Making an Epoxy & Concrete Coffee Table

hey there everyone on this episode I'm really excited to share with you how I created this Arctic erosion coffee table from white concrete and epoxy [Music] this project feels a bit like a culmination of a lot of the processes and materials I've been learning about over the last three to four years as a maker we've got spraying and pouring concrete we've got pouring epoxy we've got woodworking for the base we've got digital fabrication to create the foam form and even a bit of metalworking so there's a lot going on let's get right into it I started out by cleaning off the melamine that I previously used to make my TV lift counter top so I can use it again I often feel guilty about the amount of waste that I generate by doing concrete work so reusing melamine is a small way I can reduce eco footprint up Michael I'd be lying if I said I planned this table is some sort of artistic statement about climate change honestly was just designing something that I thought looked really cool and well I am gonna be dumping about three gallons of plastic into that concrete way but since it looks a bit like a frozen landscape melting away I'll let you read as much or as little symbolism into it as you like and a quick PSA to always adjust your miter sled whenever you change the blade angle or cut side on your mitre slide because this happening it I know this is secondary so I've got all the melamine pieces for the form cut to size and the melamine itself is really pretty simple it's just a box over here we've got what really makes this project unique and that's these foam cutouts that are going to be placed inside of the form now since we're pouring the table upside down pouring the concrete over the foam will create a cavity or recession in the concrete that we can then come back and fill with clear blue epoxy now you can cut these pieces of foam out with a band saw or a jig saw if you like but it's definitely a little easier if you use a CNC I'll have files below that allow you to do it either way for now I'm going to show you how I cut mine out with my inventables excellent I started by using affinity designer to create a 2d sketch of how I wanted the layers to look I then imported the SVG file from the designer into inventables free easel software and easel I separated it out each layer so I could cut the layers individually [Music] the foam cuts really well with a compression bid on the x-carve and it's fast I did a quarter inch deep passes at about sixty inches per minute I used a hundred and fifty grit sanding pad to quickly send off the tabs that would we're holding the piece in place when it was done I then attached one side of the form to the base you'll see why in a minute but I'm going to attach the other three sides after I've glued the foam to the inside of the form to secure the foam I just used some general-purpose spray adhesive I glued the bottom piece to the form first and then glued the layers on one by one to build up the 3d foam knockout shape since the foam knockout is bigger than the bed of the x-carve I decided to make it in two halves and as a result there's a seat I decided to try to fill this seam and smooth it out using a bondo spot putty and we'll just call this a learning experience oh well that experiment there with that bondo putty yeah it's a mess and yeah we're taking it off we're just gonna use some silicone to fill in those gaps this is bad to worse so I think that the putty actually is like disintegrated some of the foam the amount of materials I'm putting in this table I think I've got no choice but to rip up at least most of the layers of foam recut them redo them I don't know if it's gonna be salvageable and look decent I think it's just gonna be quicker to recut yeah there we go fortunately this foam cuts really fast so I was able to remake the foam knock out in a few hours after gluing the new foam knock out in place it was time to seal the partially assembled form I've gone through this process of sealing a melamine form probably a dozen times in my past videos so check out some of those if you want more details for now let's have a little fun with this and see how quickly I through it I apply a Blair page to the melding later on generous layer 100 silicon coal per annum it will fund it both to overall the call Klein's metal fun to ball to it pushes excess caulk to the sides leaves a clean line over the seam and the layer pace Wrexham he's an easy appeal the exercise caulk away one secures they've been a perfect call Klein and that's it for this episode of Kult junk I applied polycrylic to the foam knock out my thought was that the polycrylic would make the foam easier to remove from the concrete later on once the caulk on the foam knock out had cured it was time to assemble the rest of the form and are just using drywall screws to do this you may be wondering why it is that I didn't just dissemble and caulk the entire box for the format once after all it's just a box it would have made accessing the foam knock out really difficult it made it much tougher to caulk it and seal it this time I'll try something that's never been performed in the world of concrete a Jackman style caulk removal one two three now it's time for a concrete project tradition here dextra fication of the shop with plastic over everything as always i'm using fish stone glass fiber reinforced concrete mix it's a white mix naturally but this time I'm going to add some white concrete pigment to make it ultra white one thing when you're mixing GF RC is pretty important is to put the water and first at about 80% of the water first then add the concrete mix then mix it and then add the rest of the water slowly till you get to the right sort of soupy pancake batter consistency [Music] too much water will weaken the concrete so if the recommended amount of water isn't enough I had a plasticizer instead of more water to get to that pancake batter consistency okay so that's a really good consistency just yeah like falls off that leaves a little thin layer on there that means it's gonna cling to the sides of the form but be really thin which is exactly what we want and that's perfect I then loaded up my hopper spray gun to spray the thin beauty coat I started by spraying with the form oriented vertically so that it was easier to coat the tiered foam knockout [Music] we then place the form horizontally in the ground so I could more easily spray the rest of the form some of the professional concrete folks on Instagram advised me to spray in a u pattern pointing towards the portion of the form that is already covered in concrete to avoid sand particles getting on the unsprayed surface I'm going to leave the links to those Instagram accounts in the description you should definitely check them out for more concrete inspiration and knowledge after spraying we brushed the face coat with the chip brush just to be sure there were no trapped air bubbles by the way that other guy you've been seeing is the one and only Shawn Boyd this project overlapped with another one that he and I were collaborated on and he wanted to try mixing up some concrete should definitely check out Shawn's YouTube channel he makes some pretty amazing modern furniture here Shawn had a go at mixing up the GF RC back coat and adding glass fibers to it we use the same mix as the face coat but with less water and no plasticizers so it would be a thicker play-doh like consistency this allowed us to hand pack the concrete into the form and up the vertical walls without any back form to support it [Music] once the first layer was hand-packed against the face coat we added a mesh made out of the same alkali resistant glass fibers this AR mesh add strengthen also helps to keep slumping on the vertical surfaces to a minimum hand packing this table was a grueling task that took a few hours in total we did four thin back coats building up slowly until the concrete was 3/4 inch thick on the verticals Shaun commented that this felt a little like being a sculptor with clay and we'd seen find out that there was more to the sculptor analogy than we realized I usually try to scrape the excess concrete off the top edges at six to nine hours after pouring when it's semi hard but timing just didn't allow for it this time I started trying to wet grind with an angle grinder but quickly realized that dust storm would blind us well before we could finish so he took a couple chisels and started chiseling for over an hour as we laboured we felt a bit like Michelangelo's assistants doing part of the grunt work so he could come back and shape certain important parts of the David later once most of the edge was chiseled off I could then use an angle grinder to grind the edges perfectly level with the form for a clean crisp bottom edge to the table and then we evacuated the shop while the air filter did its work on the dust cloud before we remove it from the melamine it's time to address how we're going to attach the hollow table to the base since I plan on having it inset from the table edges the solution we came up with was to make cross support pieces from one inch steel tube so I cut these two lengths using my angle grinder because we don't have a flat surface to work here we've had to get a little bit creative and since I had Shawn and he's a fine woodworker what what do we do here shot this is some of some of our best work I think bunch of a bunch of two by fours and some use liquid nails fuse it basically we're going to make some bridges that that we can then set a wood base on top of that will support this whole thing it ain't pretty in here but hopefully the outside will make up for it we used a drill press to create quarter inch holes on the bottom sides of the tubes and to drill larger holes on top of the teeth [Music] the larger hole on top allows the entire quarter inch bolt including a half inch head to be inserted into the tube so it can be bolted to the lumber view of the smaller quarter inch holes on the other side of the tube [Music] [Music] having someone else around in the shop we had some fun doing Slough removal races while team ultimate for the record I would have won if I didn't have more screws on my side I swear [Music] after removing the melamine we used some chisels to remove the foam knockout and then we could get our first sneak peek at this topographical reservoir we've created for the upcoming epoxy pour however before epoxy we've got a little more work to do some of the foams stuck to the concrete a bit more than expected I think I should have put another layer or two of polycrylic on it and probably use some form relief spray however in the end it really wasn't a big deal since I figured out that a scotch pad and a chisel could be used to remove the excess form it probably took about 30 minutes so I've got a little area right here where something happened to the surface and got a little rough patch but not a big deal we can just do a quick patch up with it with a slurry coat which is just the same GF RC mix that we used for the face coat I let the slurry cure overnight and then came back in wet sanded with 400 grit sanding pads then rinsed the table thoroughly event applied an acrylic sealer to the concrete and while I'll be sanding and sealing again after the epoxy pre sealing now will help prevent any overflow epoxy from bonding the concrete and allow me to chisel off that epoxy more easily I then use silicone and a scrap piece of melamine to seal off the reservoir for the epoxy pour [Music] I've laid down some painters tape to protect the concrete from the epoxy I subsequently found out this was totally unnecessary because the cured epoxy popped right off of the concrete sealer and wax that I'd applied for this project I was excited to try total boats new thick set epoxy I spoke to my friends over at total boat and they done test pores up to two inches thick but I wanted to try to push it a bit further here I started by mixing up the entire 1 and 1/3 gallon kit a fixed set this is by far the largest amount epoxy I've ever mixed it one time and as I was mixing I realized the bucket I had was just big enough for one point three gallons but that meant I wouldn't actually be able to mix it without knocking some out so I quickly grabbed a bigger bucket set a quick prayer and that dumped all those unmixed components into it it worked I had a blue transparent pigment to the epoxy mix thoroughly and then poured most of the epoxy back to a smaller bucket that fit into my vacuum pot using the vacuum pot will pull the majority of the bubbles out of the epoxy and reduce the chances of having bubbles trapped in it I'm told this isn't necessary with thick set but I wanted to do everything that I could to get a clear epoxy for this project and now it's time for that big payoff the epoxy pool [Music] after letting the epoxy sit a few minutes I came back with a torch to pop the few bubbles that weren't removed by the vacuum pop wow that epoxy is curing I'm gonna take a quick moment to answer a question that I know I'm gonna get a bunch and that is how much epoxy is in this table I went ahead and modelled this up in fusion and I can pull that body out here and fusion will actually tell me how much is in there there are there's a little over 4 cubic feet and about 28.8 pounds and that comes out to a little over 3 gallons or 11.5 liters so it's a lot of epoxy when I came back 12 hours later the deep parts that were about two and a half inches thick had hardened completely whereas the shallow parts were still really soft and gooey because they were curing slower i scuffed up the hardened part so that the next layer of epoxy would have something to stick to I ultimately did two more pours to fill it up letting the epoxy cure for 12 hours between pours [Applause] the last layer was poured all the way up to the top of the table the thick set epoxy is really thin compared to other epoxies I've used in the past being thinner means less surface tension which made it much easier to pour the epoxy close to level with the concrete top as I mentioned the tape turned out to be unnecessary some of the epoxy still got on the concrete and I was pleasantly surprised that because I pre sealed and waxed the concrete the cured epoxy popped off really easily with a chisel with no noticeable effect to the concrete surface when I removed the melamine I got another surprise but this one wasn't so Pleasant I'm not sure exactly what happened but since the melamine only stuck to the deepest section that gets the hottest during curing I think the epoxy actually melted the melamine and got into its MDF core it wasn't chiseling off until I discovered that I could use the heat gun trick to soften the epoxy so the melamine could be removed since this video is already long I'm not going to go into too much detail on the sanding and polishing process and some I dry sanded to 240 grit wet sanded the concrete an epoxy to 400 grit with a random orbit sander wet sanded the epoxy to 2,000 grit by hand and then used plastic polish on the epoxy I have a pinned story over an Instagram if you're interested in more details on the polishing process [Music] the bass is just a fairly simple plywood box with a couple dividers that add strength and create storage nooks under the table I made the base significantly smaller than the footprint of the table I'm hoping this inset design will make the bass almost disappear so that the concrete and poxy top will appear to float above the floor assembly with wood glue and my new Metabo HPT cordless finish nailer went really quickly I took the base outside and spray painted it white and with that we're finally done building this table [Music] so we have some bumps along the way but overall I am just ecstatic how this table came out I hope you like it too and if you do make sure to hit that thumbs up button and subscribe and bail if you haven't already and if you like this project make sure to check out my other concrete project videos and epoxy videos but I think you'll enjoy those that's it for this time and I'll see you next time

Channel: Modustrial Maker

Views: 2,210,641

Rating: 4.8653793 out of 5

Keywords: DIY, modern, concrete, how to make, how to, concrete table, concrete coffee table, table, coffee table, diy concrete table, concrete countertop, epoxy, epoxy resin, epoxy pour, resin, epoxy river table, river table, cnc, cnc table, concrete form, diy epoxy table, epoxy table, epoxy coffee table, resin table, how to make a concrete table, modern coffee table, modern table, concrete and epoxy table, ocean table, i like to make stuff, minecraft, minecraft table, gfrc, glass fiber

Id: M1AM5lIyLwo

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2019