How To Polish Epoxy Resin & Get Glass-Like Results With Mirka Deros Sander

[Music] what's up guys it's cass from somalinco welcome back to my youtube channel in today's video i am taking this perfectly polished piece sanding it down and then sanding it back up and showing you guys how i polish resin before we get started i want to encourage you guys to please subscribe to my channel i am slowly growing on this platform so every time you guys subscribe it means the world to me i also want to remind you that this is just my way of polishing there are many ways to do so but i'm happy with my results and happy to be able to share them with you [Music] so for this demonstration i will be using the mercadero sander along with the marca dust extractor i will be starting with grits 120 180 240 360 400 500 600 000 2000 3000 4001 used 4000 for polishing for polishing i will be using the merka polar shine i have the 35 i can honestly say that i have never used any other polar shine but the 35 seems to work great and then i'll be finishing it with walrus oil cutting board oil and wood wax for cutting boards so once again i will be starting with 120 grit and because i am not wet sanding yet i will be able to use my dust extractor once i do start wet sanding i will no longer be using the dust extractor all right so let's get started with the sanding so this right here is real time and this is how slowly you should be sanding you have an orbital sander for a reason so you want to go nice and slow let the orbital do its job another important step is to wipe the board clean with either some water or some alcohol between each grit to make sure that the board is nice and clean before you move up to the next grit now there are times that i go back over with the same grit after wiping it clean and this apparently was one of them so i'm just going back over this with the 120 before i move up to 180 and then again you want to wipe clean and move up to 180. so you probably noticed but i am using two different kinds of pads from mirka one is a brunette one is abralon don't quote me on the pronunciation but i will link both of these below again i'm going back and forth between the two depending on the grits that they offer and i do want to mention that when you are cleaning between grits you want to try to minimize the amount of water that gets on the wood as much as you possibly can and this also goes for when we start wet sanding as well so the hardest part about polishing is avoiding all the swirl marks from your sandpaper so to avoid these you want to make sure you have nice light pressure on your piece you don't want to push your sander down into your piece you don't want to put too much pressure on one side or the other by angling your sander again nice even pressure to avoid those swirl marks now this is especially important when you are working with the lower grits um especially if you start with an 80 grit and they're more coarse of a grit so it's more likely to leave those swirl marks but more than likely you will notice these swirls come out when you move up to the next grit which is 360. so as you can see here everything is looking very smooth so i'm gonna get ready to move up to 360. this is actually when i'm going to start wet sanding so i'm going to detach the hose from the dust extractor so we can start the wet sanding process for my water i actually like to place the water into a bowl first and then i add a little bit of soap like dawn dish soap this just helps add a little bit of lubrication and i use the bowl that way i can just apply the water with my hands and i have a little bit more control of where the water is going again you want to make sure you're minimizing the amount of water that gets onto the wood so i find that using my hands gives me a little bit more control versus using like a squirt bottle so once again i am going to be speeding up this video for the sake of time if i didn't it would probably be an hour and a half video it is definitely a long process but you have to take your time as i speed up i do want you to remember those few things that i mentioned in the beginning and that is to go slow and also make sure you are wiping off between grits again i want to point out that if you are noticing swirl marks now it is time to start over so anytime i see swirl marks at about 360 which is usually when they start to come out i will go back and start over either with 120 and if i'm still struggling to get rid of them i will have to go back down to 80 and then work my way back up that's why again those lower grits are super important to go nice and slow because you really want to eliminate any of those swirl marks that you might have made with a lower grit as i mentioned before in this case since we are working with resin and wood you want to avoid adding too much water this is why you'll see me going back and adding more water in between sanding i will sand until it dries up and then add more water if you are working with a piece that has a flood coat over top of it you can use as much water as you want but again when working with wood you want to avoid adding too much water right about now is when i start to notice those clearer results but we are not quite too crystal clear so we gotta keep going i'm sanding with four thousand and next up i'll be sanding with a used 4000 grit instead of a polisher so again using the mirka polarshine the 35 i usually just wipe it around and then i do the same thing nice and slow and i will also go back and add more and do the same thing over again [Music] so that is actually a wrap for the polishing portion i will just use a microfiber cloth to clean off any excess and then you see these super crystal clear results they're actually so crystal clear that you can see all the micro bubbles in this piece which occurred because my work environment was too cold when i poured but now i'm just going to be going back to sand the wood portion i'm using 240 grit and since i am not wet sanding anymore i can hook up back to my dust extractor now obviously i don't want to ruin an hour's worth of work here so i am very careful when i'm sanding the wood portion i just leave a hand over top of the resin area so that i don't accidentally scratch that and then if i don't seem to get close enough i'll just go back and hand sand the very edge of the wood i am also going to flip this over and clean up the backside and prepare for the walrus oil i will make sure the area is nice and clean using microfiber cloth and then i will apply the walrus oil cutting board oil now as satisfying as it is to get those nice crystal clear results with polishing this is actually my favorite part adding that oil and bringing out the grain next to your crystal clear polishing results is really when your piece comes to life the oil completely transforms the piece and really makes it pop not shown in this video once i am done applying the oil i will follow this up with their wood wax which once again completely transforms the piece adding more shine durability and water resistance i will then just clean up the resin portion with a microfiber cloth and you're done i really hope that you guys enjoyed this video if you're still watching thank you so much if you guys have any questions drop them below i will get back to those you can also reach out to me on instagram to ask me questions this is just my personal process i do not claim to be an expert so if you guys have any suggestions for me or other viewers always feel free to do that as well i am here to teach you what i do and what i have learned but i'm also here to learn myself that's how i got into this position is learning from others so again if you guys have any questions suggestions comments whatever drop them below and as always if you are not subscribed already do me a favor and subscribe to my channel watch out for more videos and i hope you guys have a great day and happy making [Music]

Channel: Stonemill & Co

Views: 28,286

Keywords: mirka, Mirka deros, Mirka sander, polishing, polishing resin, polishing epoxy, epoxy resin, how to polish resin, diy, river table, finishing epoxy, stonemill and co, Mirka sand paper

Id: DY7OTx9Fxzc

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2022