So you want to do an epoxy finish? DO THIS Instead | End Table Build

what's up guys in this video I'm going to be making a end grain end table out of black walnut and I may or may not be putting a finish on it not liking it scraping it off and putting a new different finish on it first things first just gonna get this piece all cleaned up you get all the loose bark off of the Live Edge and get all the dirt and debris out of the middle there [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] so here I'm just sealing up the end grain with epoxy I did a few coats of this this just kind of helps to stabilize the wood and I'm using deep poor epoxy to do this [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so now I'm just attaching a piece of melamine to the underside of this piece [Music] using caulk and then Brad nails and I clamp it too kind of Overkill but I didn't want to have any leaks and one thing I did forget was mold release so that becomes an issue later [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so I added one drop of black dye to kind of make the color pop a little more it ended up being like a whitish reddish color I thought it contrasted with the wood pretty well but you guys let me know what you think of this color and now by far my least favorite part of this project trying to get this mold off if you're thinking about making an epoxy project like this just make sure you use mold release I've forgotten mold release so many times and it turns into such a mess foreign [Music] that I made I got the linear rails off of Amazon I think I spent like 200 in total building this and it works really well so if you guys are interested in how I put this together or you want to find the products I'll leave a description leave links to all the parts in the description thank you [Music] the router slug got this thing perfectly flat but it left kind of a rough finish so I'm just starting off with my card scraper here and then I come in with the belt sander [Music] so I cut all this out because I didn't want to waste your guys's time but I sanded with the random orbit sander 80 120 180 220 and water pop between each Grit [Music] um here I have deep pore epoxy this is going to be the first layer of the Finish once again this deep pore is just better for getting deep in the grain of the wood this is just kind of like a base layer for the Finish I'll be doing a tabletop epoxy coat after this [Music] all right in order to make this less confusing I rearranged the order from how I did it to how I showed it in this video but the order really doesn't matter what I'm doing here is sealing up the bottom of this piece with tabletop epoxy a tabletop epoxy is harder and because I'm doing a shellac finish on the bottom I just wanted to put one coat down and then I'm basically going to sand this entire coat off and then put the finish on [Music] oh [Music] so here I'm putting that bottom side through my drum sander and I'm basically just taking that tabletop finish off basically all that tabletop finish did was help seal up the grain and that sap wood in the Middle where it's wider that part of the wood was super soft so now it's all hardened so first I'm just putting a homemade shellac finish around the outside of the slab on the Live Edge and then here I am putting it on the bottom I'll leave a link to the shellac that I use I just buy shellac flakes and mix them with denatured alcohol it definitely takes a little bit of practice to get used to putting it on by hand but if you take your time you could get a really nice finish with this so between each application I'll do a really light sanding at 320 grit and then I'll dilute the solution with denatured alcohol and then do another coat [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so after scraping and sanding the top side of this piece down I got the epoxy sanded to 320 grit and then I did another layer of epoxy but this time I did tabletop epoxy so once this cures I'll be sanding it down and polishing it and this will be my finish or at least that was the plan [Music] thank you [Music] thank you thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you so at this point I thought the piece was looking pretty good I was at the second step in my polishing process and then I noticed some little micro bubbles in the Finish there I don't know how those got there if it was from pouring the epoxy and not getting all the bubbles out but you can see him it might be kind of hard to tell on camera but I was looking at the bottom side of this piece with the shellac and I was like I should just do the whole piece with this so that's what I did I took it over to my drum sander and sanded off all that epoxy finish so I think in the end this is the right decision I've tried to do an epoxy finish quite a few times now and I've never had great luck with it I don't know what I'm doing wrong if you guys have any idea please let me know in the comments I'd be happy to try out any new steps in the process I think just when I poured the epoxy somehow all the bubbles didn't get out it's really hard to tell after you pour it because the Finish is so glossy you really can't see the micro bubbles until you start polishing but I think the shellac ended up working out really good it really makes the epoxy pop and it's a very strong finish so this is the first coat and I always do the first coat with a very concentrated solution so not a lot of denatured alcohol and I'll put it on with a foam brush and then each layer I'll just start adding a little bit more denatured alcohol to the solution which dilutes it a little bit it makes it go on easier but you're basically just trying to build up one perfect layer you're not putting coats on and then here I'm putting on the Nano coat by Blacktail Studio it's a ceramic finish and that just helps protect the shellac finish [Music] but yeah here's the piece all finished up let me know what you guys think of the shellac finish and if you know of anything that I did wrong with the epoxy please let me know because I've been struggling with it I haven't really gotten an absolutely perfect finish with epoxy yet and this piece is available to purchase on my website burnswoodshop.com so if you're interested go ahead and check that out let me know what you guys want me to build next and please comment like And subscribe thank you again so much [Music] oh [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: BruceBurns Woodshop

Views: 723,630

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Id: IKvSlQi2EJk

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2023