How to Make a Resin River Table Using Clear Epoxy Resin

[Music] hi everyone my name is rich and I'm here to show you step-by-step how you can make your own one of these stunning resin River tables using the glass cast 50 epoxy resin I'll be including information on selecting your timber cutting and preparing the wood and setting up barriers to contain the resin I'll then show you how to estimate the amount of resin you'll need tint measure and mix the resin seal the wood to prevent air bubbles and of course do the main pour itself finally I'll demonstrate how to flatten polish your table to produce a professional quality piece of furniture with so much to cover let's get started so your room table projects going to start with a piece of wood we've got this great piece of English you from a local suppliers their details are listed below when you're looking for your piece of timber of course you want to go for the for the look that you're after but the most important things are to make sure that they're both dry and seasoned but also as flat as possible because that'll make the project so much easier so the first thing we've got to do is cut our piece of wood straight down the middle that's so we can flip the two pieces over and then we've got the gap for the river we're gonna put it down on this saw but you'll probably find that the place you buy the timber from can do this for you so now the woods cut we'll go over and get it prepped and ready for the resin pool first we need to look at this bark on the live edge of the wood you might be tempted to leave this on because it does look great but the problem is if we did it would leave a real weak spot in the finished piece and we wouldn't get that solid table that we were looking for so we're going to remove this bark all the way along and then key with some sandpaper the planks currently upside down to how we're gonna have them on the finish table but while we've got them this way up you can see that we've got these notes and these shapes and cracks and we're going to want to fill those while we've got them this way up for this entire project we're going to be using the glass cast 50 this is an amazing resin developed specifically for projects exactly like this one I'll go into more details about why it's so good later in the tutorial but for now we're just going to mix up a small amount so we can fill these knots and cracks well we've got the board's upside down where the cracks were run to the edge of the board we'll use some tape to stop the resin from running out the flatter release tape I'm using here is great because it's very strong and the resin won't stick to it mix ratios vary between the glass cast products with the glass gasps 5350 5 or you can be expired volume and that's a two to one whichever you choose is fine but just make sure you get that measurement as accurate as possible for this small mix I'm going to use the 100 to 45 by weight mix ratio I'll keep things simple with a hundred grams of resin and 45 grams of hardener although this is only a small mix we're mixing epoxies it's best practice to double pot mixing thoroughly once in one pot and then transferring to a second pot and mixing again ensuring that no one mixed resin can find its way onto the job as you'll see some of these knot holes and features will actually take quite a bit of resin and eat up and got more than once but this is fine because at least we know the resin is doing its job and making areas like this not hole or this flaky porous area much stronger we now need to leave the resin to reach its initial cure which will take around 2 days now that the resins gone completely hard we're going to go over it with a sander so that we take off any high spots when we flip the board's they'll then sit nice and flat we're now ready to set up for the resin pour the first thing we're going to have to do is make some barriers to contain the resin we're gonna need them at the end and at the bottom to stop the resin from flowing out to do this we're going to use polypropylene plastic sheet the great thing about polypropylene is the resin won't stick to it you can see just how smooth and shiny the polypropylene sheet is and I've already cut some strips of the sheet to act as a side barriers around the outside first I'll make sure the planks are lined up square and then use hot melt glue to stick the barriers in place you'll want to use plenty of glue and ensure you have a watertight seal to prevent any resin leakage I'll stick down some timber battens to provide support to the plastic barriers before we pour any resin at all you want to give some thought to how we're going to clamp down the boards to make sure we take out any gentle curvature and also to stop the boards from floating on top of the resin we're going to do it by using these standoffs and a piece of timber across the top and then we'll clamp it down to the table I'll wrap some more of the flash release tape around these blocks to prevent them from sticking to the resin it's also important just before we pour any resin to have a really good clean off of any dust or dirt we now need to work out how much resin we need for this River table the nature of the wainy edge board makes it quite difficult to get this exact you could tip in a dry material something like rice or sand and then use that to work out the volume what we're going to do though is take an average of the width along the table and then use that to work out what we're going to need to calculate the volume of the river we'll multiply the depth in millimeters by the length in meters by the average width of the river in meters this gives us a volume of nine point one two liters we'll round this up an estimate that we need 10 liters which we can approximate to 10 kilograms so the real key to success whenever you're working with resin and wood in a project like this is to do the process in two separate stages the first stage is to pour a very thin layer so that we can seal the underneath of the wood and any exposed areas the second pour is your main pour to bring it up to the top level our recommendation for this base layer is to allow two millimeters over the total area inside your barriers we've worked out that we need 1.6 kilograms and this comes out of the total 10 kilogram requirement as you can see glass cast 50 is an incredibly clear epoxy resin but we've decided for our project we actually want to give it a striking blue tint because we're pouring the resin in a number of stages we'll tint all of the resin now at the same time timber using here is one of the glass cast translucent tinting pigments and as you can see we only need to use a few drops to achieve the subtle blue tint we're looking for with all of the resin tinted I'll measure out the correct ratio of resin and hardener to make up the 1.6 kilogram quantity that we calculated earlier for the sealing coat and we'll carry on using the double potting procedure to ensure that no unmixed resin finds its way into water by pouring the resin onto the base first we can ensure that a full sealing coat of resin is underneath the wood avoiding the risk of air pockets under the planks escaping during the cure I now use a brush to coat a thin layer of resin over all of the exposed phases of the wood which is the live edge and the top surface with all of the visible faces now coated we'll put on the clamps that we prepared earlier you can see some bubbles being pushed out as I use some gentle pressure on the clamps to press the planks down flat any excess resin that gets squeezed out can simply be wiped back into the river flat cast 50 is very good at releasing trapped air without any help but it's still a good idea to use some light action with a heat gun to help the process along we just need to leave this first layer to cure to what we call the B stage that'll take around 12 hours at 20 degrees so we'll come back to this in the morning it's now the following day and we've come back to find that this is at the perfect B stage when we're talking about the B stage what we're referring to is the point where the resin feels firm but still has a slight tack to it when you press your fingers onto the surface it should feel sticky but there shouldn't be anything on your fingertips when you lift them away however it should just about be soft enough that when you dig your nail in you can leave a slight impression once you're confident that you're at the B stage it's really important to move on with the final pour immediately if we'd allowed this resin to fully cure we'd have had to key the whole surface before we could move on to that final pour however because we're at the B stage no further perhaps needed because the depth of our table is 40 millimeters I'm actually going to split the main pour into two separate stages allowing the resin to cure or - it'd be staged between each Paul this will avoid the risk of the resin overheating whilst it cures which is a problem that we could face if we try to do the main pour all in one go we'll keep following the double potting procedure for all of the remaining resin mixes the two-to-one by volume mix ratio makes this next mix simple I'll mix up three liters of resin in total so two liters of resin and one liter of hardener to bring me just past the halfway depth be careful when you're using the heat gun to only warm the resin very gently it doesn't take much at all to clear the bubbles we've now filled our River to about the halfway point so we'll leave this now at least overnight to partially cure and come back and mix the final batches tomorrow so before proceeding with the second half of the main pour make sure you've checked that the previous pour has cured - it's be stage you I'll also use this last mix to fill any not holes or cracks on the top of the planks in the same way as we did on the underside with the final pour now finished we just need to leave the resin to fully cure this will take at least 48 hours at 20 degrees and it's really important in that time to maintain the temperature throughout and keep dirt and dust away from the surface it's a couple of days later now and as you can see the glass cast 50 is cured to a really hard finish that means we can now move on to the final stages of finishing this table looking down through the cured resin we can see that that combination of the sealing coat and the glass cast 50 have given us no air bubbles and no air entrapment however we don't yet have the surface finish that we're looking for there are a number of ways we could finish this table if we were looking for a perfectly flat glossy finish the easiest way would actually be to abrade the surface and then use of glass cast 3 surface coating resin but we've decided for this project we actually want a natural appearance to the wood there are even a number of ways we could do this we could use the sander that we used earlier on or if you've got access to the equipment you could simply put the whole table through a thickness err however the way we're going to do it is to set up a bridge and then use a router to give us a perfectly flat surface you can probably tell that this simple bridge was just put together using some off cuts of wood but it will do a nice job of allowing us to route the top of the table to a consistent thickness this first pass shows how nicely the glass cast machines I just kept making a pass with the router and they're moving the bridge along it took a little while but to achieve the really flat finish I wanted I think it was worth it so as you can see the routers left us with this really uniform flat surface all we need to do now is use the sander to make it nice and smooth you can see here how easily these polypropylene barriers come away from the resin as you can see the finish from the polypropylene sheet is really quite good and as this is the underside of the table we're not going to do anything else to it we'll use an orbital sander to make light work of finishing this top face starting with a coarse 80 grit pad and then working through the grits up to 1200 apart from the polishing I'm happy now with the surface of this top so I'm going to take it over to the saw room where I can tidy up the edges and do the cuts for the mitered legs you to bring these leg sections together with our top we're going to use a special clear epoxy adhesive the flash tape is also perfect for this job because it's very strong and the resin won't stick to it so it makes the perfect hinge for a mitered corner this perma bond DT 500 is a perfectly clear epoxy adhesive and is incredibly strong so it's ideal for creating a blast light mitered corner with these eye pieces now plumb securely in position we'll leave this glue to cure for a few hours now that the adhesives cured we can remove the tape to end handsome protect this natural finish that we've got to the wood we're simply going to use Danish oil this will also help to seal the wood prior to that final polish of the resin follow the application instructions for your chosen finish we're now at the very final stage of the project we just need to polish this glass cast resin to a high gloss to reveal the amazing clarity I'm using this PI crystal nw1 polishing compound which is intended specifically for hard plastics like epoxy providing that you did a good job with the abrasive paper it shouldn't take long with a power polisher to bring the glass cast rêveur up to a full gloss so there we have it our finished resume River table this has been a really fun project and the glass cast 50 is given as this stunning result so if you've got a similar project in mind head down to your local timber merchant and order you glass casts 50 online almost all the materials used in this project are available from the ez composites website for worldwide delivery if you'd like even more in-depth information use the link on screen to download a free full version of the resin River table handbook

Channel: undefined

Views: 2,166,084

Rating: 4.8939114 out of 5

Keywords: river, table, epoxy, clear, casting, glasscast, glass, cast, wood, furniture, tutorial, instructions, live edge, waney edge

Id: tTu8WkBdKbA

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Bodom0511]

Thumbnail suggests the buffer he’s using WAS his arm. Disappointed.

[u/unfknreal]

The way he writes '9' bothers me for some reason

[u/SC2sam]

I liked it but I didn't like the gap that happened with the epoxy on the legs. Was too visible for my liking. The cut also seemed wobbly but maybe that was the angle of it or something.

[u/Sbbike]

Are the legs strong enough with just the epoxy holding them? I feel like a dowel or biscuit would make it much sturdier.

[u/veriix]

Brought to you by GlassCast® 50 haha, very interesting video!

[u/GoldenGonzo]

I loved the video, but make no mistake, this was an advertisement.

[u/pilot_error]

Man, he makes it look so easy. I’d have bubbles galore, and end up with about a quarter of the epoxy on my clothes and in my hair.

[u/gurenkagurenda]

He said you have to strip the bark off so that you don't add any weakness, but I wonder if you could just drill some holes through the bark and into the wood instead, so that the resin would essentially form pegs.

[u/deeezwalnutz]

The entire video dude was super meticulous and then at the end he finishes the table with a simple and sloppy naked miter joint? Aside from the massive gap he left, structurally I wouldn't trust any real weight on that table. Not familiar with this guys videos, but I can't help but think if he was a legit woodworker he would've incorporated some awesome and strong joints on those legs.