How to SAND and TOP COAT Epoxy Resin

hi everyone welcome back to my channel i hope you are all doing well this video is a continuation of the last video where you saw me make these flower coasters now this is a requested video on how to sand and top coat your resin well it's more like how do i sand and top coat my resin because everyone is so different and you will find your own way of doing it and that will be your preferred way so the main reason you would top coat your items really is if there's any imperfections on the surface if you've got those my new bubbles on the surface or if you wanted them to be heat proof if you are selling your products if you're selling your coasters as heat proof able to take a hot drink then you really need to top coat them with a heat proof resin not all resins are heat proof honestly i would recommend resins that can take over 100 degrees if you're gonna sell them on another bit of advice would be if you are top coat in your resin to sell it as a heat proof coaster you really want to hold on to it for three weeks before you place heat on top this is something that resin companies recommend and also if you're selling it to a customer before that period put a note in there let them know not to put a hot drink on the surface for at least three weeks after they've received the product another reason why resin companies recommend you put a top coat of clear resin on your coasters if you're selling them on as heat proof is because anything you put into your resin whether it's dyes mica powders inks pigment pastes anything like that can have a detrimental effect on the heat proofness of the resin so if i was just going to make maybe four plain blue coasters that would no longer be that heat proof because the mic is in there so you really want to get your heat proof resin and put a top coat on just for added safety okay understanding i am a recent i'm a recent believer in sanding if you've watched any of my previous videos i've always said no i don't sand i don't feel the need to sand and honestly the resin takes the takes the top coat quite happily without the need to sand in between however after speaking to a couple of fellow crafters fellow resin artists they really did convince me the reason for sanding and that reason is a it produces a better finish and b it actually grips the resin that you're putting on top the top coat grips better if the surface underneath is sanded honestly guys i was just lazy i was like oh can't be bothered to sand it's just so much aggravation but again if you are selling your product it really is the best route to go when you top coat sometimes you will see the resin pulls in from the edges and this is really common i've had this happen so so many times you really want to pour enough so that it goes to the edges and stays at the edges but if you sand first it will do that because it's got a grippy surface to cling on to and it's less likely to pull away from the edges and come back into the center of your piece okay how do i sand now there's a few ways of sanding everyone will be doing it differently but for me i use wet dry sandpaper you can find this on amazon it will be linked down below this is waterproof sandpaper i prefer this because i'm standing indoors the water will keep the dust down if you want to use a big hand sander if you've got a massive piece a massive table top something like that you really want to do it outside or in a huge working space and you want to make sure you've got your respirator on your glasses everything you want to make sure you're fully protected i'm wearing my gloves i will be putting my mask on for when the time comes to sand because i'm doing it indoors i'm using a waterproof sandpaper this is going to keep the dust to a minimal so i'm just going to add some water into the middle of this and start sanding now what grit you use is entirely up to you and what you're using it for now if you've got a massive project on the go and you really need to get that surface off you really want to start with a much lower grit this is a 1200 grit because i really just want to scratch the surface enough to take a top coat i don't want to take away any air bubbles i'm not trying to take away any imperfections or blemishes i really just want to scratch the surface so for me this 1200 grit is going to work perfectly if you've got really bad air bubbles that you really want to get rid of you have to take some resin off so you want to go much lower you could even start with 100 grit 120 or 240 and start that low and then work your way up to a much finer grit like a 1200 or even a 2000 if you wanted to you could go all the way up to 10 000 even more grit you won't even need a top coat at that point because the 10 000 grit will actually make it shine yeah like a diamond so the grit you use is really up to you i'm just letting you know for real simple cosmetic purposes i'm using a 1200 wet dryer i've seen i have seen people drill down into their resin to release air and that is also something you can do and yeah so much can be done so right here you can see the difference between one that has been sanded and one that hasn't been sanded and honestly you can even get this to be way more opaque to the point where you cannot see anything inside and the resin will still bring it back to life i've only given these a light sand you can see here it's just really really foggy it's got like a yeah a sanded surface really um and this is one that has not been sanded so you can see the difference there so the next thing i'm gonna do is sand all four and then we're gonna give them a protective back coat after i had finished sanding them all i just gave them a wipe down with a wet wipe um and it it does make it look like the the brightness is coming back but the brightness does not stay and then i make sure that i give them all a thorough dry with some paper towel and especially the back because the back is what we are working on next so another question i've had is why why do we seal the back we seal the back to protect the back from any resin resin sticks to resin now i i do try my best to keep the resin not going over the edge and we know that resin never goes where resin has never been sometimes my surfaces are not flat that's another thing you need um very rare in this house do we get a flat surface but if some does go over the edge i will know that i've protected the back and therefore the resin will not drip over the side and travel underneath resin doesn't drip over the side and drip off because resin likes to play with us that way so resin will spill over the side really slowly sit here travel a little way inland and end up around about here on your coaster you will end up with drips all the way around if you do not protect your backs that will mean another half an hour to an hour of trying to sand those off because resin sticks to resin what can we use to protect the backs that is entirely and utterly up to you guys i do prefer liquid latex this stuff smells so bad but it is a dream to work with and i have never had a problem using liquid latex on the back lots of people recommended that i try pva glue i tried it i still prefer latex so again it's up to you guys to try the method that you prefer the best if this coaster was square or a really easy shape i would use masking tape and simply cut away the edges but the edge on this there's absolutely no way i'm going to use masking tape because that will take me probably half an hour just to cut the excess tape off this is the liquid latex i use it is linked down below it was quite a big bottle and i think it was about 17 or 18 pounds so not cheap there are cheaper out there but this is so huge i feel like it's going to last me quite a long time all i'm going to do is pour some onto here make sure it goes to all of the edges and i'm filling this space i'm not leaving any gaps just in case so when you saw on the screen earlier i said that latex is easy to control it doesn't self-level or spread which means it would just sit there it's it's not going to move until i move it which makes it really really easy to push it to the edges it doesn't go over the edges like i'm not even being particularly careful it's just so good it behaves so well because it doesn't spread and the air bubbles are there because i gave the bottle a shake but i'm really not concerned about the air bubbles it won't take away the effect that the latex is gonna have so yeah i fully recommend it everyone has got something that they love to work with so you just have to find your own your own thing but yeah latex i just carry on i do all four i'm not going to show you all four because that's going to be incredibly boring but we do cut to a clip now where we see all four done and then it's just a case of waiting until they dry so this is four hours later the latex is dry and i've raised all the coasters up off the table you don't want them resting flat on a surface you want them raised they are all sitting on plastic cups and this is where the magic happens oh i just love this part i absolutely love this part seeing everything underneath come to life again is the best moment the bubbles will be torched out so we can all see thousands of bubbles here but they will be torched and i'm gonna get poetic and let you enjoy the rest before i talk again [Music] [Music] [Music] okay that's enough i really just don't want you guys all falling asleep on me so check me out with my with my music and film skills i got quite good that day um yeah so next step all you want to do is pour the resin into the center of your piece don't try to even pour it near the edge because what will happen that i've covered in a previous top coating video it will just pour off the edge you want it in the center allow it to run out by itself and if you can see that it's running too fast you need to try and slow it down the trick is don't put too much in the middle put some in the middle ease it out to the edges this is what you see me doing here i'm just using my silicon stick and i also use a lollipop stick just to tease it out to the edges and allow it to stay there before you really kind of move on slowly does it that's the key and i i have had messages from people saying i've tried what you i've tried what you said but it's still flying off my only advice there would be either you've poured too much your resin is way too runny let your resin sit for longer or your surfaces are severely not flat my surfaces are not flat guys if i put a spirit level they are off they are not massively massively off but they are not a hundred percent ideal the point is if you go slowly really slowly and you don't pour too much the resin doesn't go off the edge now i don't know at this point i'm doing this voiceover before i've even checked the results today i don't know if any resin has gone off at the edge of mine but i do know that i i tried really hard on these ones guys to to get that resin to stop at the edges so after i have got the resin to the edges and i'm quite happy i go ahead and torch them what you do need when you torch them is gas i'd run out of gas so yeah there's a bit of a pause here where i go and fill it back up look at this using the drags honestly what a shocker now i'm full of gas so now i can actually go and um torch the top and i can already see dimples occurring so i go in just into the center and i add a little bit more resin but not too much and hope and pray that that does not push the rest over the edge i go on to do the same with all of the coasters they are on plastic cups now the silicon is almost sticking to the plastic cups which really gives me this handy platform to be able to spin the coaster around knowing that that coaster is not going anywhere because the plastic and the silicon have created a really strong bond and yeah i was i was really really happy that this had happened it was unintentional but it was it was just one of those things now i don't know if you can see here i'm using the lollipop stick but i'm pulling into the center of the resin into the center of the coaster so i'm tapping the edge pulling it back into the center can you see that and i'm doing that over and over and over if you pull it out then you're going to create a channel for that resin to drip off and yeah it really worked really really well and i'm happy at this point it's got like a dome on there if you don't want this doming effect then of course you can do a flood coat or you can put less on i would just be careful putting less on you've got a chance that it will drag away from the edges in this one you see see that oh claire honestly now i got my lollipop stick from the cup to go and start spreading this out of course it dripped it dripped but it dripped in the most awkward place because that then created a channel on the coaster over the edge for that resin to run off if you've seen my last video on top coating i didn't do both in one video i just did top coating i didn't do sanding and top coating if there's a channel for your resin to run off it will run off which is why you really don't want to touch the edges you don't want what i just did there you want to make sure that is wiped completely dry otherwise the resin will just follow it off the cliff literally dive straight off the edge of the coaster so i needed to make sure that where i just dripped that was utterly dry before i carried on and i'm just doing the same thing again so i'm just turning the cup with my left hand using the lollipop stick with my right hand and just making sure all of those edges are covered and that is it guys it's a case of going slowly torching everything got a good torch to get rid of those air bubbles and yeah slowly does it i can't emphasize that enough if your resin is too runny let it sit for 10 minutes let it thicken up if your surfaces are severely uneven even the thickest resin will run off so it's just perseverance check your methods and hopefully yeah it will work for you but we're going to come back 24 hours time and peel that latex off so here i am back to peel the backs off now this has not been 24 hours this has only been i want to say 12 hours 13 hours since i've pulled the top coat now the top coat is set but there's a danger for fingerprints so you want to make sure you're wearing your gloves the only reason i'm doing it so soon is because this has been a two three day video so i haven't got the time to wait any longer because it's due out tonight so there you go secrets behind the scenes but yeah i've got my gloves on and i'm going to avoid touching the top so that i do not get any marks on there it is fairly set but you just need to be careful what i'm doing at this point is just using my lollipop stick to peel off the latex i was so impressed the first one i looked at had absolutely no drip offs i was so happy probably my best top coating job to date and there is the latex the second one i already knew this had dripped off because i could see some on the um shower curtain that i use so i was just waiting to see what the damage was underneath and it was just one little drop so yeah again happy with that sometimes i'm not so lucky if one drop drops off then the rest drop off you know what i mean and i end up with a cascade of drips underneath but the latex takes this off like a dream right like that it's absolutely just the best for me honestly and it's nice and thick which is what i like about latex the third one again i've got one single drip impressed with my skills i'm not gonna lie this is the best top coating i've done ever and that's probably because i was filming it i'm not gonna lie i was going super super slowly but there you go really easy to come off no issues at all whatsoever the final one not a single drip so i was again 50 on it this time only 50 went wrong but it didn't go too wrong you know and that's what the latex is for so here you go a little bit of peeling asmr i feel like singing a bit of barry white at this moment but i won't and there you go and there you go i hope this video it is a long one guys it's 19 minutes long so if you've made it this far congratulations you're amazing and thank you so much i am going to finish these coasters off with some rubber feet i'm not going to do it just yet but these are the dots i use and i'm going to put some feet on each coaster in about two days time and uh yeah everything is linked down below including the feet and i hope you've loved it i am really happy with the way these turned out i'm happy i took my time i'm happy i went slowly and i only got two drip offs so if you've lasted this long you're amazing thank you so much for everything and i will see you all in the next video bye [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Claire’s Crafty Corner

Views: 9,711

Keywords: how to top coat resin, how to sand resin, how to sand and top coat resin, how to get a perfect glossy top coat, sanding and top coating, how to top coat, how to topcoat, resin top coating tutorial, easy resin top coat tutorial, how to sand and finish resin, resin top coat tutorial, how do i top coat resin, top coating with resin, how to top coat my resin, top coating coasters, top coating video, top coating tutorial, easy top coating video, how to use resin

Id: wVI4Qwxm51w

Length: 20min 45sec (1245 seconds)

Published: Sat May 08 2021