Looking to the brain trust. I'm newer to using epoxies/resins and ALL of the many and varied offerings are confusing me. I think my answer might be Table top, or Extra hard, but it's possible I am unaware of a product. At the prices they ask, don't want to learn by purchasing the wrong stuff.
Project isn't me, BIL wants to make gifts of wooden boards, cutting or charcuterie? He wants to route out patterns, and fill them with epoxy. Then will sand, and eventually finish all of it. He asked me which product to get, and I am unsure of the correct answer.
Let me know what you think for these circumstances. I imagine the routed depth to be 1/4" to maybe 3/8".
I have done some very small fills, and in doing so I have been partial to Total Boat. Tried the cheeepy stuff, and it was Cheeepy stuff, the TB product was Tabletop, and was a pleasure to use, but it was filling wood defects, so not as smooth as a routed surface, and I imagine the roughness helped anchor the resin.
When I’m trying something I haven’t before, I tend to stick to System Three epoxies, because their technical support has been excellent at answering my questions. Monday-Friday, 7-3 Pacific time, but check their product recommendation FAQs first.
That's kind of what I am saying Dave. I looked at their FAQs, and maybe it's just the words used, but the many different links they provide for doing this and that, there is never one that says route out a pattern into wood, and then fill that. So I am mostly seeing links like for their Mirrorcast where they are filling natural faults in wood. Knots, cracks and stuff like that. All of which have irregular shaped holes, and surfaces compared to the flat bottom, and smooth sides of a routed hole.
I guess what I am really looking for, should you just treat them the exact same way? There are all kinds of templates out there to route out openings, and the videos show them just pouring in some "goop", and later sanding it flush, but I've never seen where they name the "goop" used. I'm probably over thinking it, and any of it would/could work, it's just so expensive that if it does matter which you use it could be a costly endeavor, not to mention barfing up the wood, and work you did.
I hadn't seen as much about System 3 stuff. Seems every U tube person is using Total Boat, or maybe I'm watching the wrong You Tubers? :-))
I did fill out a customer question request, and sent it off. I'll see what they say.
I think that Total Boat is so widely used in demo videos is that they sponsored many of them. If I am thinking about the right company, they developed a deep pour epoxy specifically for river tables and had a big marketing campaign to get the word out.
I am certainly no expert but I think nearly any epoxy will work. The main consideration is how deep the cavity being filled is. If your BIL is going to be routing out the cavity he can control that. If for example he keeps the cavities 1/2" or less, he will not have any issues with curing or overheating as it cures regardless of which one he uses. There are some that are harder than others and for cutting boards he should look for ones with a high hardness rating but they are all going to show wear from knives. I filled a cavity that I routed out on a friend's live edge table with this Shabebe resin. It is pretty inexpensive and worked very well. It did take about 48 hours to cure enough to smooth and polish it. I limited most of the cavity to about 1/2" but it had a void that was over an inch deep in places. After it cured I used a LA block plane to flatten it down to near the surface level, followed by a card scraper for final leveling before sanding and polishing.
PS. I suppose that there is one other consideration. There are actually food grade epoxies for use in commercial kitchens but that is probably not necessary here.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
I think the mirrorcast from Sys3, and the Tabletop from Total Boat are both ok for food (once cured) and supposedly for cutting boards. I do believe a lot of the issues with cutting boards were from some of the low low cost XYZ brands, where users found a lot of slivers of epoxy in everything they cut up. But I am like you, not an eggsprurt on them, still just a barely introduced learner.
In depth he was talking 1/4 to 3/8" so he may even be kinda shallow????
Before pouring the epoxy you will want to brush on a thin coat of epoxy to seal the wood. Sealing the wood before pouring will prevent air from escaping the wood and forming bubbles. How can I Avoid or Remove Bubbles in an Epoxy Application?
If you have any further questions feel free to ask and thanks for your interest in System Three.
Nathan, you were correct about depth, now we know the stages to use.
Pretty cool, got an answer to my question, and some tips along with it.
Yeah. That’s one of e great things about System 3. They’re a little more expensive, but they have great technical support, and I figure that’s worth something.
For my laser etch 'n' fill projects I started with some really old system-3 using the 207 hardener I had on the shelf. This hardener was the low viscosity stuff since at the time i bought it I needed it to flow.
That worked well for fills with colored mica mixed in, but I ran out. Gawd awfully expensive stuff. I needed a few more fills and used regular 15 minute epoxy and that also worked well.
I had never used any acrylic resins before and jumped on a product Nathan posted.
What you get is 1 quart of stuff (mixed).
I doubt either epoxy or this stuff will avoid scratches on a cutting board, but long story short, I love this stuff!
Cost is very low ($15 for the kit with some mixing cups and proctologist finger tool covers).
With the epoxy it dried as expected. This stuff has a lower viscosity and really flowed out well. I was using it at about 65 degrees and the working time was 1 hour+ before any signs of stiffening. This was a bonus in that I had plenty of time to manipulated it as I needed. I used separate 5cc syringes to pull equal amounts out of the bottles since the droppers provided in the kit suck. Been using the same pair of syringes (marked A and B to avoid any cross contamination) for many pours since the stuff doesn't seem to kill them chemically.
After the pour, I put the project into my shop ex-food dehydrator at 85 degrees over night.
Cure times were in agreement with the specs. By morning, (16 hours) it was hard but could still be slightly dented with a firm fingernail push. After another 24 hours in the house it was as hard as any epoxy I've used.
Since it took about 4 hours in the dehydrator to stiffen enough to not flow, any bubbles introduced had floated out and popped.
Since the viscosity is so low, it soaked into the wood a small amount which I'm sure gave it a kung-fu grip and will not fall out. My etchings were from 1mm to 1/4" deep and all worked out well. I like the deeper pours just because that gives me extra material for drum sanding, etc. without worry about blowing through the layer.
Yeah. I’ve got some of the Shabebe in stock now, but I recommend System 3, especially if someone isn’t sure exactly what they need. It’s expensive, but I figure that expense is paying for their tech support people, and I don’t mind that, especially if I’m trying something new and end up calling for their expert advice (which I have maybe a half-dozen times).
