Add a decorative rim using resin

[Erik Christensen]

I have come up with a way to add a decorative rim to any bowl either twice turned or from a solid dried wood blank. This will not work on green wood as resin does not like a lot of moisture and the rim will most likely separate as the wood moves while drying. A note – all the resin I use (about 75-100 gallons a year) is ‘slow set’ – 50-60 minute pot life @ 75 degrees. This will NOT work with a fast set product.

1st step is to finish turn the outside of the bowl leaving the top rim with a flat surface ~ an inch or so wide.


Arrange the pieces of wood/resin that you want to attach around the rim in whatever pattern pleases you – this rim is Cocobolo and red/orange pieces. I space the pieces about ¼” apart as I want the color of the resin to show as part of the design.


I use 2” blue masking tape for the resin barrier – resin will not leak through the blue tape surface but if you just pour the resin in the hydraulic pressure will lift the tape off the wood and it WILL leak. To prevent put a thin layer of resin down – this does 2 things – seals the wood/tape joint so it won’t leak and glues the pieces down so they don’t float out of position.


Next day – fill to cover the rim pieces with opaque/transparent resin color of choice. If the resin pressure makes the blue tape want to bow out/in, add some tape from inside-outside to minimize this as excess all gets turned away so you want to minimize waste.

 

[Erik Christensen]

After that turn to final shape – I turn the outside down to expose the rim pieces by removing the surface resin then turn the inside to final thickness – this bowl had Transtint orange dye added that was then sanded back to remove most of the color except where it penetrated deep into the end grain.


Some of the bowls I have tried this with – they are arranged in the order they were made. 1st one (at at the very back) was the experiment - a solid scrap wood glue-up for a blank with a walnut rim. After I realized this works the next 3 are Cocobolo, then Bacote (with pieces arranged so end grain faces in/out as I liked the end grain pattern better) and finally Padauk.


and the latest one I have made using this process - a random jumble of exotic wood and colored resin

 

[Sam Fleisher]

Great technique! Would hot glue hold down the segments or would that contaminate the epoxy? Or maybe the epoxy gets too hot? I've never poured that much at once other than what I dumped into a burl/chunk that had a lot of ant trails. Still messing with that one.

Do the segments require being finished/sanded well before the liquid?

 

[Dave Fritz]

Very unique product. Beautiful, congratulations on a wonderful idea and execution.

 

[Erik Christensen]

Great technique! Would hot glue hold down the segments or would that contaminate the epoxy? Or maybe the epoxy gets too hot? I've never poured that much at once other than what I dumped into a burl/chunk that had a lot of ant trails. Still messing with that one.

Do the segments require being finished/sanded well before the liquid?

you don't want a hot melt glue line under the segments plus you have to have a primer layer of resin anyway to seal the blue tape to the wood so it also locks down the rim pieces at the same time

not that big a pour - maybe 400 - 500 gms - about 3 cups

segments not only don't have to be finished/sanded they don't even have to be that accurate - I cut by eye on the bandsaw -

you can see the template I was using and just freehand cut on the line - you have a wavy cut or miss the angle it does not matter - you have a 1/4" gap between pieces anyway that fills with resin plus the pieces are hand arranged so nothing is perfect - this does not seem, to my eye, to be an aesthetic negative

 

[Erik Christensen]

Very unique product. Beautiful, congratulations on a wonderful idea and execution.

thanks Dave - just came up with this a month or so ago - it opens up all kinds of design possibilities

 

[Norm Marentette]

Awesome work Erik! What color of resin did you use for the multi color rim? I suppose you could even pour various color at different depths to get other effects?

 

[Erik Christensen]

Awesome work Erik! What color of resin did you use for the multi color rim? I suppose you could even pour various color at different depths to get other effects?

Thanks Norm-
the multi-color rim has the main pour as transparent purple but there are all kinds of colors from smaller pieces the got added in - I have a bunch of molds that I use and they get filled with leftover resin from other projects or a color/color sequence that I mix just to make inserts for other projects...

here is some of my 'insert' stash


I could do layers of color with different pours - and have done many times for bowls but not yet for this rim process as I just started goofing around with it

try it out & let me know how it goes

 

[Bryan Field]

Great tip! Love this one.