The word, “epoxy” was first brought into my life during a home flooring project in 2018. At the time, I was laying a real penny floor in my half bath. Since Canada had stopped producing pennies in 2013, this was my way of using what my family and friends had around to display them.
According to Google, this project required a top coat of epoxy to seal it. So, I went about preparing the subfloor for this said epoxy, and continued to lay my pennies one by one. The saying, “a penny for your thoughts” rang true with this project as there were many thoughts during the hours it took me to individually lay them!!
But when it came time for the sealing phase, I questioned: Was I really sure I could pour this epoxy all over my hard work and not ruin it? Words like cloudy, uneven, leaks and bubbles were all too common when researching epoxy.
Was it even safe for me to use a blowtorch to get rid of said bubbles? Could I even prevent dust particles from getting in the epoxy (let's be realistic here, my house has dust and even wood particles floating around at times!)
The answer to all of these questions was, “hell no!!” I told myself that spending a couple hundred dollars on something I was unsure about was just crazy talk and convinced myself it made sense to give up on this one. Instead, I used a form of polyurethane clear coat on my penny floor that was locally available and never looked back.
Fast forward a year (2019), and the word “epoxy” re-entered my life when my son asked me to make him a live edge/epoxy working desk. I can't say my interest perked right away, the frustration with this product was still fresh in my mind. Even hearing the word brought feelings of defeat...yes, defeat.
Although I had never used epoxy, I have never backed away from trying a new product - no matter the risks. So I opened up google and started my search on “how to” epoxy once again.
I must have spent months reading up on how to make moulds, what tools were needed, how epoxy works and on and on. Meanwhile, the persistence of my son was growing. So we struck a deal… I would make him a table, but I first needed to start smaller with a board, a charcuterie board.
So off we went to the lake, where we set up in the shed with our gallon of epoxy and some knotty pine boards...it was game on between me and this epoxy!
The process of building the moulds went fairly smoothly, and the mixing process was pretty straight forward by following the included directions. After I had my wood in the mould and poured the epoxy, I sat and watched, my eyes glued to the mould, just waiting to see if that first drop of epoxy would form outside the mould, indicating a leak. And every single time it would happen.
What was I missing? Was I rushing sealing the moulds, just to get to the good part, the pour? Finally, I discovered that the only way to truly seal a home made mould, was with caulking (and patience). Nothing else. First lesson learned.
There were many “lessons” along this road, but the one that stands out the most to me is dealing with the underside of the board once the epoxy had cured. Naturally, the epoxy had seeped under the board while in the mould. But how did people get this excess epoxy off?
My google searches turned up empty, the random inquiry emails I sent were not helpful, and another sense of defeat started creeping back in. Then I saw it, that one video with a dude talking about “planning off” his boards. Google search: “Planing wood how to/types of woodworking planers”. Bingo!!
You have no idea how much satisfaction that one tidbit of information gave me! (Full disclosure, before figuring this out, I may have tried to use a heat gun/scraper, as well as sand through all this excess epoxy on the backside...ridiculous ideas to me now)l. But I have no shame as that's the beauty of DIY. There may be curse words heard or frustration felt, but in the end it’s always satisfaction.
I was successful in making the requested table for my son. However, I was now hooked on epoxy and the creative world it opened. In the last two years I have made countless serving boards, custom artwork and a few tables along the way. I am 100% self-taught and have no plans to stop. The word epoxy (pronounced Poxy in my Newfoundland dialect) is permanently in my vocabulary, and forever in my tool belt of skills.