0.125” maple, padauk and walnut hardwoods, clear resin
A prototype commission for a set of coasters, someone presented me with a design and asked me if I could duplicate it. The design part was simple, but figuring out an efficient way to cast the resin was a little more complex.
Bonus pic of the entire rig set up to do the resin cast:
That’s great!
It’s funny, I was just thinking yesterday that one of our miniature enthusiasts should make a dollhouse-sized river table…
Concept visualized by DALL-E:
… though I’m sure @timmystreehouse would make it a lot more fancy and realistic…
I am curious how you flattened things after the resin cured. Is it all power sander? Did you polish? It’s a lovely result.
Belt sander at 80 grit to remove the bulk. Resin is not easy to sand.
Then a couple runs in an orbital up to 320, then hand sanded with a block to 600.
I manually eased the edges and corners with loose 320 grit in hand when I did the 320 orbital stage.
I love how the humble coaster can be a place to experiment with technique.
Great project! The sanding seems awful time consuming.
Nah, ten mins. Belt sander does so much work.
Beautiful coasters! I still haven’t gotten into resin. Just haven’t been able to talk myself into it. But these are sure inspiring!
Gorgeous!
Nice result, for sure. Thanks especially for the bonus pic. Now I know where to start when I need it!
Came out great! It looks like your resin casting rig minimizes the need for excessive sanding. Have you considered making a silicone mold for this purpose? Might hold up better for multiples.
Yeah considered a mold. It’s a whole other tech tree that I don’t really want to chase though. This is a one-off (well a 4-off) so I’m not going to worry about it.
Grow all the tech trees! Color in your maker skill charts! 
(I am currently screwing around with mold making.)
I’ve done mold making before, skill tree branches are filled in 
I feel like mastering the making of these maker skill charts is a skill all on its own!
For some reason I’m not visualizing how the jug works… Did you cast the resin separately? I’ve done river coasters, but we used the CNC and the original board cutouts served as a jig.
