This is an experiment using a red oak burl that was just full of holes and totally rotted away areas. I wanted to encase it in epoxy and then turn it but I did not have a pressure pot so I used a plastic bucket to hold it and let gravity do the work. In order to save epoxy, I made some wood pieces to take up the area inside and all around the piece and did it in 2 pours. I used an emerald colorant in the epoxy but it came out transparent in the thick areas. More holes broke open after the first turning and took some additional filling with Epoxy , colorant and colloidial silica to hold it in place for 5 minutes! It is 6 1/4" x 1 3/4" high and finished with clear lacquer, EEE and Shellawax.
Below are some process shots: The burl cut off the log. Round cutting process
first turning with spigot on the bottom
Basted in epoxy to cut down on air bubbles when filled
Filled with epoxy and with the wood plug on the inside and the ring on the outside to save epoxy
Removing the piece from the bucket
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
Another way to take up space in a bucket is sand plus a piece of plastic wrap. I will also use Gorilla Tape (clear) on the outside of a wooden object I am epoxy-filling to slow the leaks. It won’t stop the leaks, but it will slow them enough that the epoxy sets before too much escapes. And it turns off pretty easily, even when epoxy-saturated.
Also, epoxy almost always takes more dye to color it than I initially think. Maybe two times out of ten do I put in more dye than I should have, three or four times I get it right, and about half of the time, I put too little, even knowing that I usually put in too little dye.
Jim, That bowl is beautiful, the colors and characteristics of the voids are super. I've never used epoxy in a project, do you know how much you used? I just checked the cost on line, it's more expensive than lumber, don't want to waste any.
Thank you all for the nice comments. I like the results pretty much!
Hi Dave I have two colors of colorant in little tubs but this stuff came in an envelope and not much of it. It sure looked like it colored it through and through but the big area is transparent....can't go back and change that!!!!!! I hope I remember what you said next time I do a color!!!!!!!
Hi Tom, on this one I did two pours of 12 ounces each. I always use a scale to get the two parts very equal. You have to read the labels because some have a different weight density from the resin and the hardener. When I poured the hockey stick table, they were 1: 1.02. I write it on the bottles right away if there is a difference !!!!!!!
Hi TWG...I don't know if the tree is alive or where it came from. Someone asked me last year if I want the red oak burl ( and I never turn down a burl). I finally got around to it this spring and I can't remember who gave it to me. I asked all the guys I thought would do it and struck out.
Cheers, Jim
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
Hi Dave I have two colors of colorant in little tubs but this stuff came in an envelope and not much of it. It sure looked like it colored it through and through but the big area is transparent....can't go back and change that!!!!!! I hope I remember what you said next time I do a color!!!!!!!
I mostly use TransTint, which isn’t rated for use in epoxy, and with some epoxies, it lowers the surface tension, which means they flow a lot better (but also leak out through smaller holes). But I have also been using the System 3 metallic tints, which I like a lot for opaque tinting of epoxy.
Hi Dave, I bought some cheap black liquid colorant from China that worked pretty good. I used to spay black oil based paint in my mixed epoxy for use as a black filler for years . It worked pretty good with the 5 minute epoxy but spread out the drying time to a lot longer than 5 minutes.
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
