January, 2024
I’m late to experiment with the trend of combining resin with woodworking, I know. I resisted for a while, but I was recently inspired to create a carved sign and thought this would be a great opportunity. This project was done over the period of 3 weekends for a total of about 10 working hours and a lot of waiting in between steps.
Someone recently shared this inspiring phrase and I can’t get it out of my head: ”Actions lead to insights more than Insights lead to actions“. Wow, powerful! A quick Internet search did not reveal the source of the quote, unfortunately. If anyone knows the source, I’d welcome you to comment below as I’d love to credit the author.
This phrase really captured my approach for working on personal projects. I find that spending lots of up-front time planning and measuring and re-planning all get thrown out the window half way through the project because of something unforeseen. I found it’s better to take a step and then pause to consider the next step as long as I stay focused on my original vision and goals. It allows me to continue to move forward, and address issues as they become apparent. After the project is done, a retrospective reveals ways it could have been done differently/better. However, I’d never have that opportunity for learning an insight if I hadn’t made an initial attempt. It’s the iterative nature of my approach that I enjoy most and earn the most satisfaction and learning.
Design
I started in Carbide Create to plan out the toolpaths for my Shapeoko. I spent a lot of time experimenting with various fonts and spacing in order to get a good balance of aesthetics and speed (i.e. using a larger end mill instead of a tiny one needed for fine details).
The text alone looked kind of boring, so I decided to add some fancy flourishes on the top and bottom to fill out the space. I grabbed some clip-art off the Internet, pulled it into Inkscape, cleaned it up a bit, and converted it to an .SVG that could then be used inside Carbide Create.
Carving
I selected a beautiful slab of hickory wood that I had slabbed years ago from a friend’s fallen tree. I peeled off the bark and sanded it smooth to 220 grit. It had a small crack running through the middle, so I took the time to fill it with CA glue and let it dry. I figured it would be better to do this before the carve than after.
Next, I went to my Shapeoko and did a few practice runs on some scrap wood. I fine tuned the depth and spacing and felt I had it zeroed in. I ran the carve and realized that the font + end mill combination I selected did not allow for the letters to be fully carved out – there were gaps in the letters and it looked terrible! Ugh, I should have checked my work in the Carbide Create tool because it’s obvious when I look that it was going to end up this way. It’s been a while since I used this tool and I guess I was just out of practice.
In a panic, I went to my planer and ran it through few a few times to scrape away the top layer. Whew! Saved the piece. I really love this wood and didn’t want to throw it away. Now I can re-start and try again. I went back and selected a different font and carefully checked each letter to ensure it would carve correctly.
I then put the hickory slab back on the Shapeoko and tried again. Unfortunately, by shaving a few layers off the top, I messed up the Z-Axis re-calibration and I ended up cutting too deep. I had to slow the playback to 50% speed to avoid breaking the bit. I considered pausing it and recalibrating the machine (I should have), but I let it run. As a result, some of the narrow parts of the carved letters broke off during the carve. I could have had a much cleaner look with more shallow carvings.
Despite the minor blemishes, it turned out pretty well. the letters are centered and the rows are spaced well.
Resin time!
As this was first time working with resin, there was a bit of a learning curve. I chose to use 2 different colours by adding Mica powder which gave a pearlescence appearance that I loved. I placed the board on a level, plastic-covered table and supported it underneath with some popsicle sticks to address the slight warp. Before pouring, I put the mixed resin in a small vacuum chamber to get as many of the bubbles out as possible. I masked off the top and bottom flourishes to pour black resin into the letters. Then, I removed the masking tape and poured blue resin into the flourishes. I used a torch to pop the surface bubbles.
I watched the resin carefully, trying to add enough to fill the voids, but not too much so it overflowed. I was surprised to see that the resin level kept dropping for some of the letters like the “M” and “O” in MORE. I realized that the crack in the wood I filled with CA glue must not be holding and the resin was flowing out the bottom – yikes! I let the resin set for a bit, then re-filled with a second batch that was closely colour matched.
I let the resin sit for 24 hours in a cold garage (which was not ideal), then brought it inside to finish curing completely in my heated home. Sure enough, when I picked it up I saw that lots of black resin seeped out the back through the crack! The cured resin did the job the CA glue should have done. I didn’t bother cleaning up the back since no one would see it and it will be a good reminder of how to prep a slab in the future.
Finishing
I’ve seen other makers use their planer to take off the top layer of resin, but I did not want to gum up my planer blades, so I opted to use an orbital sander to remove the top layer of resin. It took longer, but turned out very nice. I worked up from 80, 150, 220 and it was starting to take shape.
I had some concerns at this point: The pearlescence of the resin was not visible, the resin finish looked dull, and I had a few spots in the upper flourish that were under-filled (despite my best efforts). I briefly considered continuing to work my way up through the sandpaper grits to get a better finish, but then decided to try doing a clear flood-coat of resin over the whole board. That would fill in the gaps and turn the dull surface crystal clear.
I went back to the plastic-covered level table and poured the flood coat over the top and sides. I let it cure for about a week in a cold garage and then finish curing in my heated home. The flood coat worked really well – it made the finish look fantastic! It did get absorbed by the end grain on the sides of the wood, but I didn’t see a need to reapply and risk it messing up the font.
I added a hanger on the back and put it up on my project wall – very happy with the final result. The pictures don’t do the final product justice, I think. the glossy finish looks amazing and the pearlescence in the resin really pops.
Conclusions
This project was a journey of recovering from failures. It certainly fit well with the inscription in the carving that I was trying to capture. No amount of planning could have anticipated all the different challenges that I encountered during the build of this project. I’ll certainly take away some learnings to make my next one even better.
Things that will haunt me:
- The broken pieces of the letters like the inside of the “e” and top of the “H” in THAN will continue to bother me.
- The thin wood strip between the layers of the flourish along the top broke off allowing the resin to flow between the two channels on one side, so I broke through the other side to even them out.
- There is an unfortunate knot that emerged in between “lead” and “MORE” when I planed off my first mistake.
Things that I love:
- The grain in this wood is really fantastic. I especially like the crotch pattern in the upper left.
- The pearlescence in the resin looks amazing
- I’m very happy with the choice to go with 2 colours – looks great and is eye-catching
- The glossy finish exceeds anything I could have done with an oil finish. I will strongly consider a flood-coating of resin for future projects.
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