Hi all -
I wanted to share my first experience using epoxy resin with the CNC. This is a map of Tomales Bay, California and is going to be a serving platter. It is on a 3" thick slab of douglas fir that was cut down in the area. Here is a picture of the actual map.
Any suggestions on how I could improve it in the future?
Backlight / semi-translucent sea part 
Looks great as-is 
I love how the twirl inside the resin makes it look like theres a storm at sea 
I cannot think of any way to make that better. Material, grain orientation, design, etc. are all spot on to my eye.
How did you get the wave effect? By design or by luck?
For the epoxy, I used 2 parts resin and 1 part hardener. This caused it to be more fluid and take longer to harden (three day cure time). One day after pouring the epoxy, it was beginning to solidify but still workable so I took a toothpick and swirled it around. My original plan was to follow the current patterns in the area but it wasn’t turning out how I wanted so I just swirled it around.
I also made some mother of pearl flakes from the oysters that came from Hog Island Oyster company but since I adjusted the epoxy ratio they all sank to the bottom.
Very clever and effective.
The twirl is great!
Maybe if you got a darker wood like walnut the blue would contrast better?
It looks really good.
glow in the dark powder added to resin?
I thought about that but the person I made this for was very concerned about making sure everything was food safe and environmentally friendly.
The glow in the dark pigment was questionable.
you could accomplish that with 2 pours… the pigment in the first and a thin clear to “seal” everything, but I understand your concern.
I"ve been watching resin video’s on youtube and many of them will do multiple pours while varying the amount of pigment in each layer to get some really cool effects.
Looks great and the blue really pops. Only that might add to this might be some topography. I’m working on a simular project, hopefully it comes out as nice.
I’m going there next weekend!
Keep an eye out for this platter!
When you sand down the board, how do you keep the epoxy shiny?
sanding with high grit and buffing
I did a final sanding this weekend with 600 grit sand paper. That was enough to give it a decent shine.
Where do you buy resin do do stuff like that?
