Reddit reviews Crystal Clear Bar Table Top Epoxy Resin Coating for Wood Tabletop - 1 Gallon Kit
We found 22 Reddit comments about Crystal Clear Bar Table Top Epoxy Resin Coating for Wood Tabletop - 1 Gallon Kit. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Designed for Table Tops, Bars, Wood finishes, See-Through Encapsulations, Art work, and other applicationsSelf Leveling and High Gloss U.V. Resistant FormulaProduces a Tough, High Gloss, Water Resistant CoatingEliminates Craters, Crawling and Fish EyesBlush Resistant. A total of 1 gallon combined
It's a resin cast.
push the drill bit through, and one at the edge to pour the resin in.
Ballpark $200.. I bought the wood about two years ago and believe it was ~ $80-$100 2x6x8 walnut. The epoxy, tyvek tape, mica powder and a few other things I didn’t have were about $110. Here’s the epoxy and mica powder in case anyone is interested.
This sounds like it might be a case of 'bit off more than I can chew' syndrome, but advice is free. Take it or leave it.
It's not 2 types of resins. It's resin and a hardener. Most modern resins try to make this fairly easy and do a 1 to 1 ratio. This is the chemical 'magic' that makes the liquid harden. As soon as you mix them you have a ticking clock for it to begin to harden, then once hardened, curing fully. Before you mix the two, you can mostly take as long as you want to prep.
Certain resins like Bondo Fiberglass resin use a liquid hardener that you have to measure out and drop into the resin itself. Most modern epoxy style hardeners have simplified the process as described above.
Anyway, depending on the type of wood it might be smarter to stabilize the wood itself under vacuum if possible.
Cactus juice seems to be the standard for this stuff and it does seem to be so for good reasons.
https://www.turntex.com/product/cactus-juice-resin-and-dyes
It's a hardened-upon-temperature resin so you can completely fill the pores of the wood or item, draw out all air bubbles under vacuum and bake at the right temp to stabilize the wood itself.
This has the advantage of making the wood permanently how you want it. You can also pour resin after it's cured if you so choose to make a finished smoothed surface.
I've been looking at a project that requires a good clear resin for a chair and for the price point this seems to be quite reasonable. I do not have any experience with this material yet, but there's a lot of reviews of it. I will say you need to follow instructions about a seal coat.
https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Clear-Table-Coating-Tabletop/dp/B01LYK2NAG
Hope that helps. There's a lot of Youtube videos out there showing off how to do some of these things.
After much nail biting trying to choose the right epoxy, I went with this ProMarine from Amazon:
We actually ended up using a couple brands because we really underestimated how much we would need. So we started with this stuff from home depot and then ended with this stuff from Amazon. They both worked great. I think the part that made it look really good was using a heat gun to get rid of all the air bubbles.
It's probably not very difficult or time consuming.
You need some kind of resin
You can use a bunch of stuff to color it. Like Glow powder, and some kind of pigment. Then make a mold out of UHMW, (cutting board) and cut to shape with a table saw or something. Then just drilling small indents and painting them to finish it up
I have had good results with this. I am by no means an expert and used a pressure pot to minimize bubbles, but I liked this stuff. It has worked well on several home projects.
https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Clear-Table-Coating-Tabletop/dp/B01LYK2NAG/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stvp?keywords=epoxy+resin&pd_rd_i=B01LYK2NAG&pd_rd_r=caf18787-693b-4fc1-8029-58245384cd77&pd_rd_w=cbcYw&pd_rd_wg=5G2we&pf_rd_p=d006b618-5fac-44e6-850d-a0fdd19f7847&pf_rd_r=EC8RAKSF8QSB5HAX671H&qid=1572630183
That’s the resin I use, the acrylic paint I get from Walmart and you can use any isopropyl or denatured alcohol I believe. If you go on YouTube and lookup resin pouring there are tons of channels that show you how
Crystal Clear Bar Table Top Epoxy Resin Coating for Wood Tabletop - 1 Gallon Kit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYK2NAG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Z-OLDb6H9FNVZ
Thank you! I use this one from Amazon :)
I did a penny top desk a few years ago and used some from Home Depot. It was in the paint section. It was like $30 a box, and I needed 3 for my desk.
If I did it again I would get the stuff from Amazon sold by the gallon. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYK2NAG/
There was nothing wrong with the stuff from the big box stores, but from a pure cost perspective I could have bought that for less, and had a ton left over for something else.
I used this stuff and it turned out well:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LYK2NAG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Here is the exact resin I use
I've found with careful control of resin temperature and slow mixing of small batches you can get a nearly bubble-free pour. These pieces are also 1x1x1.5" so they are quite small.
My initial test build had millions of bubbles but by changing a few parameters (dont store resin in the cold basement, mix with proper cups and a mixing spoon) I got something I was happy with!
Also this is regular clear epoxy resin just marked down for tables so that could be why they charge less for it.
> Third: My casts have a yellow hue to them instead of being crystal clear as the product should be. While setting I did block them from sunlight. Could this be the result of measurement error or mixing error?
Did you use this resin? I had the same problem, and the company said that if you pour in increments thicker than 1/4", the excess heat discolors the resin.
https://smile.amazon.com/Crystal-Clear-Table-Coating-Tabletop/dp/B01LYK2NAG/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2PGLVZYV5O35O&keywords=bar+top+epoxy+resin&qid=1556287104&s=gateway&sprefix=bar+top+%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-3
​
https://smile.amazon.com/Colorant-0-36oz-Cosmetic-Natural-Pigment/dp/B07DH8QDJN/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2VA4LC6AZZO6M&keywords=epoxy+resin+color+pigment&qid=1556287213&s=gateway&sprefix=epoxy+%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-4
Epoxy Resin would be your best bet. I don't trust water based polyurethane on anything that may get wet.
Has anyone had any luck using different resin? Art Resin like /u/peterb77 used is pretty expensive for a smaller amount. I was looking on amazon and you can get a lot more for something like this https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Clear-Table-Coating-Tabletop/dp/B01LYK2NAG/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1502468813&sr=8-18&keywords=resin
This will be my first but hopefully not my last resin project.
are you talking about doing a full epoxy bar-top like finish, as in something like this. where you want a glass/plastic type look? Generally speaking as long as you follow the mixing instructions to the detail they aren't that hard, biggest thing that can happen is you'll get bubbles as the product cures. I wouldn't recomend using just the bartop stuff for the entire coat, maybe look into putting a coat or two of varnish, or more of a penetrating epoxy resin to seal it first. I think this can also help reduce the air bubbles. Regardless though on something this big you're going to get bubbles, so you get some kind of torch like this and go over the top with it as the epoxy drys.
For these type of glass/bartop look I prefer 2k poly as it can be sprayed and adding multiple coats is easy, stuff can be pretty pricey, but is cheaper if you are producing a lot of stuff for a big job rather than mixing up a bunch of epoxy. The fact that you can do multiple coats easily adds for more options in regards to glossy/sheen (they offer it from matte to gloss like any normal poly).
Now if the epoxy is for filling voids you want more of a structural epoxy (although I guess you could just fill a big void with the tabletop stuff, i've never tried), like a West systems or T-88. fill it a bit over the top, if you have bubbles getting trapped use heat or just do the large voids in multiple pours, bubbles usually congregate to the edge and often times just mixing it a bit more will get rid of it. One's like west system are nice because of their pumps that measure out the right ratio from the hardener and resin, easy to add color if you want, and after sanding it takes a finish fine and becomes clear again.
Those are generally the main applications of epoxies. reason I mentioned using 2k was because if you just want really durable finish because it will take a lot of abuse, there are other options. Also if you do want that plastic bartop, super high gloss look there are other methods out there such as just buffing a higher gloss varnish up through the grits, you don't have to deal with mixing or anything, can usually be applied easier with a brush. General finishes makes a bunch of topcoats that can be sanding, they have a high performance one that supposedly is pretty close to a 2k poly/conversion varnish, but you don't have to do any mixing and it can be applied by hand, although I've never tried it. I use their enduro-var water based urethane for a lot of residential jobs and get get a pretty gloss like look by buffing it up.
This is what I use on my projects and it works very well for table tops, bar tops, etc. This would not be appropriate for your garage floor, as it's a very different type of resin than the garage floor kits.
Try something like this
And a blow torch to run over the top to release the bubbles. The bubbles are introduced from stiring the epoxy and just natural permeation. If you know someone with a vacuum chamber you can ensure ZERO bubbles.
It was one of the cheapest I could find on YouTube.. here’s a link: https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Clear-Table-Coating-Tabletop/dp/B01LYK2NAG/ref=pd_aw_lpo_201_bs_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HM7ACTD9CXGKXZM42WXK
https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Clear-Table-Coating-Tabletop/dp/B01LYK2NAG/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_79_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QSARMH4356D435A0V01B I used something very much like this at work.