September 13 – 14, 2022
My great friend and flat mate in medical school, XY, was hosting an apartment warming, and there was no way I was going to show up empty-handed! I had previously worked with him to make a set of four coasters for his fiancée based on a design by Three Under the Rain.
The project can be divided into the following:
Materials
Design Background
CNC Routing
Epoxy and Finishing
Given that the apartment warming was the next day, I did not have time for a complicated project. I browsed through many pages of the Three Under the Rain catalogue, and I finally found a GIF entitled “Love You Kiss.” When I saw it, I knew that the design would fit perfectly with an old edge grain cutting board I had laying around on hand.
I measured the dimensions of the cutting board (sans handle) and extracted the image as a vector for engraving. I also decided to add in a quote that would tie into the “apartment warming” theme.
The design used two types of bits: a 90 degree V-bit for the text / fine features and a flat nose bit for the larger regions. Before engraving, I used a random orbital sander and went through the grits to sand down previous cuts and wear from the surface of the cutting board.
The CNC routing itself went smoothly. I first started with the text and then moved on to the flat nose bit for the regions of the hair, clothes, and face. I was nervous that the tool would chip at the raised features within the faces (outlines of the eyes and mouth), but the wood fibers held fine.
The epoxy pour was a pain and a half! Given that the apartment warming was the following day, I had no choice but to complete the epoxy pour that night to account for epoxy drying time. The pour was progressing well as I completed the pour of the clothes and faces, but then the troubles began as I poured in black epoxy for the hair. The red of the heart and the peach of the skin started to dance with the black of the hair, and this was not a waltz I had sanctioned. I spent the next half-hour in damage control to minimal success.
I let the epoxy dry for the next 16 hours or so – less time than I should have. But time was running short, so I started the sanding process with 80 grit sandpaper. After sanding, the mistakes were not as apparent, thankfully, as the two-toned hairstyle could almost be viewed as having been done on purpose.
I finished the cutting board with a soaking mineral oil before applying a liberal coat of mineral oil / beeswax paste.
I don’t have much to ruminate upon in this project, given how brief and spur of the moment it was. I have no issues with the selection of the design or the addition of the quote. The CNC portion of the project was completed without much difficulty. The only issue was the epoxy pour, from which I learned a few lessons.
1. Pour on a flat surface: Though the countertop surface is flat, the counter sits upon a minute slant of the apartment floor, such that the epoxy slowly ran downhill and led to mixing between regions.
2. Less is more: This applies in a few ways. For one, when using the butane torch to pop air bubbles, application of too high a temperature, or exposure to high temperature for too long will lead to burning of the epoxy and an unwanted glazing effect. For another, too much epoxy makes it impossible to stop the mixing when two different-colored regions join up.
3. Paint versus pigment: Rather than using several colors of pigment and individually pouring epoxy into various regions of the design, the cleaner technique would have been to pre-paint the regions of interest, then use clear epoxy to fill all the regions.
4. Have time on your side: I was fighting a losing battle in this project. Even if the epoxy pour had gone perfectly, there wouldn’t have been enough time for the epoxy to cure to a sufficient hardness for optimal sanding and finishing. In the ideal timeline, I would have waited at least a few days for curing before sanding.
While I may have some harsh criticism for the end result of this project, XY and his fiancée both loved it, thus exonerating to large extent my many mistakes. Whew!
“Home is where the Heart is,” indeed. Many blessings to XY and JH in their new apartment!
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