Community challenge #26: Resin (closed)

Hexagon Coasters - double-sided

I wanted to make some coasters with that ‘I want to pick it up’ fascination, but practical and repeatable too. I think I succeeded…

The design is a honeycomb hexagon, cut right through with small hexagons. I set out three per piece of mahogany-like wood I had. The balance being to make them fine enough structures to be interesting, yet solid enough to be robust and let some of the natural wood show.

Toolpaths included tabs so the workholding was simpler - I didn’t know what interaction the resin might have with glue residue, so chose not to use tape/glue for this. I used a 1/8" downcut 2-flute cutter, DOC 0.8mm, WOC 1.8mm, RPM 20,000 and Feed 400mm/min which was I feel quite conservative, but my time is hobby time and so slower with no broken end mills is a success too for me.

The cuts came out really nicely, and having trimmed the holding tabs, was ready for resin pouring. I wanted a ‘perfect glass’ finish on one face, so the options were: Eternal polishing, or: Pouring face down onto a piece of glass - I chose the latter.

Using water-clear, 2-part resin (Amazon) and a pack of various liquid tints, I tried some samples to get colour ‘strength’ per drops of tint (broadly, I found these transparent colours worked with 8 drops per 50ml of mixed resin). The first step was to paint a fine coat of clear resin on the face-down surface of the wood and clamp the part onto the glass whilst this sets - the purpose of this being to seal the wood against the glass and stop any colour bleeding between honeycomb cells. I didn’t fill right to the top of the cells either, say 2mm below the surface, as I found a really nice Meniscus effect happens with this proportion and so one side of the coaster is glass-smooth, the other is ‘old world curvy glass’.

First pair poured and very happy with that. The only issue was adhesion to the glass made it tricky to ‘pop’ the coasters off once set - I switched to plexiglass for the second set as a gentle flex was all that was required to release them, but I still got the glassy finish.

This shot nicely shows the Meniscuses (Menisci?) forming as the resin sets.

To achieve the controlled pours, especially in the smaller cells, I used a silicone pouring jug and pinched the spout to get a very fine ‘spout’ that was easy to control. Any left-over resin was easily removed from the jug by just squashing it in my hands until all of the resin had released.

Very happy with these results, so were family members who no surprise got ‘hand made’ coasters as gifts… In fact I was so emboldened by this that I decided to try something more ambitious - a stained-glass window made using the same techniques.

I looked for inspiration from doors I walked past, and decided on the traditional ‘London Look’, so took a few pictures and traced vectors around the ‘capping’ and trellis areas, then found a tulip SVG and incorporated that into the design. I picked very fine geometry for the webs, which proved challenging when cutting - in hind sight I would have gone a little thicker to make it easier. However, it worked.

This time after tacking the frame onto the plexiglass I also brushed clear resin onto the inner faces of the wood to stop bubbles forming in the main pour, and then used a halogen lamp to speed up the setting time.

I will shortly add ZIP files of the CAD files (Vectric format).

Honey Comb Single and Triple Layout.crv.zip (274.9 KB)
Stained Glass Window CRV and SVG.zip (1.5 MB)

(These files are on CutRocket too as “Resin and Wood Combinations”)

16 Likes

Those are really nice, and a good write up too, I think I might have to try some epoxy now if things that good are on offer.

2 Likes

I have a suggestion for those getting ready to pour epoxy this weekend. Have a plan in case you have extra epoxy, don’t let it go to waste. For example, I’ve made some small boxes and left over epoxy has been poured into those boxes to give them a finished floor/bottom.

17 Likes

I end up with rough-milled lumber and “seconds” from cut-off scrap piles at lumber stores that have splits and knots in them for exactly this reason. Even small “defects” can turn into a really cool accent with a drizzle of epoxy to fill them in and then flatten later with a hand plane (or sander, or whatever).

2 Likes

Mandalorian themed bedside table for my son.







8 Likes

I made this projects for the family. Didn’t take any pictures during the the process. I used my Shapeoko 4 XXL Hope you like them.




If anybody is interested in the files, just let me know, I will be more than happy to share them.

10 Likes

Cribbage Board -P.E.I.

I made a cribbage board of Prince Edward Island for a good friend. I started with getting depth charts(i-Boating) for Canada and the U.S., from there I picked PEI maps and started tracing.


The simulation looked good so it was off to cut
I used 1/4" downcut endmill to clear most of the wood and then went in with a 1/8" downcut endmill, finished it with a 1/16" downcut endmill.
Now after finding the volume for each depth, I now can pour the epoxy. I had seven depths and I wanted a dark colour on the bottom, then gradually get lighter. I used Ryver epoxy and the coloured powder they supply( Aurora pigments).
When I finished the pouring of the coloured epoxy, I poured a clear coat(about 1/8" deep) of epoxy so I can carve the numbers in and have them look like they are floating. Then a final pour of clear epoxy and then drill the holes.


When I made the hole pattern, I was able to have the finishing point at the place my friend grew up(trying to make it a little more personal). I pocketed out the back for some peg storage, carved our name in the back, and added some feet.




If there are any questions I’ll be happy to answer them. if you are interested in the files, I would be happy to sell them to you(It did take several hours to make the files).
My latest board I’m working on and almost finished.

The wood used is Maple and they are about 14"x10"x1.5"

21 Likes

Latest resin piece in Spalted Beech wood and resin



21 Likes

My son and I made this table together. First time working resin. Project came out better than expected.





18 Likes

Continuing the discussion from Community challenge #26: Resin:

I made these little trees from a slab of resin and wood that I mixed in a baking dish.

They are between 4 and 5.5 inches in height and .75 inches thick so they stand up by themselves

The “balls” and “garland” could be filled with colored resin for a more festive look, but I liked the simplicity of the green.

I used a photo of the slab as the background in Carbide Create to ensure I got the tree trunks lined up with the wood strips in the slab

This is the slab after I flattened it

This is the raw slab after it came out of the silicone baking dish

13 Likes

I love cutting these mosaic animals. This one is a lion head and it measures 30"x24" and its cut on 0.75" MDF. I pocketed it out I go about .200 depth and then cut out the profile with an outside offset. I used a 1/8" down cut bit with feeds and speeds at 160/30 and .100 Depth per pass.

After cutting I sprayed with Shellac and foam rolled the black. then I sprayed shellac again before doing epoxy I foam rolled the black after because it was kind of spur of the moment thing and didn’t want to wait for the black to dry before cutting. Then I slowly mixed up some pigments from amazon and poured each individual color. I wait a few minutes then take a tooth pick and mix the epoxy up to get the swirled effect. After a day of drying it is good to go. I use a saw tooth hanger on the back to hang it on the wall./






CutRocket link is with file is here:

21 Likes

Here’s one of my favorite lake maps, due to the edge.

This lake actually flows into another. So it was a dilemma of how to cutoff the lake, since in reality the body of water continues on to another massive lake. Stopping it might look odd to anyone who knows the area. Decided to have it go “over” the edge.

Action shot

Here you can see, the design was still such that it could hold the epoxy

After a full cure (4 days), it was cut with a saw to reveal the epoxy edge. Roundover for corners, then sanded up to 1000 or 2000 grit. While not glass-clear, it’s still very clear.

I’ve learned a lot since then. I now use tiger clamps ironically to do work holding, as I need to leave the top clear for facing.

12 Likes

That looks really nice, it would be tempting to cast a blue epoxy drip for the wall or ‘puddle’ for the floor where the lake exits the side… :grinning:

2 Likes

That’s a pretty cool idea! :slight_smile: Maybe on the next one.

1 Like

Looks good. How did you generate the map for the lake depths? It’s something that I want to try as well.

If you can find bathymetric data for the waterbody, otherwise tracing a fishing map works :slight_smile:

I’ve been using this for a week now and nearly forgot to submit it.

there is minimal resin, but it is present. and as a bonus I did start and finish this project this month so that’s a plus for me. I’d like to make more I think after some tweaking to the design/ code.

What I made:
A Rosewood Valet Tray with a friends sketch of a flower girl vcarved into it and back filled with pearlescent powder/resin. (next time I’d like to try brass powder and resin)

geometry was all done with the model tab in CC. I’ve been enjoying playing with it. and I used two dowels to be able to flip it. Which was good because I had a few failures along the way. first big one was a static buildup with the shopvac and ended up driving the bit eratically into the piece when I was nearly done…

I ended up changing the design a bit to try to fix it. unfortunately I wasnt able to stop it before it dove through and broke the inside of the dish. so there was a little hole.
image

I cut a few dowels from the same wood and attempted to fill the hole to hide it. came pretty close to matching the grain.

image

anyways more in progress shots



so, strategic placement of items inside and it’s back to “picture perfect”

16 Likes

I have made several box tops with simple images and I think I like the simple better than all of the complicated ones. Very nice catchall tray.

2 Likes

I made this as a wedding gift for one of my friends, I’m really happy with the way it turned out, seeing how many mistakes I made along the way and that it was my first actual project, other then cutting my name out of wood, and a few basic projects. (see the bottom for all the mistakes I made)

So this cutting board was a last minute gift idea I had. I had less then a week to do this and was scrambling right up until the last minute. I used my Shapeoko Pro and fusion 360 to design and cut the board. I made the board of of Walnut and Purple heart

This is a render of how the board and engraving would look. I was trying to decide whether or not to go with the bold font or the regular font, in the end I went with a hybrid, where I took the “T” and the “L” and combined it with the “ow” and the “er”. Originally I had wanted to put the name in the middle of the two strips of the purple heart, but was unable to as it would have looked really small. In the end I decided to not put it in the purple heart and rotate the board.

This is the only picture of the glue up that I have. This is when I was doing a surfacing pass to get the board flat before all the operations

This is the completed engraving before the resin pour, I decided to do the engraving before the full surface pass, that way I could poor the resin into the cavity and then come back and do the full surface pass all in one go, this would save me time in the long run, as I would have to do less clean up on the resin.


Poured resin, ended up going with a gold, kind of wishing I had done a purple resin.

Here I’m planning it down to its final height


Cut out the juice grove and adding a fillet to the edge

A little bit of sanding later and a quick wipe with water.

A lot of sanding later and some water, I let the board sit out in the sun to let the purple heat oxidize and deepen in color, its such a beautiful wood.

And the finished product, I used Walrus cutting board oil, and there wood wax to finish this, this is after 2 coats of oil and a layer of wax on the top.

Some of the mistakes I made:

This part pains me. I put in about 10 or 20 hours into the design and cam operations to make sure I could get it perfect on the first go. Because I was doing both side I used indexing pins and holes to align the board up. Those somewhat worked, when I did the drilling of the board and the waste board it worked perfectly, but when I flipped the board and did the operation again it some how got shifted to the side. When I did the cut out pass the sides did not line up properly, I ended up having to take a router to the sides and go over it to make them flush.

In the picture bellow you might be able to see a few different problems, the most obvious problem is the round over didn’t go all around the board and its not to its full depth. This was caused by me programing the tool incorrectly into fusion. The second problem is the the grove is not perfectly aligned, you can see a bump on the other side of the alignment hole. This, I think, was caused by the tool not being able to cut into some of the excess material, and prevent the machine from properly moving.

This mistakes saddens me the most, I had initially planed putting there name on both sides, but due to either setting the height of the surfacing pass properly, or not having the engraving go to the right depth the resin got wiped out.

11 Likes

Nice project, Austin. The lessons learned, although painful, are growing pains - thanks for sharing.

I love cutting boards; they make wonderful gifts.