I Tried Epoxy Resin for the First Time… Beginner Tips and Tricks

hey i'm at today i'm going to try to make charcuterie boards with epoxy and walnut i'm going to tell you what i learned along the way and i'm going to show you the finished products i'm going to tell you all the tips and tricks i've learned as well as how much you can sell these for let's go so i'm using charcuterie kits from old olog and sawmill he sells these charcuterie kits by the eight pack where you can get eight of these boards and then you can cut them in half and use half or make up to 16 charcuterie kits mixed with epoxy or more likely use them as river table or river charcuterie boards so that you get this nice river effect for this project you will need a few things to get started but once you get them you should be able to reuse them multiple times and to be able to make your money back pretty quick i purchased this mold from ohani artesians it's a plastic mold it's reusable what's great about this mold specifically is has clamps to hold the boards down which if you don't know epoxy is basically a water consistency so wood will actually float up if you don't hold it down some way this one is from crafted elements and what's great about this one it's silicone you put some type of weight on top of it to hold your boards down if you go to crafted elements.com you'll see all their different various shapes you get them charcuterie shapes you can get them in a rectangle shape like this it's just super easy to do so let's go through this let me show you how to do this what i learned along the way if you stick around to the end i'll give you a power tip i picked this piece because it has this nice knot in there a couple of holes we can fill that with epoxy too and i think it'll kind of give it a cool look we're going to cut it about 20 and a half inches long and then we'll clean up these edges [Music] before you put any wood into the molds you need to make sure you're using some type of mold release agent for the plastic mold the honey mold i'm going to be using this honey wax mold release agent it's more like a paste wax type thing wipe it in there wipe it on all the parts and pieces that go with that mold for the silicone mold i'm actually using a spray mold that was recommended by crafted elements and both of these mold releases are available on amazon if you're interested in any of the supplies that you see used today to build these epoxy boards including the wood i'll put links in the description below so you can check them out for yourself one thing that i like about this oh honey i don't know how to say that or horny artesians is it has these little levels right there and you know if you're working with epoxy it's basically in a water consistency it creates a lot less work on you if the pour is level when you go to finishing your board later but these feet on the bottom are adjustable so you can actually unscrew those a little bit and level that up there's one on the side and there's also one on the end [Music] what's great about epoxy is you can mix and match all kinds of colors i like the fact that old logging has these kits available that has samples of all of his colors they call them samples but i've made five so far and i still have probably a hundred boards left i mean there's so many colors in here uh different blues and black silver white there's just a lot of combinations you can play with with your kit so according to a calculator i found online i'm going to need 74 ounces of epoxy to go in that pour so we're going to use these measuring cups they have two to one ratio which we have to put two parts of a one part of b we'll mix it up put this color in there and make the pour and see what happens i used about half of this jar for that it's gonna be a really big charcuterie board though so that's a positive i guess walnut stir stick just because i'm going to stir these more i'm going to stop the camera so you don't have to sit there and watch me i mixed each one for two minutes over two minutes each and it's that way i get them good and mixed up make sure to scrape the sides the bottom now the whole line and get them all stirred up you can see here they're really clear and they have a few bubbles but i think that's gonna be okay this should be it should go away gonna be using this deep blue color how much do you put in each one there's no science to this as far as i can tell you just put in enough color to get the desired effect the more you put in the darker it'll be less clear the less you put in the more clear it will be now you don't want this clumped up so we're going to start this a while too [Music] check that out so i've let this dry i poured this on a friday and today's monday so saturday sunday and then monday it's i'm pretty sure it's set so the look is absolutely beautiful i love this blue mixed with this walnut of course when we plane this down we're going to see more of the walnuts it's going to contrast a lot more now kind of giving my thoughts of what i'm feeling right now i'm worried these blocks are going to be stuck in there because it's epoxy's pretty deep on them and i don't know how to get those out of there at all did i mess up no check that whoa it just come right out that's golly it's an eighth inch thick and this pops right out of there putting this on there really made a big difference i think now i'm supposed to be able to just take this end off then take this out of the form that's all right all right time to unmold the one in the silicone mold these are just 10-pound weights i put that tyvek tape on there to keep them from sticking now to unmold it all you do for the silicone mold is just pull it away from the sides a little bit and if you sprayed it correctly it should come right out super easy now we can run that through the planer and see the final result [Music] out of the two moles this one is by far the crafted elements is by far the easiest to remove what's great about these specifically is now all i have to do is wash this with a little mild soap and water and it's ready to reuse again all you do is use this mold release spray and then you're ready to put your new pieces of wood in there and pour some more epoxy it's that easy when these come out of the mold what's awesome about this is the bottom is already flat because the bottom of that mold is flat so you put this side down whenever you send it through the planer it's going to flatten the top once you see that it's all consistent on the top as far as being flattened or the planar marks are all the way across there then you flip it over and run this side through a couple of times till all of this is even all the way across both sides will be perfectly flat every time unmolding on this one's quite a bit different and it's a little more difficult as far as getting it out of the mold you saw earlier where i hit the blocks and knocked these off they come out pretty easy one thing to note when you unmold this it does take a little finagling to get something in there to break that seal and then to pop it out once you break the seal it comes right out when you put this back on all you need to do is screw that back on and check that gasket on the end if it's still intact you're good to go you don't have to put any silicone or anything like that on there it's totally reusable one thing to note on the ohani mold is if you take all of the screws loose in other words take one end all the way off and then just unloosen the rest of those screws and kind of break it free then all of that wood comes out of there much much easier than the way you saw me do it previously couple of compare and contrast on the two different types of molds i'm using i really do love the fact that these are so easy to unmold and the fact that you can get them in different shapes what i like about this ohani one is that you have all of these options to hold your work down so you don't have to worry about putting weights or anything like that on there and this self levels with those feet so you don't have to worry about that so on the top edge of the boards i'm using an eighth inch roundover bit and that just softens the top of that board so that it's not doesn't have that sharp edge and i also use that eighth inch round over on the corners on the bottom of the boards i'm using a chamfer bit just to give it a little definition so that when it's setting on the table or on the counter then you'll be able to kind of see it has a little definition to it polishing pad and polishing compound i want to put these handles on each end to make this like a serving tray i'm nervous man because if i mess this up right now oh my goodness so what i've done was i marked an inch in from the ends and then into the center where this would be you know centered perfectly such as that so you saw me put mineral oil on there first now i'm just going to go back and wipe some oaties on there i'll probably put some outlaws board butter on the on the final coat just to seal it up the reason you want to put some type of finish on top like board butter this is one you can always go back and recondition this with board butter but two it has that wax in there it's made with yellow beeswax and mineral oil the oil is going to help condition the wood and then the beeswax basically gives it like a almost like a hard shell kind of like think about it like wax in your car just lengthens the life of your boards and just gives it more protection now i'm going to put these handles on it's best to use stainless steel screws for this application so i'm just snugging it up with this and then i'll tighten it barely tighten it with a screwdriver i don't want to over tighten those so what did i learn when making these and what can you sell these for to make up for the cost of all this stuff what i learned was it's not that hard it just takes a little bit of time and a little patience on your part if you have patience and a place to put these out of the way for a few days then you'll be gold and you can just keep batching these out because there doesn't take long to finish them once they come out of the mold what i did learn on the blue or the black or the darker colors is you don't need to step through all those grits all the way up to 2000 grit or whatever i was doing on the first one all you have to do is go up to about 300 grit even 220 i believe this one was just 320 and then i used the polishing compound just to kind of smooth out the any roughness on the epoxy that was left which was very little so how much do these sell for well it depends on the size the type of wood you're using and the more exotic woods obviously you can charge a little more because those woods cost more this is walnut and what i charge for these is we're gonna start these at 185 dollars shipped i believe is what this 731 put them on the website for now if you look on etsy they're similarly priced i believe old logging sells his for a similar price and so this about what you're going to be able to sell these for and they are just beautiful beautiful pieces that people can use on the counter or use the serving trays decorations things like that now i have a lot of questions on can you cut on these i personally wouldn't cut on these because of the epoxy it's just not really what it's meant for for one it's going to get all scarred up and there's really no way to fix it once you cut into it these are serving trays charcuterie boards they're not cutting boards if you want to make a cutting board then i would suggest not using epoxy you know what time it is power tip time so the power tip today is don't be afraid to try new things i'm having tons of fun with these things and yeah they cost a lot the the epoxy costs the molds cost i understand that but you can make that cost back up by selling these at a premium price over what you can sell regular cutting boards or charcoal boards for because it costs you more but also because they're so beautiful and unique looking so don't be afraid to put yourself out there invest in your business if that's something you want to do and can do just give it a try also these make amazing gifts if you like this video you should check out my other charcoal board video that only uses wood very simple easy project click that box right there to go watch that click in the box get you the big old virtual fist bump also an easy cutting board video right there

Channel: 731 Woodworks

Views: 62,507

Keywords: epoxy resin, epoxy resin art, epoxy diy, epoxy cutting board, epoxy cutting board diy, cutting board diy, resin cutting board diy, epoxy and wood, epoxy and wood cutting boards, deep pour epoxy, river table boards, epoxy river boards, live edge epoxy, live edge epoxy color, how to make live edge epoxy, epoxy charcuterie board, epoxy resin molds, epoxy mold, epoxy silicone mold, epoxy uhmw mold, crafted elements, Ahonui Artisans, resin art, colored epoxy

Id: KFnZHaqMopE

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 16 2022