Recent tap handle project where I got to play around with a little more epoxy resin that I have before.
The brewery asked for a couple of handles for their first seltzer (Siren Splash) using their skeleton mermaid character. On some previous handles I made for them I got in over my head with the amount of detail carved and hand painting to recreate their characters, so this time around a took a pretty severe shortcut, which I think turned out far better. I had little direction, or adult supervision, so I went a little nuts on these.
For the character, I carved a simple pocket, cutout the shape and painted it to match the background used for the mermaid. I adhered the printed cutout to the bottom of the pocket and topped it up with clear resin. I’m a little conflicted on using printed cutouts, because it feels like a cheat, but the results can look pretty good. Especially for something like a tap handle which most people see from at least 6’ away; it doesn’t really matter that much (so I tell myself to get over it).
The handles I cut from a large rectangle of deep pour epoxy resin I dyed to look like water. I cut a pocket to fit the mermaid cutout and various others for the seltzer bubbles and skulls - she’s a siren after all.
At the bottom I created an offset shape for the brewery initials, which I also cutout from a printout and submerged in resin. The background was meant to be more translucent purple to match the mermaid background, but I didn’t use enough dye and the layer was so thin it mostly disappeared. Added a little glitter to the top layer to match the sticker they made for it and it ended up looking pretty good.
Sealed it all together with a few brushed coats of tabletop epoxy resin which gave them a great watery shine. Made a 12" for the taproom and an 8" for the beer garden, because they have different clearances.
The other two are the 8" versions of their astronaut and shooting star. I made the 12" previously as spec pieces. I did a combination of paint and resin on the space details, but should have done them all in resin - the tiny planets came out pretty cool. The large planet at the bottom was done with Rub-N-Buff on white, which looks a bit better in person than in the pic. I’d never used it before but was given a bucket of tubes someone picked up as part of an estate sale. Will try to find some more applications for it as it was pretty interesting to work with.
and she wanted a sign that we could have out wherever we go. This is what I designed based on her input. Pine round from Home Depot. Inset rectangle mahagany. Laser ingraved on the pine round lightly so I could place my letters exactly where I wanted them to go. Used my Jtech laser to cut the pieces. I made the camper look like our exact one. I manually traced the picture of my camper using the shapes and node editing in Vectric and then transfered the SVG to lightburn. The camper was painted white first. Then masked with laser masking. Then laser cut. I then removed the pieces of masking to airbrush my colors.
I decided that my mallet needed one more mod to make the tool multi-function. Now, I can open my Blenheim ginger ales while sitting on the Workshop deck.
Cool mallet. Just wait till the work is done to open that adult beverage. Alcohol and woodworking do not mix well. Wait till the end of the work day to enjoy.
Few projects this week. One for olive oil comp gift baskets: little tray to hold 4 of their oils. Can I get a little “whoop whoop” for scoring the account. All made outbid little scraps around the toko.
Second same client wanted some tray samples to put olive in the charcuterie board. Would never do this myself, but hey whatever the client wants I can showcase them.
Last starting some gingerbread men with walnut button inlays and some salad tongs with “seasoned with happiness” - get the pun ;). That’s all this week from the shop!
Company crossed a milestone, so my boss was going to purchase an award plaque.
i suggested i make it on my brand new cnc S5. Oh Boy the learning, along with adding a laser i had here.
The “Fish Bat”. A bat or pipe is kept on board to knock out overly energetic or sharp toothed fish. Mixing up some excessively strong shots on the boat got nicknamed the Fish Bat, since it’s like getting smacked in the head with a bat. I think the original Fish Bat was Jack & Coke mixed about half & half with a little lime.
I built this Challenge coin display for my buddy who just graduated from the FBI National Academy. It holds about 100 coins. 23 x 40. It was the first time I used “tiling” method on my Shapeoko 4. It worked well, but you have to make sure that your board is super flat.
I made a small salt cellar in the shape of the local university logo where I worked. My friend in the makerspace liked it and wanted one. So, I scaled it up a little and will give it to him as a gift. The walnut base was lumber recovered from a tree that was cut down on campus.
