WWGOA LIVE! November 2019

Sam is going to tell us when we're live, live. So this part of the show is just a little soft-shoe, because I don't really know. There's a little delay from when Sam turns it on and we get oh, Sam says we're live. This is when you should be doing dance moves! So we are officially live here in scenic Hammond, Wisconsin. Very happy to have Jess Crow here. Jess is in all the way from Alaska. And well, instead of me talking, you talk. Tell the folks at home what you do, how you do it. Well, first I'd say it is colder here than it is in Alaska, at least where I live, which is really hard to deal with. But other than that, I do a lot of resin work. I do woodworking, and then I put resin and art on top of it. And resin, you use that interchangeably with epoxy? Yes. Resin epoxy, sometimes it's even epoxy resin. Yeah, so if you hear me say epoxy, epoxy resin, resin epoxy, I'm talking all about the same thing. So here's what we want to do now. I feel like we're going to have a lot of questions, a lot of participation tonight. So our agenda is, Jess has got a bunch of stuff here that she is going to go through a demo, and get some color going on this little tabletop we've got prepped here. And then we'll just field questions as we go. So why don't you, let you start your demo, your talk away. I will as needed. I'll get the camera in closer, so we can see better what you've got going on, and we'll, I don't know. We'll go from there. We'll make stuff. So today, because I had you cut this for me, right? Just to make it super easy? I believe you did. And I'm just checking, my laptop's being a little hinky. So I'm jumping on my phone to get to where I can field questions from you. Now, as we've been working over the last few days, you guys keep asking me about my glove addiction here. So I have found it is much easier to wear two to three gloves at a time. Because when you're hands are sticky. Hang on a second, because people are saying, oh, Jenny is watching. Hi Jenny. Ah, wrong way. Everybody is saying that your mic is a problem. So let's do this quick. Let's swap mics. And this is going to tell us if it's live or memorized. Where's all the cords? You take that. Just as an experiment, just kind of hold that up. Can you hear me now? Go again. Can hear me now? So I'm looking at bars on here. Can you hear me now? I think that's way better. And then on this one. So why don't- So this one? You get yourself plugged into that one, we'll see if that's maybe a better mic for you. But thanks, folks, for pointing that out. As always, as you're well aware, I hate when we have audio problems. Okay, see if that works a little bit better. How is that? Keep this up front, so many cords. All right, we'll try this again with sound. Is that better? They'll let us know. I have to try to get all these gloves back on again. All right, so you were having your glove discussion there. My glove discussion. Yeah, so we're going to start from scratch so I can fit my fingers- People are saying it's better. Is it better? Good, okay. So as I fight my way through this, what I was saying is that you guys were asking me all the time about my glove obsession. And part of that is, is when your hands are covered in epoxy, it's super sticky. So wearing multiple gloves at one time, which you'll see here when I do this, just makes your life a bunch easier. I just have to get them all going again. And I think too, one of the things that's cool is you're anticipating some of your steps, where the reason she's layering up on these gloves, I know this because we just spent two days shooting video about resin with Jess, is that she knows she's going to get to a point where she puts her fingers in the resin, and then peels a layer off so she can handle the heat gun without being covered with resin. So there's a lot of stuff going on there. So here's the deal. For those of you that are on YouTube, I am going to try to toggle back and forth and look at questions on YouTube, and look at questions on wwgoa.com. But honestly I primarily concentrate on wwgoa.com. So if you're watching on YouTube and you've got a question for Jess, you're better off posting it on the live on wwgoa.com. More likely for me to see it. All right, what are you doing? Okay, I was waiting for you to stop talking for just a second, but remember the lid thing too? So George heard my misfortunate event with the color coded lids and resin. If you've never used it before, one time I put my lids on backwards, and trying to find your containers for resin is not something I would highly recommend to a lot of people. Just think about what's happening there is if the hardener lid has a little bit of hardener on it and you put it on top of the resin bottle, and a little resin is on the lip of that bottle, you just glued those two together. So that's a good housekeeping point. And then the other thing, what you're doing now is you are very carefully measuring volume. This particular mix is one-to-one, is that right? It's one-to-one, yep. One-to-one, and we can easily tell that because our bottles are the same size. Versus we don't have it over here right now, but earlier we were playing with two-to-one. So the big bottle and then the little bottle. It sounds like, the general consensus is the audio is better. Good. Now we mix. All right, while you're mixing, we really want to concentrate on resin related stuff here, and resin related questions. However, while you're mixing, there's a couple on here that are just woodworking questions I'm going to jump on. Oops. Because you need, while you're doing that, tell them your secret for knowing how long to mix. I know, now I'm thinking in my head. So resin needs to be mixed for three minutes at least. Three to four minutes. And then an average song is about three minutes and 10 seconds, so usually I always have music playing at this time or I'm singing a song in my head so I know that I've got it mixed. Mixed for the length of a song. Properly. Okay, so here's a question. Any experience with natural dyes for staining woods, specifically stain paint made from walnut husks soaked in water? This is Doug. I've done it, the walnut husks. I think I actually soaked them in alcohol, steeped them in alcohol, and it worked okay. It's worth experimenting with, we did a video on it. I'm not sure the video is streamed on wwgoa.com or not, but wwwgoa.com, upper right hand corner, search window. Put in there natural stains and see if that one hits. It worked okay. Another somebody, guest, says, I scored two by two ipe. I'd like to use it for a tabletop. I need to run it through my planer and jointer. Is it too tough for my knives? I have carbide in my jointer, but not on my planer. It'll be a little bit hard on tool steel knives, but not horrible. You'll be okay. All right. Those are the only questions I have there so far. There's a question on YouTube. The best EA for glue? Oh, maybe the best way for glue? Or glue PVC to soft wood? I don't know. Glue PVC to soft wood, I would probably lean toward an epoxy. Most like yellow glue, and that kind of stuff. You have to have a porous surface in order for it to work. So with something like PVC, which is not porous, you'd be better off with an epoxy. So somebody's asked, this for you, Jess. What brand of epoxy do you use, and por que? Why? So why, I am a huge fan of TotalBoat's entire line, enough so that I've developed a line, an off-shoot with them. There are really no super bad epoxies, but honestly TotalBoat is my most favorite epoxy. They have two-to-ones, which you can use for nice tabletops. They have tabletops that give you a glass finish epoxy. They have the penetrating epoxies, which, as we talked about- I'm going to stop you for just a sec. Are we noisy again? Well, Jenny is suggesting putting your sender out here, where it's more line of sight to the receiver. Hold on a second. This is going to get weird, because you just pulled my mic under my shirt. All right. So here's the having multiple glove thing on, so you can touch stuff without getting covered with resin. Thanks Jenny, for the tip. We're still working on. How's that? We'll try it. Okay. I forgot my question. What kind of resin and why? What kind of epoxy and why? The reason I like the TotalBoat line is because they have all of the epoxies. And like we discussed in some of the upcoming video clips, there are different epoxies for each different application. Just like glue. Yeah, and very important to choose the right one. Jenny and I experienced trying to do a deep pour with an epoxy that wasn't designed for it, and it did not go well. All right, so let's get the folks at home caught up here. I'm going to bring the camera in. I'm going to pause, because this is nice. And you got two buckets of resin epoxy going right now. And you can see what we can see, so show the folks at home. So let me tilt that up a little bit. So you've added a little blue that's powder, right? Yeah. That you've added to that one. So this one is a mica powder, so it's a super fine powder. And then next, in case you miss it, this is a dye that's going to go in the other one. And this is also blue, but it's pretty different. So this is pretty transparent, whereas this is as opaque as you want it to be. But as we, let's see if I can mix here. Okay, here's a good question for you. When mixing epoxy like you're doing right now, how fast should you stir? When I stir, I tend to get several bubbles using a wooden stir stick. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's pretty much not lagging real time, for me with how fast I stir. Some of the bubbles might be caused also by the temperature of your shop. If you don't have your shop or your resin warm enough, it is definitely more prone to bubbling. If you are using a paddle stirrer, or a paddle stirrer that they use for paint, on your drill, you really don't want to, again, hammer down on that drill. You want to keep it nice and gentle, just like this. All right, then here's another one for you. Somebody in California, we just had some live edge wood for a bar made. Resin was used for a large crack. It seems to have a wet patch or sticky patch. Oh boy. Oh boy, she said, hang on. I was told to use a cloth with iron. I'm assuming that means like a clothing iron, to heat it back up, and then it should settle back. Is that true? I can't. In my experience, that is not something that I could speak to, in the sense of, without knowing, I can't make an educated thing on that without knowing exactly what kind of resin. That being said, that is a new one to me. The idea of using an iron. Just even the idea, because technically epoxy is almost like a plastic, so to speak. So if you're heating it back up, that's most likely an improper cure, and you're not going to get a resolve from that, in my experience. So it could be what you were telling me earlier, is a lot of times, if it doesn't cure out, if it stays sticky, it wasn't mixed correctly. Right? Either not the right proportions, like Jess was just so careful to do here, or it wasn't stirred enough to get the resin and the hardener to hold hands and sing kumbaya. Yeah, and that's very unfortunate. But if that doesn't work, if the method that they were given does not work, they could potentially sand that spot down and either be okay with that, or you could do a small little bit of tabletop epoxy gloss, put it over it. To cover the sticky patch. To cover the sticky patch. So all is not lost. And then, what do you think about GlassCast Five epoxy resin? I've never even heard of that. Yo no se, we don't know. Then how about, what's the difference between epoxy and resin? So that was when my mic wasn't working. Epoxy resin, resin epoxy, it's the same thing. I think we are caught up on quite now. Hang on, because I think I want to get. Come in close? Tell everybody what you're going to do, and then I think I'll come in with the camera. So I'm just going to freeform this, so I've got this really pretty blue. What I think I'm going to do is just add a flash of it down the center, and then probably pour, I'll work it out a little bit, and then probably pour the black on either side. Want to see what that looks. If that's what you think. I do, I think it'll look good in theory, but the best part about this is if it looks terrible, you can take this giant eraser that I have here and push it all off, and start all over again. All right, are you happy with that? Or you want me to go more bird's eye? You like that view for what you're about to do? That looks good. Please don't pour it on my laptop. Oh, put your laptop on the cookies. Okay, here we go. Hit it. We've got this pretty shimmer. Jenny wants to know how the weather is over here, because she's all of like 30 miles away. It's I'm sure way different over there. Tell Jenny I am miserable that this is colder here than Alaska. What did you tell me? It's like 28 degrees colder here than it is in Anchorage. It is 40, 41 degrees and raining in Anchorage. Whereas here I think we were, gosh, what'd you tell me? Like 19 degrees or something? I think it was 12 this morning. Some obscene number. Okay, here's a question from Roger. With winter here, that is what you were just talking about. Well, there's a trick. I couldn't share with you all of them at one time. That's cool. So just letting it sit here, you'll actually be quite amazed at how much comes out of that, because nobody likes to waste epoxy. I don't like wasting epoxy. And the folks from TotalBoat are watching on YouTube, and they had advice, which is to always scrape the sides and bottom of the cup for best mixing. Yep, absolutely. Part of your process. All right, question from Roger. With winter here, how does temp affect application and drying? Do you need to keep shop heated overnight while it is curing? If so, how warm? Thanks. I definitely keep a warm shop, and I highly recommend that at least 24 hours before you do your pour, that you either bring your resin inside. Maybe if you don't have a heated shop and it's only warm during the day, but between 72 and 80 degrees is optimal for shop temp, and resin does like to be warm. So keeping it nice and incubated helps. Going to wait just a second here. A question from Leslie. Are the jars reusable? Yeah, so absolutely. Make sure that you put them up like this. I always take the stir stick that I used, push down any extra resin. Always try to leave, I'm trying to get this. It's hard to see with this color. Leave a little bit in the bottom, and you can either, you have two options. Leave it like this. Then once it's fully cured, you can roll the bottle, these cups in your hand like this, and then use the stick to lift it out. You have an absolutely clean cup. Or if you manage to preplan, which I struggle with, you can take and fill this cup with denatured alcohol, and all of your tools that you're using. Let it sit for a couple hours, and it washes right away. So just like cleaning a finish, denatured alcohol is a solvent for resin? Yes, it works great. All right, now talk us before you hit this with your fingers. Tell us what you're going to try to make happen. Because this is, and let me back up a step. What you're doing, you're simulating, if you were doing a resin pour for a tabletop, that's basically what's going here, right? Okay. And with your fingers now, you are artfully blending color, is that it? I'm just gently filling the gap between the, as you can, I think you can kind of already see it happening here. As soon as I moved my finger and filled that, I broke the tension on the wood. So it's naturally closing the gap. So I'm trying to waste as little epoxy as possible by telling it where I want it to go. Carol asks, my first time with resin. What type should I start with? But I mean, part of that we have to define what they want to do. Yeah, if you just wanted to do something like this, either the TotalBoat maker epoxy, or the TotalBoat tabletop, or a TotalBoat formulate, or excuse me, a tabletop formulation would be your best bet. If you're looking to create something like a popular river table, you're going to need to use a thick set, which is more like water, and you'll need to have a mold for that. Okay, I've kind of got this moved around. Now I'm going to use my fancy heat gun to kind of push this around a little bit. And it's hard to see on- So if you're talking now, you should really speak up. Because you're kind of talking over the heat gun. Yeah, I was getting ready to yell. I don't know if you guys are able to see, but it immediately removed all of the bubbles that I had that had popped up here. It is kind of hard to see that, but. And I'm going to anticipate a question probably. Heat gun or torch, propane torch for this? So I prefer heat gun for manipulation and surface bubbles. If you're doing a thick set or a two-to-one, a torch works great for popping large bubbles that are just kind of a one done, popped. I was going to move back, but I'm going to stay in, because this is cool. In fact, let me zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. So what Jess is using the heat gun now kind of like a jet boat. Look at the resin moving around. See how it's just fluidly going across the table? So part of that is the heat gun, and part of that is her choosing to tilt. One of the things we didn't talk about was in the world of preparation, there's a level laying on the table. This surface has to be dead level. Otherwise, maybe your final coat is an eighth inch on one side and a quarter on the other, because the whole thing is sitting there at an angle. So I'm going to hit the heat gun again. And then in a second, you can kind of already start to see between the mica powder and the opaque pigment the difference in the way that they're settling onto each other. So I'm going to hit this, and then we can do another question. See as I heat it up how much faster it's moving? But I'm being very gentle. I like how the lines are penetrating across there from the black into the blue. All right, let me hit you with a couple of things here. Here in Vera Cruz, the rainy season, relative humidity is 70%. Is this going to affect application and drying? It does definitely affect both of those. I unfortunately do not have a tremendous firsthand experience with the humidity issue, but I have seen where people run their house, or well, for the people who I know of and have spoken with, where they just run their house at a lower humidity, or their shop via a dehumidifier. And I know you can't see this right now. I'm just moving this down, and I'll turn it. I think, good, you can see the edge on there. What do you think, George? It looks good. The color on the top is really cool. Now right now, I'm going to get, that top is just, it's really dead flat. Is that going to stay that way? You know what I mean, is I think what everybody wants is how do I get a dead flat, mirror smooth surface without doing a bunch of sanding and buffing after the fact? Yeah, absolutely. Some of the best ways to get to that point is A, choosing the right resin. The maker epoxy is a glass finished, self leveling. Most tabletop formulas, literally they are almost always named tabletop, have a self leveling quality. So that is your first battle right there. Two, making sure your shop is warm, or whatever space you're going to pour in, because you want it to give it a chance to settle at an even rate. So we don't want to be open in a large overhead garage door, because then that's going to cause it to dry improperly. And then I'm a huge, huge, heat gun person. You see most people using a torch. In my own personal experience, using the torch creates, that's such a pinpoint heat dispersion. So you get a broader heat distribution from a gun. It is, and you can see now as it just settles, and how cool it's looking, and we've gotten all the different colors from being gentle. All right, a couple of things here. What about making a red or blue thin line American flag? I mean, what about? I don't really know what the question is. It seems doable if you did a red stripe and a white stripe and a red stripe and a white stripe, just like you did here. Yeah, you'd have to be careful that they didn't bleed together. And, let's see, if I was making that, I would wait till the resin was almost about mid pot life. So pot life, let me explain that right quick. So starting to thicken up a little? Yeah, so the maker epoxy has a 60 minute pot life, whereas the tabletop has 20 minutes, give or take. So I would wait until it's just starting to get a little cozy to keep those lines a little bit straighter. Okay, because then it won't flow- As easily. Into each other so much. Somebody says woman woodworkers rock, that's for you. Yay! No, it's for you. How long will it take to dry if you just let it sit? So that's just the cure time, product by product. It is definitely a product. It's completely line specific and product specific. But in this case, with this product. This case. Well, we have those bowls that we did earlier. I mean, within an hour you can completely turn them up and down. You could still leave a fingerprint in them. Don't touch them. Don't touch them, but you could safely move this, in probably 90 minutes without worrying about any color shift. But you want full cure isn't going to happen until- 24 to 72 hours dependent, again, on the epoxy. James asked, does the opaque colorant of the mica powder colorant. Oh, hang on. Does the opaque colorant or the mica powder colorant affect the amount of bubbles produced? So I think the question is, does tinting bubble? So the only one that I've ever seen affect the bubbles is the titanium oxide white. Whereas the mica powder is a lot more forgiving. You can add a lot more mica powder to your resin than an opaque pigment. These are specifically designed for resin, whereas these are not. So you have to be much more careful with something not designed. But bubble factor, no. Okay. And then there was a question earlier that Dave asked. Was the wood prepped prior to the resin going on? I don't think this was even, I did, I sanded it to 150. Did you sand it? But nothing, no other product was laid on. But you sometimes do that, right? You sometimes seal the substrate before you resin it? No, almost never. Because you don't want to put resin on top of oil. It gives it less, like an oil based finish, any of those. You don't want to give it a hard time. Sticking. Sticking to it. You want it to stick to the wood. Sam, who is the behind the scenes guru that makes all this actually work, says if you want to leave that beautiful thing at the shop for her to pick up later, she is more than happy to take care of it. And you'll have to get the camera to get in here to see. I'm going to come back in tight with it, yeah. All of that. Question. Sam's name is on this. Wow, all right. That was easy. What am I, chopped liver on this thing? How do you apply resin to a curve substrate, like a belt buckle? Like a belt buckle. So I get it, you've you got a convex. So you've got this, and you're wanting to do it. If I was doing that, what I would do is definitely use a tabletop, a quick set formula, whether it be a tabletop, or you can get the, the two-to-ones come in a fast, medium, and slow. And off the top of my head I don't know those, but I would, if this was my belt buckle, I would take tuck tape or Shuretape. S-H-U-R-E tape, it's red. And I would almost build a dam on both sides of it. Are you swearing on camera again? Well, that's how I talk to you. That's how we communicate. All right. So you're going to build a darn. I would build a darn. And then put my first layer in, and kind of just keep pushing it over to the sides. A belt buckle could be done, or you could just brush it on. So it's going to take a little bit more manipulating to get an even skin over a curved surface. Yeah, if he's wanting it thick, if you just want to gloss over it, you can just take a tabletop, use a paintbrush, and you're good. Leslie says you missed a spot on the right. I don't know if Leslie as being a wiseacre. Oh, I might have. Oh no, it's probably over here. I can fix that. Keep going. Epoxy will yellow due to UV. Do you have a preferred additive and or brand to minimize this? Especially with light, and or clear? Yeah, that's actually a great question, and one we have been working on. And again, when we went back to the reason I like working with TotalBoat is because particularly the maker epoxy is UV resistant, and then you can add another product on the top. Well, it's UV. There's a proper term for that, but it's almost the same thing. You can add another product that is rated for outdoors and it's Hyclon, H-Y-C-L-O-N. And I'm sure they'll correct me if I'm wrong, that actually will go on the top of it and that is completely UV stable. It doesn't affect the finish, and it's safe for outdoor use. There you go. Let me before, or you're going to mess with it. Well I was just going to get this little spot here. Yeah, for Leslie, do that for Leslie. I will do that for Leslie. We don't want Leslie to be mad. See, that's how we do that. We just pick up the spoils on the table, and you're none the wiser. Oregon2000 says, I made a resin river table, but had trouble with, I used threaded inserts to attach legs. The epoxy seemed to not hold the threads. I drilled it out and used a different epoxy, TotalBoat two-to-one to re-epoxy the holes, and then reinserted the threaded inserts. Do you think this will hold? Okay, so the first set didn't work. I think they must have, they must have inserts in the resin of the river table. Like a nutsert style, possibly. And then they took them out, and then. First go around, they didn't hold. Drilled it out, used TotalBoat two-to-one, and redid it. Did they make the right choice of epoxy there? Yeah, absolutely. The two-to-one for the high performance, that's definitely a more stronger, stable epoxy than a tabletop, so yeah that's a good choice. Good choice. Good choice. How do you determine volume required? We turn up the radio as loud as it will go. That's how we drown out George. For that there are, if you Google, for instance, if you've got a 50 by 50, you can go into Google and actually type in resin calculators. Resin calculators? And it'll tell you way better project specific. Which is critical, because we talked about this earlier too. You don't want to waste the resin, but especially if you're doing color, you want to mix it once, color it once, do the pour. And not think, oh my gosh, now I need another quart to finish this, because it's never going to, it'll never be the same. I highly recommend that everybody, even myself, always pour way more than you need and have another item available. Whether it be a bowl or a mold, or maybe another smaller table. If you have leftovers, use it on that. So now you've done two projects. You keep talking, and I'll go get them. But for a class that's coming in, we got silicone coaster, I almost said castor, coaster molds. Because Jess told me that's a common thing for her. If she's got stuff left over, then she'll pour into these small coaster molds, and that's a great way to use a little bit of overrun. Somebody says in all caps, so it must be really important. Anti bubble spray can be used. Anti bubble spray. So they do? I have never used them because I don't like adding additives to my resin. And then somebody says, the measuring cup has graduated. I don't know what they're speaking to there. But I mean, that's how she mixed the one-to-one proportion earlier, so yes it is. Kenneth says, if the epoxy is cured but you don't like it, can you add another layer over it? You answer that, I'll go get the molds. Yes, absolutely. That's one that's super fun to do. Let's say I took this piece here, and it was fully cured. I could add a stripe of gold, because that would look cool. I can add a stripe of gold down this. Then if you wanted to bring it back to level, so you could basically, you're going to butt them up. You'd have another color, or not. Then you could bring your clear up, so then you've sandwiched them between each other, and they're flat. And then I would recommend doing another flood coat on top of it for that final step. But I pour over resin all the time. And if I didn't like this, you can just scrape it all right off and start again. And he does point out, if it's cured out. Yeah, no, I mean, if it's cured, we went over that. So these are the molds. When we come in tight on the table, I'll show you these. But this is just an Amazon thing, they're silicone. And I think this is the set, these five pieces were the set. So different sizes. It's a good way to use up any little bit of liquid you have left over. So let me, I'll show you those closer. Then we'll get back in on the tabletop. You got about 25 minutes, Jess. Do you want to mess with that bowl, or what do you want to do there? Yeah, I can sit here and keep doing more as you bring that in. Why don't you start prepping whatever you want to do over there. Look at that! There's your reflection in there. What a nice job you did, nice and shiny. So what, riddle me this, Batman. Why is the powder side have the bubbly looking things in it? What are we seeing there? So this is the difference with the mica powder and the heat and shifting, and the reaction for it. Whereas this is nice and opaque. Trying to think of how, in a not artist term, heavy body versus a light body. The light body is going to float a little bit, so the mica powder, when I tilted it, it floated on the top, but then some of it drug down. So that gives it that neat little dimpling moon effect. It's really pretty. And I think that we're not from this camera getting as cool as it looks in person. The silicon molds, there they are. Amazon. And all I did is search Amazon for silicone coaster molds. Epoxy won't stick, resin won't stick to these, so you can just pour it direct. When it cures out, take that, just snap it loose. Jenny, we need to do some of this. These are pretty neat. All right, I'll jump back on questions. As always, big thank you to Titebond for keeping the WWGOA live streams free by underwriting this. Very, very cool thing. James says, how do you deal with the drips on the bottom of the piece? I seem to wait too long and struggle with a chisel to remove the drip bumps. Yes. Honestly, as silly as it is, that's one of my most favorite questions. So you can either, oh, I'll just use this, even though it's not the best example. Tape underneath using tuck tape, or painter's tape. And if you wait about, depending on the resin that you're using, let's assume you're going to use a tabletop. If you wait about two hours after you've poured it, it's still malleable enough that you can just gently pull the tape off. And it would probably reduce your sanding by, on average, about 90%. If it has fully cured, let's say you would need to do multiple layers on that. What you can do is wait for it to be fully cured, then use your trusty heat gun. Run your heat gun underneath it, and just gently pull the tape, and it makes it soft enough where it mostly pulls right off. Mostly. Mostly. Easier than a chisel and sanding. Way easier than a chisel and sanding By a long stroke. What epoxy would be strong and safe for a concrete countertop finish? Is the counter, well? I guess they must've poured a concrete countertop, and want a resin over the top of it. That is not something I can speak to. I've not had any luck. Call TotalBoat. Yeah, call TotalBoat please. What temperature do you use on the heat gun? Mike asks. Yeah, this, I'm afraid to touch it because, in a resin shop, everything's sticky. These Wagners only have two, so as long as you stay a safe distance, you can go high but then knock it down. If you use the other Wagners, which I really like, I keep it right at the bottom level, which I believe is 650. It's got an actual dial that you can crank it up. 600, about 650 degrees. Yeah, about 650 degrees. What got you interested in epoxy? Oh, gosh. Nobody's ever asked me that. I'm trying to think, what got me interested in it? Needed a job, look good. I've always incorporated art into my woodworking since the very beginning of my woodworking. I'd seen everybody doing the river tables, but I didn't want to do a river table. So I think the very first thing I did, the very first thing I did use in epoxy was a giant whale, and I wanted it to look like the galaxy. So it was amazing. It's a giant whale, it's a headboard. So driven just by end result you wanted to achieve, and epoxy was the medium. And Jess is very artistic anyway. So this, like choosing oil paint, latex paint, resin. It became another medium in which you work. It just seemed like a great way to incorporate some art into woodworking, and also I like the finish. I really like the finish, even if I had no color on it. How do you make the wave look that I saw on your site? Oh man. It's kind of a long process. It is. There is a tutorial on my website. I'm going to get one so people can see what the question is about. George made his very first wave pour today, and you guys would have been so proud of him, because he was smiling so nice and big, and he did a great job. You can barely even tell, not really, the difference between his and mine. So we'll let you guys guess. He's coming back with it. I only brought the one. Well they don't know which one it is. They don't know if it's mine or yours. This is true. So when they're referring to a wave pour, wave look, ocean wave. This is this not kind of, this is a signature thing for Jess that she does frequently to get this look as though these are waves on a beach. And a couple step process, some very specific products are getting used to make that happen. Give me a sec, and I'll go get the other one, but I want to make sure we stay caught up on questions. And while you do that, I'm going to use the heat gun for just a second. Rich says, how do you determine how much epoxy to use? And Jess talked about that earlier. If you're doing a big surface and you're not clear, or you're not sure, there are online calculators you can go into and say, I have this many square feet, or this many square inches. It's going to pour this thick, and it'll tell you how much to mix. Hit it. And all I'm doing right now, because they can't really see, is I painted this little fish in the bottom of here, and I'm just microwaving him real fast. Dried fish. Dried fish. Do you ever mix metal powder with the epoxy? I know somebody who just makes metal shavings with epoxy, don't I? Yes. So I have not done that, but I've seen it done, and it's very cool. Mark, My friend Mark, my college roommate, says, so Mark's background is the boat background that we were talking about earlier, with TotalBoat. Mark says you should possibly discuss safety using epoxy. Some people are very allergic to the epoxy, and even fumes. Don't use DNA to remove epoxy from your skin, denatured alcohol. So one of the things that, you see this in my videos all the time, there's a big exhaust fan in this building, and an air intake on the other side. So we are not wearing VOC masks because we're moving so much air across here, we don't need to. But if you're in an environment where you don't have that, then a VOC mask is going to be a must. I can tell you from two days of video, Jess has gloves on every time she's getting close to this stuff. So thanks, Mark. Leave it to a former shop teacher to point out, in a good way, to point out the safety considerations. He's absolutely right. I don't really know. So Alonzo says in all caps, can be used to serve food. I'm going to take that as a question. So no. What's the deal with food and- No. That is a no. After spending a lot of time working with TotalBoat and specifically addressing that question, it's probably top five asked questions. We've come to the conclusion that we are going to go with a universal no. So it's kind of confusing, because it's a tabletop. Think about it as your Formica and all those things. You can have food touch it, but you wouldn't cut on your counter. Wouldn't just lay a steak on your- Yeah, and eat that way. Kitchen table. So it's specific formulas. Tabletop, bartop, maker epoxy, are okay for food contact but not for food serving, microwave or any of that. Are there any species of wood that seemed to struggle on accepting resin, or is it a pretty universal application? I have not found one that doesn't accept it well. So two questions down, or two people down. Mike says, really oily woods don't like epoxy. Well, yes, that goes back to the oil comment. So I guess if it's weeping oil, then that answers that question. Yeah, and when you're gluing stuff up, and I can't speak to resin, but if I'm gluing an oily wood I wipe it down first with a solvent. That takes the oil off the surface, and then glue will stick to it. That's a great indicator. I would treat it that same way if you're working with a specific- If you're laying a resin on it. Oily species. So this is a popular question. Eric says, is there a formal or informal formula for how much resin per surface area of wood? Online calculator. And I'm only giggling, Eric, because this is the third or fourth time the question was asked. No, it's a great question. So it is a very good question, because you don't want to over mix or under mix. So there are online calculators that will help you determine based on the dimension of your piece and the thickness of the pour just how much you need to mix. Sam says, have you ever used LED lights to backlight your epoxy projects, like an art piece or headboard? It seems that is something that could be super cool It is super cool. And the whale that I talked about, I actually did use lights behind it to light it up. I am not a fan, and that's maybe my, oh my gosh if it ever went out of actually putting the LED light into the epoxy. Because what if something happened, right? You can't get it out. So I would always find a way to put it behind it. Yeah, and embedding it would be cool, but it's a one trick pony. I mean, once the lights don't work anymore, the whole thing. Somebody has to pay you to make a new one. Stan says, I did an epoxy countertop. After 24 hours, I used a small block plane and took 90% of the drips off the underside, then sanded after the 72 hour cure time, worked great. But you got to be careful to not get overzealous and try to take too much off with the plane. It seems like a good, it's like using a chisel. Mark. How deep are you comfortable pouring your epoxy before you worry about exothermic reaction and foaming? I've washed system epoxy for 30 years as a restoration contractor. This was my major learning curve early on. I'm sorry, repeat the beginning of the question again. Well, I think the question is, he's saying how deep a pour can you go? But I think from what I know from what you told me earlier, your answer's going to be kind of go as deep as you want, as long as you're using the right product. Absolutely. Right product. Tabletops, maker epoxies. Those are eighth inch to quarter inch maximum pour, whereas a thick set you can do up to two inches. And those are very, very specific epoxies. Those are not the same in any way, shape, or form. George is bringing back some cool stuff that he did in preparation for me coming that he's excited about. Back to the metal shaving question. And AJ's asking because maybe he doesn't know, but he's invested in this. So my friend AJ who now lives in Boston, he moved away. You've read a lot of his stuff on WWGOA. He went to Home Depot and went to the key machine and they gave him the jars, jars full of the filings from the key machine. So then AJ gave some to me. So I put, this was a yogurt cup in its first life, casting resin, put the metal shavings in there, put the resin over the top. And this is my first experience with using a pressure pot. Jenny, this is a wonderful thing, the pressure pot. So the wonderful thing being, look at the clarity. There are no bubbles in there. So this is something, this was just an experiment, but it'll be a wonderful little turning blank. And then the other one, that's a piece of oak burrow. In that one, but again, thanks to the pressure pot, look at the wonderful clarity in that resin. Very cool experiment. All right, so Jess. What she's doing over here is she's painting. This is another signature thing she does. I got to zoom in on that. She painted a walleye, because she's in Wisconsin, in the bottom of the bowl. You move the bowl, please. Move the bowl right. She painted a salmon because she's from Alaska in the bottom of the bowl. Is that done, or you have to do more here? No, so yeah, this was just a quick down and dirty little salmon. We're going to make him look like he's swimming. And then I got to jump on some more questions. We have about 10 minutes to rock here. Gloves on again. Ophelia says, have you ever traded a piece of work for a puppy? No, not yet. What, is this an inside joke? Is this somebody who knows? I don't know, it must be. Nobody knows anything. Ophelia. I don't know anything about puppies. Jess is maybe getting a new dog when she gets home. Yeah, maybe. Did you talk to somebody about trading artwork? There's only one person who knows that. Who do you think that is? One of your kids, I guess. Paul asks, will the resin stick to green wood? I would go with, I would wait for it to be- I don't think it will. Because Jenny, and this is another failed experiment Jenny and I did. We had these amazing long, curly shavings off a green wood bowl I turned, so we packed those into a casting mold, poured resin over the top, and it foamed like crazy. And a little Google action told me that that was probably a reaction between the resin and the moisture in the wood. Okay, I'm going to hit this with a heat gun real fast. So hang on, hang on, hang on. Okay, okay, okay. Let me get in on- Oh, on the bubbles. Let me try to hold this. I think it'd be better able to see the heat gun- So where are we going? Make the bubbles go away. Zoom in first, and then I'll try to center the bowl. I'm going to get up a little higher. So I'm looking down on you. Okay, wait. We're way over here. Give me a chance to focus. Okay, you can kind of see the bubbles. Do the best you can to make it. Yep. Let me see, I'm holding this in an awkward position guys. Get it, get it, get it, get it. Ready? Hang on, I'm throwing a little light on the subject. That's more better, all right, hit it. It's a little awkward because she's got to keep it at an angle. But I think they pretty much saw a lot of the bubbles go. It did do a nice job. So what happens when Jess does this stuff with the painting and then the resin over the top, is it gives it a super three-dimensional look. Yeah, I was going to stick it at this cup here, and we can move it closer in a second after it just takes a few minutes. That one might not be big enough. But you keep going with questions while I figure my life out. David says, how critical is the mixture? I built a canoe using a pump method, and it always cured. Does one need to be exact? Yes, absolutely. Tabletop formulas have the most leeway. Anything two-to-one and higher needs to be precise. Can I see some of those bench cookies there? I'm going to try to prop this up. Rob says, I noticed you stirred clockwise. I'm in Australia. Should I stir counter clockwise? Or maybe he would say anti clockwise. I don't know, can I come to Australia and find out? There you go. Somebody says, what's a pressure pot? I'll go get it and answer that question. Yeah, that's all George. Was the painting done with resin? Dave says. No, actually I just used some acrylic paint from the store. And then was quickly, like at home when you do it, you're not blowing it with a heat gun to dry it. No. This was just super fast. TotalBoat says, what pressure pot did you use? Amazon. He used Amazon pressure pot. Hang on, hold please. We should play some hold music while George is gone. I would touch his computer. Put Salt-N-Pepa back on. Yeah, we should put Salt-N-Pepa back on. That's exactly what we should do. Who turned the bowl? You turned that bowl, right? Yeah. Yep. George turned that bowl. Like, forever ago. I have no recollection. All right, so this. We have a mess. I don't want to set it in resin. Well, I think you're safe there. All right, so the first question was, what is a pressure pot? This is a pressure pot. And what they're actually designed for is if you're spray painting, there would normally be a siphon, a tube here. So we would pressurize this system. There'd be paint inside the pot. There'd be an outbound hose here going to a gun. And once you have pressure in those, pshh. The paint's going to come out. In this case, you create an enclosed environment. So I've capped off everything except the input. And you put a finite amount of pressure in there. In this case, it'll take 45 pounds. And what happens, the physics of that is that when it's under pressure, technically there are still bubbles in those things, but they're so tiny you can't see them when the pressure makes them shrink and they become invisible. So to answer TotalBoat's question, this was $125 pressure pot on Amazon. I don't remember what brand it was. I may or may not have the paperwork here anymore. But for those small scale things I did, it worked fine. It's holding the pressure and doing what it needs to do. And I'm very excited to try some more of this. We actually turned a bowl today and saved all of the long, curly maple shavings off the bowl, and they will end up in a casting at some point. Because we get to do that, right? So George is learning how to do resin. We can do that tomorrow. I'm going to learn how to lathe, so I can make my own bowls and not need George no more. All right, let me jump back here. And then this one, when we get in here, we can show how cool just with a resin finish is looking as that guy sits. When can that be handled some more? We can do it about two minutes before we sign off. All right, well that's almost now. We'll try to get a couple more questions in here. I made a table out of reclaimed barn beechwood. The wood is one inch thick with many wormholes and cracks that go through the wood. I use three quarter inch plywood as a backer. Some of the beech has mortis holes. Can you recommend what resin to use, and how many pours should I do to fill the voids? Oh boy, okay. Where is that question at? It's one inch thick, so there's no- Many worm holes. So first I would definitely recommend step one, using a penetrating epoxy to get in there and seal up all those worm holes. And so now pour is going to be over an inch thick, because the wood is only an inch. I've used three inch plywood as a backer. So yeah, I would do a penetrating epoxy, absolutely first up. And then I would do, probably either a two-to-one or a tabletop and two pours, two to three pours. Two to three pours. All right, I'm back on YouTube. Questions have kind of dried up there, which is good. Because it's about half past eight, which is Miller time. You can show them that real fast on the way out. You hold a fish bowl at an angle that's comfortable to you, and I'll get on it. Okay, here we go. See how far you can move in. So we've got our little fish floating in the water. It almost looks like it's swimming. There we go. There you go. Very nice. Yep, fishy! The other thing Jess just did, is remember those- That leftover resin. Those molds we were talking about. So yeah, she just dumped the last little bit of that mica powder resin into that silicone mold. So we've got this guy. You got me, which you zoomed in really weird. Before Jenny got her big girl job, we had a camera operator for this. Everything was way more better. I think Jenny should come back, because I keep hearing about her. All right, Paul says, thanks. And we're going to sign off, and maybe find a place that serve gin and tonic and vodka and cranberry juice. Figure out which is which there. Anything else in the world of resin, resin queen? No. That you want to pass along? Reach out if you have any questions. Absolutely love answering questions. Tell people how to find you. On Instagram it's Crow Creek Designs. Facebook, Jess Crow, crowcreekdesignsak.com, or you can message George and he can be the middleman. Yeah I can, I know how to send links. Let's see, I'm trying to think of your schedule. Any teaching gigs people should know about? I don't think there are any in the near future. No, I mean we sold out super fast and then even added overflow to this weekend. Well, yeah, this teaching gig is. You can't get in here on Sunday, we're chock full. Nope, TotalBoat and I are working on some teaching lessons. All right, folks, that's it. As always, so thanks to Titebond for sponsoring. Big thank you to Sam behind the scenes who makes- Sam's piece. There you go, Sam. Tonight you got paid. For the first time ever, you're getting paid. You're getting the official Jess Crow signature tabletop. And thanks very much everybody for watching. We will see you in December, I guess. I'm trying to think of where I'll be. I think I'll be home in December. So, see you later. Bye guys! How do you slink off?