool videos coming up stay tuned for all those I'm really just gonna give kind of the highlight glamour shots of this finishing process for this one since I will have the full step-by-step process for getting this high gloss finish and really it's about sealing it up getting a good build on it sanding it coming back adding another coat and continuing this process until you get that really really high gloss finish and this process is pretty similar to my previous how to get a perfect finish in a dusty SHOP video but you just take it a few steps further the satin finish video I have coming up is going to be a completely different product and completely different video so that's the one that I'm really excited about but this one I think is really cool looking for especially for something like a console table where as it might not be super practical for a dining table I think it's really cool for accent pieces like this one of the questions I get a lot is how high do you sand the underside and you'll see it is much more math than the top because nobody looks underneath the table most of my clients aren't willing to pay to have the underside finished just as nice the top because nobody looks on the underside of the table so I sand 150 do two coats of these same finish and call it good okay we are finally done and we had a nice shot outside on this overcast day and now you can really see what I mean about that polished stone look where is it doesn't look like an automotive clear coat where it's super shiny but it looks like a polished granite or a marble and I personally love this look because for one you don't see many tables like this it's just a really unique really new modern finish but you get to see all the grain all the color of the wood keeps it very natural looking and the feel of it is just amazing because you don't feel that clear plasticky coat you still actually feel the woodgrain natural light is always the best light to photograph or video an object in the proud it's really hard to photograph these in a studio setting using natural lights so I did set up the photography backdrop and I used my old light painting method that is not a method I invented but it is a technique that I use and it starts with a black backdrop like this then I take a flashlight turn all the lights off and I actually did a video on how I shoot my tables and it creates a pretty cool effect it's not quite as nice as the natural light but it does enable me to get some shots like this so I think it's pretty cool but I also took some photos on a white backdrop and I would be curious to know which ones you guys actually prefer because you can see some of the shadows and I'll have some photographers that probably comment tell me how I can fix some of these problems but the white I thought looked pretty good with this walnut and blue but let me know in the comments which one you prefer as some of you know I like to give a little bit of credit to the people to make it all the way to the end of the video each week so this week start your question or comment with your job or job title and then I will know you watch the entire video and I promise I will answer all of your questions or comments first and it will enable me to get to know a little bit more about you guys in the process so thanks so much for watching the entire video this week and please subscribe for more videos just like this one have a great day

Channel: Blacktail Studio

Views: 2,240,864

Keywords: epoxy table, resin table, river table, blue epoxy, metallic epoxy, walnut table, console table, end table, diy epoxy table, how to make epoxy table, how to make resin table, liquid glass epoxy, ecopoxy, resin art, diy projects, how to woodworking, live edge table, entry way table, epoxy art, cool projects, diy river table, walnut and epoxy table

Id: Bcz39w07WIA

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020