What I learned working with epoxy

TLDR: be patient, ensure gantry is level, spoil is level, workpiece is flat. Make sure you have the right mill and there is no need to polish if a clear top coat is applied. (This isnt ai → @Tokoloshi, just longwinded).

Background: a while back I sent a request for older used skr or multichannel boards because through skill or lack of, a couple of my boards cooked in rapid succession on a couple different systems and since i use klipper, i can mix and match to get the number of channels needed. One power supply failed. One lit up a couple drivers… Anyway not good. I was able to get a couple used or nos boards at great and very reasonable rates from users here on the forum who had upgraded to the jackpot. These deals are greatly appreciated. @Jonathjon made me a deal that was too on-sided and refused to negotiate, so this was my attempt to even it a little and learn something. I had this piece of prototype product I held on for something just like this and so started on the design to make it into a custom piece.

Steps:

  1. “Acquire” logo. Pulled it off their web page and traced in corel draw and simplified it a little and found a close font.


    upper left is bitmap capture, upper right is initial trace. lower center in working box is the simplified logo and the font on the lower right is the closest match and with some scaling became the final.

  2. Select workpiece

  3. Maybe a 1/16" end mill for the fine edgework with a 1/4" for the main pockets. Ordered 1/16" tool. Scaled to size, generated svg and pulled into estlcam.

  4. Tool ended up being a drill not an endmill so i pivoted to a 60 deg v bit and set up estlcam as a carve 30 mm wide with a 1/8" endmill for the center pockets max 5 mm deep.



    Clean up fizzies that the 60 deg bit always leaves behind.

  5. Mixed 2 part epoxy and added coloring for tree tops and large letters.

Here is where i would do it differently.

  • dont remove from the cnc. Leave it mounted so your carve and final flat cut are parallel.
  • wait for a day for the first color to set before adding next color. Once they mix, there is no going back
  • be very careful to stay in your cut region and not overfill.
  • i knew about using the heat gun to boil out the bubbles. That works awesome.
  1. Mix epoxy for second color for tree stumps and small lettering and waited a day for it to harden.

  2. Chuck up 1" flat mill for surface planing. And make esltcam hole pocket for planing. 2 mm total cut depth in 0.5 mm passes at 300 mm/min


sand with fine grit, put on hardwood floor finish. I learned a ton. I hope after reading this you will brave an epoxy project the next time you have the opportunity.

photo credit to @CarmenJ and @Jonathjon for the finish photo and for overlooking its imperfections.

This forum makes cnc fun for me.

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Thank you so much @orob! It truly is awesome!!!

I have braved a project similar to this, but out of raw wood instead of a finished product already so I think mine was a little simpler because of that. I broke the different color epoxy inlays into different projects from estlcam. Only carved out what color I was going to be pouring, once it hardened I would carve out the next color. Sometimes flattening in between because I am too impatient to wait till the end :rofl: You did much better than I did in the end since it took me starting completely over to finally get it right :man_facepalming: Great job and thanks for sharing it here!

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If you summon me, do it right! :smiley:

And you don’t have :evergreen_tree: and :wood: in your headings, and no useless bold paragraphs

You are safe!

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noted. I’ll do better next time.

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Great write up, thank you for sharing it!

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Thank you so much for the lovely gift @orob!! I appreciate the thought, effort, time and personal attention that went into creating something just for us. I am glad that you were able to gain some knowledge along the way and I hope to see many more wonderful pieces from you in the future!

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It wasn’t because it was long that he complained.

AI, in particular ChatGPT, is terrible about littering text with emojis, em dashes, random bold words in the middle of sentences, and lots of extra unnecessary words.

As soon as I saw that post, I scrolled past and was going to say the same thing but @Tokoloshe beat me to it.

All that stuff is distracting and takes away from the post. I refused to read almost any of his posts just because of how distracting all that stuff is.

No human normally goes through the trouble of randomly bolding words in every sentence

This goes back to the long thread we had before. Please let’s not let this place turn into threads full of AI text, and not discourage people encouraging people to be real.

I much prefer reading one of @jono035s long brain-dump messages with little formatting than one half as long full of AI fluff.

(That’s not a criticism of Jono at all. I know what’s like when you sit down to write a “quick” explanation and it turns into 10 paragraphs and you don’t have the energy to even re-read it to see if you said something stupid or not lol)

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Looks awesome!

Things like this is one of the reasons I built my CNC to begin with. Unfortunately, I still haven’t attempted any epoxy stuff…

I have $200 in hardwoods sitting on my CNC table for 14 months now….

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The color kit I bought for the epoxy had some foil in it for glitter and I tried to add some, but it wadded up instead of flaked off and the epoxy was mixed, so I didn’t fight with it. I thought the green would have had more depth with some flake in it… maybe the next one.

I hoard any hardwood I can get my hands on for these types of projects, but it is rare. I haven’t spent considerable dollars on hardwood yet. What do you have in mind?

I have one more for a friend who has a small stump grinding business. His logo is pretty fun so I want to epoxy that.

We had some planned gifts in the local university colors for last Christmas and just never got around to getting them done…

I have Purple Heart, yellow heart, dark walnut, rosewood, and maybe something else in there lol.

I’m hoping to get back into it by this summer

RIP your endmills. Purple Heart is really hard… I have been working with it quite a bit and with the LR I dialed the speeds down massively so it would cut it without wandering off. :smiley: