Why you don't see epoxy on a lot of turnings...

[Brodie Brickey]

So last night I get home, fire up the lathe (not the steam powered lathe, the PM) and finish up a mug. There's a little bleed over between the bloodwood and yellowheart, but that's okay. I start mixing up the epoxy and apply it to the mug while its still turning. All good so far, no bubbles or problems.

I bring the desk lamp down over the top of the mug, leave the lathe turning and call it a night. The slow rotation, a little heat from the lamp maybe, and by tomorrow morning everything should be good. Right?

Get up this morning go out to the shop to turn off the lathe and put the mug somewhere to finish curing and what to my wandering eyes should appear? BUGS! Stuck to my MUG!!!:eek:

Due to the lathe rotating, their little feet are just stuck, they're practically embedded. I mean, the fumes didn't tell them to get away?:mad: Oh well, I'll let it cure for another day and resand.

Don't you just love woodturning?:rolleyes:

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Unique embellishments to a turning Brodie!:confused: :rolleyes: :D

[Paul Engle]

oh boy , coffee and protein .... yum :eek: . What a fishing mug.. seriously Brodie, the mug looks cool, and my grub winged bowl had the same problem, I wanted to encase the grubs in the finish but LOML ..... well you know....notttttttttt.:D I wonder if you pressed a flower or such and then encased it in epoxy how that would look? or on a pen maybe....

[Al Wasser]

Nest time leave the light off and perhaps fabricate some kinda tent thingy. A tent would help keep dust off also. The light attracts the bugs

[Christopher K. Hartley]

Hey, put another coat over them and in a million years someone will be looking at them in a museum of Natural Science and Spinning.:D Nice work on the mug.:)

[Dario Octaviano]

Something else struck me with your story. I am leary leaving a machine turning overnight.

Not saying you shouldn't but I will never do that.

[Jason Christenson]

I'd be interested in hearing your whole epoxy finishing process. With or without the bugs. What kind of epoxy do you use?

Jason

[Bill Wyko]

Me too. It looks like the finsh would have been fantastic.:D

[Jonathon Spafford]

The finish looks nice and I didn't notice the bugs till I read the post! Hey, pretty original there!!! You might start something! ;)

[Brodie Brickey]

I'd be interested in hearing your whole epoxy finishing process. With or without the bugs. What kind of epoxy do you use?


I use the 3M Mirror Coat epoxy. Its a 2 parts A to 1 part B kind of epoxy. Some people are using it and other epoxies for those designer wooden sinks. It is a 'filler' kind of finish in that the epoxy will fill in any voids and will generally push out any air bubbles. It gets tacky within about 30 minutes. You get a heavy waterproofing which is desirable for this application.

PROCESS
To start, I finish to 320 or 600 depending, clean the surface off with a tack cloth and then mix up the epoxy. Unfortunately, with epoxy the brush is a write off so shift to either a flux brush or a $0.69 cheapy brush and throw it away. Styrofoam cups make a great mixing bowl since they're also disposable. Because the epoxy fills voids, brush strokes aren't an issue.

I chuck up the mug, place wax paper below over the lathe's ways, and put tape over the rim of the mug insert. I start the lathe up slow and apply the coat. RPM is probably 200 or less. I stop occaisonally to stroke it out as smoothly as possible. The key is to put it on heavy, but not so heavy that it would drip off. The slow rotation of the lathe keeps it from dripping or moving to only one side of the mug (mugs shouldn't have tides :D) . You can run the lathe for a couple hours and then turn it off, I usually run it overnight, because I'm working out in the garage until 10 PM anyway. It becomes the last thing I do (applying the finish) before going in and to bed, that way I don't stir up any additional dust using one of the other tools.

This particular epoxy takes about 24 hours to fully cure, after that I have a hard finish that I can sand out any bubbles and apparently bugs that are stuck in the finish. My last mug got two coats (recommended by 3M in the directions) and then I dulled down the finish with 1200 grit sandpaper.

With this mug, if I can get a good finish I may leave glossy. The bloodwood/yellowheart contrast is very vibrant in person so it may look better than with a flat finish. I think you could get a similar finish with thick CA Glue, but for me the fumes are so strong I can't take too much of it. I coated another mug in thin CA and had to leave the area for 15 minutes. I may need to run the DC when using CA to address the fume issue in the future.

I don't think the set time on this epoxy makes it all that usefull for bowls. Due to the curves a lot of us put on a bowl, we would likely have the coating gravitate down to the foot or rim while rotating. These mugs are essentially fancy spindle turnings so they're very horizontal on the lathe and the epoxy lends itself to that. When I finish my current stock of this epoxy, I may try fiberglass next. I know with fiberglass I can mix it up hotter so it sets faster.

[Bill Wyko]

You may look at casting resin. It's very transparent. That's what I used to make the Turquoise segments in my pieces. I add a dye to create some contrast between the small pieces of turquoise though so if you look at the pics it won't look the same as if it were used as a finsh. It does cure a little slower than regular resin, not much though. Nice work on the mug. I really like the contrast. Nice job on the finsh too.

[Jason Christenson]

One more question, where do you get the epoxy?

[Brodie Brickey]

I buy this epoxy from WoodCraft. You may be able to find it someplace for less.