Hey guys, how's it going? Today I'm gonna show you how I made this awesome walnut
and epoxy coat and key rack. Definitely helps out a lot here in the office. So,
without further ado, let me show you how we made it.
Every day when I walk into the office, my keys go on the table,
my jacket goes over a chair and today we're going to fix that using this piece of walnut.
I've had this sitting around the shop for quite a long time and I want to fill that with epoxy and
turn that into a key and coat rack. So first, we need to start off by making the mold. So,
I'm using some polypropylene tape here to help me get everything nice and fully sealed up.
Accidentally, I put that piece on the backwards, but I ended up fixing that here. We got everything
brad nailed in place. And then I'll use the 55227 Nomar countersink to go ahead and countersink some
screw holes here so that we can make sure that the mold is fully secured together.
So, we went through, added all of the screws that we needed to make sure that this thing is
not going to come apart. I did a test fit here to make sure that the slab fit and it fit great.
We're gonna go through and use some silicone here on the edges to ensure that this mold is
not going to leak. That's the last thing that you want when dealing with a deeper pour on epoxy. So,
I went through and smoothed out all of the edges so that we got a nice tight area that the epoxy
will not leak out of. Let that dry for 24 hours. I did do a coat of epoxy on the inside here
just to prevent any sort of bubbles coming up through there. And then I used a brass
bristle brush to ensure that it was nice and roughed up so the epoxy would stick to it.
I ensure that the entire surface was fully level. So that way we make sure that the
epoxy is going to fill just where we want and not go to a single side or anything like that.
I got everything nicely blown out, put the piece in the mold, and we're ready to get
everything clamped down. I'm using some small pieces of HDPE here since that will not stick
to the epoxy and then just verifying to make sure that everything is nice and still level.
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I'm using some TotalBoat ThickSet epoxy here. It does a really nice job for thicker pours
and then we just got some pigments. Unfortunately, the hardware store only had a five-gallon mixer.
I wish I had a smaller paddle mixer, but this is what I had available. Definitely introduced a few
too many bubbles into the epoxy. But we ended up getting that all worked out. I think it's
really cool to see the epoxy going through here and fill up the cracks and the wood.
I did overpour this because I wanted to ensure that the entire piece was fully covered.
You can see the epoxy sinking down into the other cracks on the bottom side of this mold.
There were parts of the slab that were pretty cupped and twisted. So, I wanted to ensure that
everything was covered. So, I did end up pouring over the entire thing. I used a reciprocating saw
to vibrate the mold and help get out a lot of the bubbles. You can see the epoxy move within the
cracks of the piece and that was just really neat to see. I'll use a torch to help pop the bubbles
and get everything nicely finished. So, we got that done and then after all of the bubbles
were popped, we waited about three days for the epoxy to fully cure and then we got it pulled
out of the mold. So, it is now three days later and we'll just get everything all hammered out.
So, the HDPE blocks that I used came out really nicely and the mold
came out perfectly. There are absolutely no leaks which is exactly what we wanted to see.
So now we have our slab and we need to take it over to the CNC. This is the Axiom AR8 CNC
machine. We're going to go through and flatten everything off. I'm using the RC-2255 3 Wing
Insert Carbide Flattening bit which is perfect for doing any sort of wood or epoxy work.
So, we're going through and this is a pass that I did at a zero depth to ensure that we have
everything nicely levelled. So now, we're taking a step down and you can see all of the epoxy built
up. I did this strictly for filming purposes. I’d guess I didn't think it would create this
much dust but it created an entire room full of chips and definitely spread out all over
the CNC. I think it is really cool to see all the chips building up, however it was not safe.
So, we turned that off so that we could get the dust boot installed after we got
the initial shots of doing everything and the epoxy shavings were absolutely everywhere. So,
we got the dust boot installed and it's crazy to see just how much of a difference having
the dust boot on the machine makes as there was very, very little dust after we installed that.
So, we're gonna go through and get below the epoxy. We had to overpour as I said before
to ensure that we got epoxy over the entire surface as you can see that there are some
areas that have wood showing already and others that do not since it was not flat
to begin with. So, we'll go through and do one final pass and once we are down
to just the wood and epoxy, we can go ahead and pop the grain and see what
this is going to look like. This is just water that I'm putting on there and you can see the
incredible finish that you get from the RC-2255 Flattening Bit. It does a great job with this
and it definitely looks nice bringing out the grain. So as much as I enjoyed this side of it,
I flattened the backside off camera and really liked that almost more than the front.
So, I decided to go with that for the main surface that we're going to see. Installing the LB10801C
10" plastic cutting blade into the SawStop table saw. We're gonna go through and just
trim up that epoxy. The blade does a great job cutting through the epoxy as well as the wood
and leaves a beautifully cleaned finish without melting any of the epoxy itself.
So, it's definitely not easy to do that as the plastics tend to want to melt.
But it definitely left really nice clean cuts and I was happy to see with how everything worked. So,
we got everything trimmed down to size using the SawStop Crosscut Table, and I
sanded it down with 220-grit sandpaper, and then it was time to go ahead and install the hooks.
It can be really difficult to get all of the screw locations needed, especially when they're
odd and you have this many to line up. So, I took a picture of the hook and we brought
it into the Vectric software. I measured the hook and used that measurement to resize the
picture after I created a square. And so now that we have everything resized to that size,
I can use a circle here to mark out those screw locations and the size of that hole.
I did an array copy here to get everything lined out where I want it. Then we set our
toolpath to be able to cut all of those holes and now we have everything perfectly in line.
So, using the 46233-K 1/16" downcut bit, I'll go through and get all of those screw locations
marked out with the CNC. So, you can see it doing a really nice job. That downcut bit leaves a nice
clean top surface which is exactly what we want to see. We went through and did all of
those and they lined up absolutely perfectly. So that was definitely really nice to see.
So, we got that all installed. You can see that we have everything ready to go now. So,
then I'm going to go ahead and finish up the rest of the slab. I'm using the Noga deburring set.
This is the plastic deburr from the four-piece Noga set and it definitely does a really nice
job with this epoxy. It's really satisfying to see those shavings come off of there.
This is a great way to finish the epoxy and it's essentially finish ready. You really don't need
to do any sanding on that. It just takes that really sharp edge off of the epoxy and leaves
a nice perfectly clean smooth finish. Definitely really enjoy that. So now that we're done there,
we can get the finish applied. I'm using Walrus Oil Furniture Butter for this. It's a really nice
hard wax oil blend finish and it does a great job protecting the wood as well as making it
look absolutely beautiful. The colors of the blue and the walnut are absolutely some of my favorite
combos together. It's really cool to see the colors all come out of this walnut. It definitely
has a lot of character to it and the epoxy definitely looks really nice as well.
So, after 24 hours, I was able to get that all buffed off.
And then we can install a French cleat on the backside. This is how we're going to
hang it on the wall just using some brad nails to tack it into place. And then the 55227 Nomar
countersink to countersink some screws in there and then just a spacer on the bottom.
And now we have a piece that is ready to go. We just need to install the hooks on there.
So, we went through and did all of those really quick with those holes. It made it super quick
since everything lined up. With the other half of the French cleat installed on the wall, I'm able
to get everything all hung up really easily. And now we have a spot for our keys and coat.
It's definitely nice to have everything in one area and not have to put it on the table
every day. And it definitely looks really nice in the office. It makes
the space a little bit nicer to be in. So anyways, that's gonna do it for this one.
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