Amateur DIY Resin Pour Coffee Table

413x said:
Me too! I want a small ocean style side table! But they are so expensive!
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Mega! But materials so far haven't been. If you discount the "ooo look at the shiny new tool I can buy" side of things, but they'll last and now I have tools, soooo...


Next door at the car garage they have about 20 pallets out the back I see every day. I might ask if I can have them from them for future building things. This would mean I need a bench planer/ leveler thing though... which means I should get one. Jan sales maybe!?
 
Well after pouring it all in the cracks, I needed to level it all out a bit as well on the bottom of the planks. It's snowing like a ******* here and so doing in my house seemed like a good idea. It wasn't :D but hey ho, can sweep up.

I haven't used an electric plane before, watched a load of YT videos to try and help and while I got the base pretty flat, I had one mishap, which I literally watched to avoid, but still did it... I'll explain in pics.

First, I had to make a mold

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Mold check...

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Then I needed to plane the bottom to make the plank on the right flatter on the bottom, but also the top looked a bit messy, so thought I'd do this, too. Should have just left it in hindsight lol

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Looks much better... until you spot the GOUGE in the bottom right corner...



However... it's not THAT deep. And Once the pours are all done, I am going to ask the saw mill to put it through the leveler anyway for a couple of reasons:

1. I don't have one and I want a totally true surface, which is hard to get with a hand electric plane when you're a total n00b
2. Even with my attempts at leveling these planks, I can see that it will still get under the boards, which I don't think I can totally avoid at this point, so will need to be leveled on the bottom anyway.
3. It will no doubt give a better finish for me to then sand progressively to make it as perfect as possible.


I want the best finish I can get so using someone to do that for me seems to make sense. The wood is so thick anyway, it's not like it'll make it thin. The mistake is a few mm deep. Lesson learned.


Next up today:
  1. Test the temps in the garage. Hoping it's about 15c for resin down there.
  2. Clean out the mold, make sure no dust etc.
  3. tape all outer edges of the mold in case leakage
  4. clamp the wood planks down hard to the mold both ends
  5. mix up first pour and YOLO
  6. Use heat gun for air bubbles every 8hrs as it starts to cure

Will do first pour today and leave it 24hours. It won't 100% cure in that time, but tacky enough to take the second pour on top. It might take me 3 on the depth of this I think.

I was super annoyed at myself for that mistake but at the same time, I know it can be rectified and shouldn't make a difference when it's all leveled at the end. Just annoying when you mess up.
 
Ouch, we've all done that! I'm not a huge fan of electric planers but certainly, don't bother surfacing wood that is still being worked. I helped a friend recently build some kids play furniture from pallets. He kept spending time rounding off all the edges on pieces, before we even bolted it together. Just ended up with more work to do finishing the final piece, and also rounding over edges in hidden areas.

As far as the final surfacing goes, I doubt a planer will ever be smooth enough for your satisfaction - either you'll still have to plane it by hand to smooth it, or sand it way more than necessary. I've no idea how resin takes to being planed but probably not fun! The industrial surfacer will definitely work out nicer for your needs. They might even have a sander thicknesser which is better finish and better for resin :)
 
LuckyBenski said:
As far as the final surfacing goes, I doubt a planer will ever be smooth enough for your satisfaction - either you'll still have to plane it by hand to smooth it, or sand it way more than necessary. I've no idea how resin takes to being planed but probably not fun! The industrial surfacer will definitely work out nicer for your needs. They might even have a sander thicknesser which is better finish and better for resin :)
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This is what I'm hoping. The do sell wood that is "finished" wood for building, as well as completely unfinished like I got it, so hoping I can chuck him some $$ for him to do some of the work and I can then sort the sanding through the grades to get it right.
 
Just done my first pour and I'm a bit annoyed, because half the resin has gone off and hard... more than, probably. It's wasted 10s of litres of it. I have complained to Epodex and see if they do anything about it. I hope I will have just enough left to finish this (I got enough and paid for enough, about 380EUR i think it was in total!) to do this AND a dining table, so want to get a resolution from that for sure.

Anyway, the pour itself I think went OK. It looks nice and the colour I was going for, so all good. Now to keep checking on it, heat gunning it every few hours for bubbles.

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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
If your trying to get the bubbles out then agitate as well
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There aren't any at the moment but as it cures I noticed it creates bubbles, too so will keep popping back.

I spoke to Epodex about the resin and they said put the containers in a bath of hot water and it'll work... will see. It's not stored in a cold place. It's stored in the right temps, so sent them a video of it to see if they still think the hot bath will work. If so, I'll be running them a bath. Last thing I want is to waste so much bloody resin
 
We have a slight leak onto the floor going down there this morning, but very very small, and the resin is starting to thicken up, which is good. I think it'll still take another 24hrs, or maybe by tonight, before it's capable of taking more on top without it being detrimental. I don't want the weight of the new stuff to push even more out the gaps, so will wait until it's tacky enough to take more.

Today I think I'll play with my new welder... :cry:
 
Did the second pour just now. It was thick like treacle so hope it was sticky enough to take the layer on top. Will soon see! I think 1 more layer on top of this will do it. It's so damn thick this thing!

Will snap a pic later when I pop down to check it
 
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Just did what I think will be the final pour. It's about 7cm thick now, as the wood is so damn thick, but any further layers would be pointless really as I'm going to be getting it leveled out anyway, so would rather not add more resin. It's only a few mm from the top of the wood though and at the bottom, it's actually covering the edge.

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I have literally just done this pour, so it will change in colour and pattern over the next couple of days. I keep popping down to check and heat gun it every 8 hours or so.


I really like the metallic effect and how it's coming out so far. I know there will be a TON of finishing to do on the ends, the bottom and sides etc as I can already see the seepage, but it's all good. Practice and will see how best to do things for the next bigger one!

This one used a TON of resin, so this thickness x 2.75-3m would be a massive amount. I'll have to do the maths, but it's probably about 750EUR worth of resin at that point for the big one. I would say this is probably about 300 worth with the thickness as it is. Probably 50 lost due to it getting under the board etc. and wasted.

Like I said, it's all a lesson. I'm having a good time doing it.
 
When you look at the cost of the resin and the time taken to pour, heat gun, finish it's not quite as surprising what these retail for.
 
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tom_e said:
When you look at the cost of the resin and the time taken to pour, heat gun, finish it's not quite as surprising what these retail for.
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Totally this. I've really enjoyed this and I think with more tools and that, I could get the time down, but it would still take days to get it properly done and finished really well. So I completely agree with you on that.

Especially when you look at the 10k cost of the big ass tables, materials and time would be pretty big for those as well
 
i might be thick here but just a quick question...
when you take the table out of the mould what is going to hold the wood to the resin? to me it looks like the wood could just peel off the resin and you end up with 2 pieces of wood and a chunk of resin.

would it not have been better to have put some metal rods bolted through the wood for the resin to hold it all together?.

as said i may be looking at it wrong ?

i assumed the resin was going to encase the wood completely (maybe it is )
 
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gc123 said:
would it not have been better to have put some metal rods bolted through the wood for the resin to hold it all together?.
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Resin is crazy strong. It will adhere to the wood in the middle, and when you think of the surface area it has, it's quite a lot. It will have actually encased it at the bottom, due to run through, but that wasn't by design :P it should be fine without anything. I'll be doing the same with about 3m length and plenty have and it adheres to the wood well. I sanded the wood and then painted resin onto it prior, so it had the best adhesion though, as it recommended.
 
gc123 said:
i might be thick here but just a quick question...
when you take the table out of the mould what is going to hold the wood to the resin? to me it looks like the wood could just peel off the resin and you end up with 2 pieces of wood and a chunk of resin.

would it not have been better to have put some metal rods bolted through the wood for the resin to hold it all together?.

as said i may be looking at it wrong ?

i assumed the resin was going to encase the wood completely (maybe it is )
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In addition to what Randomshans says above, a lot of the very best glues are "resins" just versions that have been formulated to say give a stronger grip over a small area and without the need to be transparent or anything.
Also as random says, the surface are it's sticking to is huge as the resin can/will adhere to every facet of every surface it comes into contact with, including seeping into all the tiny pores in the wood which increases the area of adhesion even more:) (when you are told to "rough" a surface before gluing it, you're basically trying to get a similar improvement in adhesion to what will be natural with the surface of this wood and resin).

I'd actually probably be more worried about the wood splitting along the grain than a reasonably well done resin pour giving way
 
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